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September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

231 points by 037 2y ago

chiph 2y ago
If you get the chance to visit Independence Hall in Philadelphia, it's a must-see. Book your tickets in advance as they frequently sell out.
jmclnx 2y ago
It is too bad the current crop of pols are ignoring all these documents and setting up to steal assets from working and poor people.
- orochimaaru 2y ago
  I believe when this document was written, the only people allowed to vote were white males not in indentured servitude. The document was written by people who were actively amassing wealth. It doesn't mean its not a wise document but make no mistake about the people who were excluded from its initial benefits. The major benefit of the document was an establishment of a constitutional republic with the ability to modify the constitution when desired by a majority of the republics representatives. That was path breaking at a time when the world was steeped in feudal politics.
  - chasil 2y ago
    As far as I would think, each state could set their own requirements for voting, and some ownership of land was also a requirement from what I remember. So Google suggested "who could vote in 1789” and the top result was from the Regan library. https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/03/29/road-to-the-voting-rights-act-voting-rights-from-1789-to-1869/ https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/03/29/road-to-the-vot... Reading... "The most common requirements for voter eligibility was that each prospective voter had to be a white male who owned property of a certain dollar value. "...by the time of the 1828 Presidential Election, the majority of the land-ownership requirements were eliminated from state laws. The final state to remove the property requirement was North Carolina in 1856, just five years before the Civil War began. "...Certain states went through cycles where the right to vote was granted, removed, and re-granted to ethnic minorities over the course of decades... In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to all American men regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The right to vote was now Federally defined, but it would take one-hundred years of historical, social, and political developments for the VRA to universally enshrine it."
    - jdougan 2y ago
      That essay is not well worded. They're confusing property in general with land specifically, with wasn't universal across the States. As I understand it, some States' property requirements could be met with non-land assets. See [1] for an interesting overview of the situation in New Jersey. The following quote makes no sense if property was restricted to land-only: > Today a man owns a jackass worth fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies. The man in the meantime has become more experienced…and he is therefore better qualified to make a proper selection of rulers — but the jackass is dead and the man cannot vote. Now gentlemen…in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?" > -- Attributed to Benjamin Franklin, taken from “The Casket, or the Flowers of Literature, Wit and Sentiment,” 1828 [1] https://www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhibits/when-women-lost-the-vote-a-revolutionary-story/pages/how-did-the-vote-expand-new-jersey-s-revolutionary-decade https://www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhibits/when-women-lost-...
      - chasil 2y ago
        Alas, the search engine has led us astray once more.
  - apercu 2y ago
    > The document was written by people who were actively amassing wealth. It doesn't mean its not a wise document but make no mistake about the people who were excluded from its initial benefit Fair, but the document was written 200 years ago and society evolves....
  - jandrewrogers 2y ago
    > I believe when this document was written, the only people allowed to vote were white males not in indentured servitude. No, the rules for who could vote were determined by the individual States. Women and Africans could vote in New Jersey when this document was written, for example. Later Constitutional amendments made the practices much more consistent across States. Something to keep in mind is that people voting for Presidents and Senators is a 20th century invention, voting rights were much more local back then.
    - eszed 2y ago
      TIL: > Suffrage was available to most women and African Americans in New Jersey immediately upon the formation of the state. The first New Jersey state constitution (of 1776) allowed any person who owned a certain value of property to become a voter. In 1790, the state constitution was changed to specify that voters were "he or she". Politicians seeking office deliberately courted women voters.... But, unfortunately: > Under the auspices of election reform, in 1807 a "progressive" law was passed which abolished the property requirement for voting, boosting the number of eligible voters, while explicitly barring women and black voters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_New_Jersey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_New_Je... Thank you for that!
relaxing 2y ago
A couple interesting references in this article- - The constitutional debate with Elbridge Gerry (MA), the name behind Gerrymandering - The proposal to increase the size of the House of Representatives from one representative for every 40,000 people to one for every 30,000, which if continued today would make it much harder to gerrymander, among other things.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  Right now it’s not even one for every 40,000. The size of the house is capped at 435 by an act of Congress. One for every 40,000 might be overkill given that would result in 8,500 reps in the House.
  - kiba 2y ago
    I am not sure if that's overkill. It might be a logistical issue with the current building though. 1 per 40,0000 is like the mayor of a town.
    - saulpw 2y ago
      What if it were a two-tiered system, in which 8500 local representatives elected their set of ~435 national representatives?
      - kiba 2y ago
        I am not sure why you think thousand of representatives are inherently difficult to manage.
        BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
        Consider that for each representative you add, each individual representative becomes less influential and has fewer opportunities to affect change. While I do believe the house should be larger, perhaps 600 representatives, once the house gets too large you simply won’t be able to allocate speaking time on the floor in a reasonable way. The house would organize itself around voting blocs and certain representatives would naturally end up exercising an undue amount of sway because they control those blocs. With each individual representative having much less influence, they’d have no choice but to gang together to try and achieve something.
aqueueaqueue 2y ago
Quite the sliding door moment
jmyeet 2y ago
Spoiler: we could not in fact keep it. The US "experiment" is touted as a success but it demonstrably is not. Less than 80 years after this utterance, the country descended into a Civil War, then the most deadly war ever fought. The US was founded on white supremacy and chattel slavery. Chattel slavery may be gone but slavery is alive and well in the form of convict leasing. And of course white supremacy is resurgent. As someone wh grew up in the 70s, 80s and 90s, I rreally wish there was a way for younger people to experience that. There were problems, of course. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation loomed large. Homophobia was worse. Racism was worse. Many, myself included, describe the 1990s as the last good decade. Standard-of-living peaked in 1972 [1] but even in the 1990s, things were still pretty good. Rent was cheap, housing was cheap, food was cheap. There were houses in the 1990s for under $100k that now sell for $2M+. I lived frugally but comfortably on $10k/year as a student, including renting a 2 bedroom apartment. I cannot adequately express my view of how dire things are now. We are bouldering towards neofeudalism. There is no opposition. Nobody is coming to save us. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...
- mmooss 2y ago
  > There is no opposition. Nobody is coming to save us. Of course. It depends on the people - either we oppose it and save us, or nobody will. That's the nature of democracy. If you expect someone else to do it, that is, in a way, 'neofeudalism' - you are docile while some powerful person does things.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    Realistically, virtually every revolution in history involved some degree of foreign assistance, and more organization than spontaneous popular action.
- tomrod 2y ago
  We can reclaim it.
mullingitover 2y ago
This is very timely, and reminds me of George Washington pleading for Americans to beware party politics in his farewell address[1], where he willingly surrendered power and went home: > The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty. > ...It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. He could've written this last week. [1] https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/W...
- yibg 2y ago
  Unfortunately people as a mass, don’t tend to learn from history. Or at least forget the lessons from history fairly easily. Maybe we are doomed to repeat the same historical lessons.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    The US has been a 'democratic republic' for almost 250 years, so many generations have learned. Such government has thrived in every culture and place, from East Asia to South Asia to almost all the Americas, many parts of Africa, Europe of course. Somehow, democracy works exceptionally well - far better than any alternative ever has - and is resilient. ... unless the people are somehow convinced that it is not, that it is not important, and they despair and give up.
    - eszed 2y ago
      Indeed. However, parliamentary democracies have a better track record of stability than federal structures (modeled after that of the US). Adjust for cultural and historical differences as you see fit, but the US has heretofore been an outlier.
dllthomas 2y ago
It seems relevant to keep in mind that, IIUC, Octavian believed (or pretended to believe) that he was saving the Roