The American Melting Pot and The Electorate, Part Three/Final

First published in March 2013

See NOTE at bottom of article for an update


The U.S. Constitution is a wonderful document, but the Founding Fathers weren't "omnis... omnic...omni," ah ... they didn't know everything, and the constant modern refrains about "the Founding Fathers said," or "the Founding Fathers meant," mainly by some on the political right, but also at times from the political left, is nonsense. After all, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, "the Bill of Rights," which contain Americans' most cherished protections, were not in the original document, but rather they were added by the amendment process a couple of years later. Yes, the Constitution is the law of the land at any given moment, but it is subject to amendment, a relatively difficult process,* the difficulty of which is naturally dependent upon the issue at hand. The idea that a document written in the 1700s will provide the everlasting guiding principles in every detail ("can't discuss it, that's it, no change"), is nonsense. I'd rather have my life guided by updated and modern principles and considerations, thank you; after all, not only the Founding Fathers, but leaders since those times, could not envision the technological changes that have come about since their times, just as we today cannot envision how things will be even a couple of decades from now, let alone a couple of hundred years from now, assuming we don't blow up, or in some other way destroy, the planet before then.

The early to mid 1800s brought many an Irish immigrant to America, and many of these people were not from Ulster, which had produced the American-English term, "Scotch-Irish," generally in reference to Protestants from the northern part of Ireland, but rather they were from the rest of Ireland, and they were thus Catholic, and more often than not, they were poor. To some of the conservative Puritanical elements of New England, these new immigrants were a threat. Forget the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or any other ideas that might protect or welcome such newcomers, they had to be held in check, lest their religious beliefs contaminate these Puritans (the "Pur[e]" part of the word wasn't there without reason). Literacy tests were used in Connecticut and Massachusetts to prevent poor Irish Catholics from voting and it took some time for Irish immigrants and their descendants to be assimilated into American society, but, unlike with race, distinguishing a Protestant from a Catholic of any ethnic background is not so easily done, and as Catholics from other nations came to America, the process of assimilation quickened, although it took until 1960 for the country to elect a Catholic president, as fears persisted among some Protestants that a Catholic would give his (in those times, there was really no chance of a woman be elected) allegiance to the Vatican.

Chinese immigrants began to come to America in large numbers in the mid 1800s. They were often treated terribly, and it is not without reason that "Chinatowns" grew up in many cities, as Chinese immigrants and their descendants were more or less forced by circumstance to live in close community with one another. American citizenship was denied them, and thus they could not vote. Chinese immigration was actually made illegal towards the latter part of the 1800s and into the 1900s! In the midst of World War Two, Congressman Warren Magnuson (later a senator) proposed a bill to repeal all of this nonsense and it passed, but it took further legislation in the 1960s to really permit more Chinese immigration and voter participation.

In today's world of technology, keeping tabs on specific voting groups is easier. The conservative movement, and I would say especially the ultra conservative part of that movement, has run up against the reality that their ideas do not appeal to several key demographic groups, thus making their attempts to win a majority of the vote very difficult, if not impossible. I've made no attempt in recent articles to call many in the ultra conservative movement "fascists," and that's what they are. Like their fanatical, furious "Führer" of old, they want to practice, "if you can't beat 'em, exclude 'em." When black athletes did well in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Hitler told some associates that blacks shouldn't be allowed to compete in the Olympics, as they had an unfair advantage over whites because of their "jungle" heritage. This from the spokesman for the "master race." The American fascists are trying their damnedest to exclude voters unfavorable to them from voting. Limiting early voting times, requiring government issued photo identification, and prohibiting voter registration by non governmental groups is just part of the effort to curtail votes by poorer or disabled voters of all races and ethnic backgrounds, all under the cover of preventing voter fraud. The Supreme Court is in the process of deciding the validity of part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which has been renewed several times since 1965 in a bipartisan manner. The act provided for the exclusion of special qualifications to vote (like literacy tests or having to know the names of the governors of each state, for example) and it gave a major role for federal supervision of elections in areas where voter suppression had been prevalent historically, mainly, but not exclusively, in the South. This part of the law provides that the covered areas must get a clearance by the Justice Department or by a panel of judges of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia before they implement any changes to voting procedures to be sure those changes won't act to deprive people of the right to vote in that area. This is the part under review by the Supreme Court. Some argue that the areas covered by the act should be expanded to the entire nation, or be done away with as discriminatory toward the more narrowly defined areas. The entire act was renewed in 2006 and signed into law by President George W. Bush. If the law is struck down, even with a recommendation that it be applied to the entire country, it will undoubtedly set up one massive battle in Congress, which can't function now, as sensible Republicans (and there are some) will be terrified to vote to expand the law for fear of the fascists they have in their party. Without such a law at all, if you think attempts to suppress the vote have been nasty, we haven't even begun to see the end of such tactics.

* To amend the Constitution, both Houses of Congress must pass the amendment by two-thirds vote, or two thirds of the state legislatures must request that a Constitutional Convention be held, which then recommends an amendment. After either case, the amendment must then be approved by three-quarters of all states in order to become law (again either by state legislatures or state conventions called for the purpose of deciding on an amendment). Only 27 amendments have been made to the Constitution, the first ten of which were the Bill of Rights, so it is not easily done. Six other proposed amendments were not ratified.

NOTE: Since I originally wrote this article, the Supreme Court, in June of 2013, voted 5 to 4 that an important section of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional. That section, Section 4 (b), tied in with Section 5, which mandated certain states and local governmental entities to get any changes to their election laws approved by the federal government. Section 4 (b) laid out the particulars to determine which states and local governments would have to abide by Section 5. The majority opinion in the Supreme Court held that Section 4 (b) was unconstitutional because it was based on data from decades before and that the feeling was that times had changed (this was the Court's CONSERVATIVES saying this!!!). I guess we should all have screamed, "Hallelujah, racism is dead!" But we know better!!! (Section 5 was left untouched)

WORD HISTORY:
Me-This word goes back to Indo European "me," and it has retained its meaning throughout the centuries. This gave Old Germanic "meg/mek" and "miz/mes." These gave Old English "mec" and "me," depending upon usage in a sentence. English and the other Germanic languages once had extremely complex grammar. Over the centuries English gradually simplified to the point where English speakers did not have to change forms of words as often as many speakers of closely related languages did, and as some still do. Modern standard German, a close English cousin, has retained a good deal of complex grammar. As noted above, English once had both "me" and "mec" to mean "me," depending upon usage in a sentence, but eventually settled on only "me." German still has (and uses) the closely related "mir" and "mich," depending upon usage, although in some cases even German speakers use the two improperly, and Berliners are sort of known for using "mir" when the correct form is "mich." Anyway English speakers, be thankful English simplified many complex grammatical procedures long ago. Forms of "me" are common throughout the other Germanic languages: besides standard German "mich/mir," Low German Saxon has "mi/mik," Dutch has "me/mij," West Frisian has "mi/my," Danish has "mig," Icelandic has "mig/mér," Norwegian has "meg" and Swedish has "mig." 

The American Melting Pot and The Electorate, Part Two

This was first published in March 2013

Voting by the public is essential to a representative democracy, but voting in itself does not necessarily mean a nation is truly democratic; after all, many communist countries held elections, but there were only their own candidates on the ballots. This didn't stop them from calling their systems "democratic republics." Hitler, after suppressing all political parties except his own Nazi Party, used public referendums, called plebiscites, to validate certain of his actions. With Nazi thugs ... I mean poll watchers, stationed everywhere, a person had to be one brave German to vote "no," although many of the issues up for a vote were highly popular, and likely would have been popular in a truly free setting.*

In the Russian Empire under Tsar Nicholas II, unrest in 1905** brought some reforms to pacify the population, which was made up overwhelmingly of peasants and workers. A Russian parliament, the Duma, was set up  with very limited powers, as the upper chamber and the Tsar both had to support any measures passed by the elected lower chamber. The upper chamber was composed of conservative elements of society, many appointed directly by the Tsar. Still, the Duma was something of a symbol of the beginnings of a constitutional monarchy in Russia. The demographics of the country were so heavily peasant and worker, the Tsar and his government limited who could vote (excluding women and soldiers, who were overwhelmingly peasants, and setting a minimum age of 25, thus excluding most students) and tilted the playing field by designing a system where more "weight" was given to votes from the upper classes (the details of the Russian electoral system are pretty complex and beyond the scope of this article, but one upper class vote was often equal to between ten and twenty or more lower class votes). Even then, the first elected Duma representatives in 1906 were heavily peasant and worker, groups that wanted far more reform of the system than had been implemented up to that point. The Tsar dissolved the Duma after only a little more than two months and some members who had strongly supported government reforms were actually arrested and forbidden to run again. New elections were held in early 1907 which still produced a reformist majority. This Duma was likewise dissolved in short order. Under the idea of  "if you can't beat 'em with a rigged system, rig it even more," the Tsarist government added even more importance to the votes of the upper classes. While this too didn't produce a subservient lower chamber, it was much more to the liking of the government and this session of the Duma lasted for several years.  

For a large part of the history of the United States, the individual states set their own qualifications for voter eligibility and some early state laws originally pretty much limited eligible voters to white, male landowners. While most black Americans back then were slaves, even free black men could not vote in most states. While state laws gradually began to change to allow more participation, the withdrawal of Federal troops from former states of the Confederacy in the post-Civil War era brought new state laws to try to circumvent then recent amendments to the U.S. Constitution disallowing discriminatory voter eligibility laws against legal "male" American citizens, regardless of race. So called "literacy tests" came into practice in a number of states to exclude blacks from voting, as illiterate whites were often exempted from the law by white officials, or special clauses in the laws. Poll taxes, really a tax required to be able to vote, were another method used by white southern Democrats to limit the vote of blacks who then were overwhelmingly Republicans. You must remember, slavery had been so pervasive in the pre Civil War South, that after the war blacks constituted a high percentage of citizens in many southern states, even a majority in some. Native Americans struggled considerably in the right to vote, as many whites saw them as almost a foreign element, in spite of the fact they were born in the United States. Similar discriminatory practices were used to deprive Native Americans of voting rights, as had been used against black Americans, but like those black citizens, the Voting Rights Act also helped Native Americans, as well as American Latinos. It is important to remember, residents of Puerto Rico are American citizens, but such residents cannot vote in federal elections, although as American citizens, they are covered by the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act for elections in their own territory. This is the same in other U.S. possessions, like Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. 

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s helped move the country forward regarding the right to vote as Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Voting Rights Act in the mid 1960s, which quashed poll taxes and other such nonsense. Previously, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granted women the legal right to vote in 1920. The early 1970s saw voting rights further expanded as the age to vote was lowered to 18 from 21, much the consequence of the nation's growing dissatisfaction with the Vietnam War and the eligibility for the draft of men beginning at age 18, bringing the charge, "old enough to fight, but not old enough to vote." Remember too, as I noted above, the Tsar did not allow soldiers to vote!

Defining who can vote also can lead to who governs and who gets representation. I say "can lead," because a fairly large number of Americans DO NOT vote in any given election; so, the right to vote doesn't necessarily mean a particular point of view will win an election. In the immediate post Civil War South, blacks could legally vote, but intimidation by the Ku Klux Klan kept many African Americans too scared to risk voting. In the more modern era, the roles of blacks in American elections has shifted, as has the role of white southerners, although that change was more gradual. The Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal saw black Americans shift decidedly into the Democratic Party in the 1936 election (when FDR won a second term, winning in a landslide over Republican Alf Landon), where they have remained ever since, "usually" providing Democratic candidates with at least 90% of  the black vote in any given election. Interestingly, this situation placed both blacks and white southerners in the Democratic Party, in spite of the very troubled history between the two racial groups.*** Gradually, a number of cases, like the desegregation of schools (first enforced by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower) and the Voting Rights Act (favored and signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson), stirred some southern whites to abandon the Democrats for various other parties, although many often later returned to the Democratic column on the ballot, as the thought of voting Republican was just too much for a region steeped in hatred for the GOP since the Civil War. As the two major parties gradually changed roles on many issues, southern whites began a gradual change to the Republican Party, eventually making the once "solidly Democratic South," into a solidly Republican South and providing a number of major leaders to the Republican Party, like Newt Gingrich (not a native southerner, but he came to be associated with Georgia), Dick Armey (not a native southerner, but became associated with Texas), Trent Lott of Mississippi, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina (a former Democrat and leader of the Dixiecrats, a pro-segregation party of southern Democrats in the late 1940s), Rick Perry of Texas (a former Democrat), Phil Gramm of Texas (a former Democrat), Richard Shelby of Alabama (a former Democrat), Jesse Helms of North Carolina (a former Democrat only in his early years), Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (although born in Alabama, from childhood on in Kentucky). This is only meant to be a sampling, not a definitive list.

I'll finish his series in the next article with what's been going on in the last couple of years up to the present.

* After Hitler's Austrian homeland was made part of Germany in the spring of 1938, Hitler called for a plebiscite. The idea that Germans would vote against that was not likely in the first place. The more important question was, if Austrians would ratify the move in substantial numbers, which they did by a slightly higher percentage than in the rest of Germany. After World War One, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up, with many regions becoming parts of other countries, newly established or existing. This left the German Austrian part as a small separate nation, initially called "The Republic of German Austria." For more on these events, see my article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/06/german-question-part-one-hundred-four.html

And for Austria becoming part of Germany during Hitler's rule, see:

 http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/07/german-question-part-one-hundred-twenty_30.html

** This was actually a revolution that failed, but it is often seen by historians as a sort of dress rehearsal for the 1917 revolution which brought down the Tsar. This was followed only months later by the Bolshevik overthrow of the government that had replaced the Tsar and his officials. This brought communist rule for decades. 

*** By that time, and certainly later, a fairly substantial number of black Americans had left the South for other parts of the country, often for northern industrial cities, where laborers could earn a pretty decent wage, thanks to union victories over time.

WORD HISTORY:
Minor-This word goes back to the Indo European root "mey/mei," which had the notion of  "small, little." This gave its Latin offspring "minuere," which meant "to lessen, to make smaller, reduce." From this was derived Latin "minor," with the general meaning "smaller." English borrowed the word in the 1200s as "minour/menour." The noun form developed in Latin from the adjective as a word for a Franciscan, from the Latin expression of St Francis "Frates Minores;" that is, "lesser brethren," meant to show humility for his religious order. English borrowed the noun form in the 1300s. Latin "minores" also meant "young" (lesser in age) and English took that meaning, which is still with us today, as well as the general "lesser" meaning, also later used for a secondary course of study in universities. I have to be honest, "minor" is a tough word to research, and some Germanic languages have forms seemingly going way back in time, but whether these came by way of Latin, or from a Germanic form likewise derived from Indo European root, I cannot really say, although I lean toward the borrowing from Latin, as I could not find a form in Old English, which "seems to suggest" the other Germanic dialects borrowed forms from Latin AFTER the Anglo-Saxons left northern Germany, but the term also could have died out in Old English before it was ever recorded in writing.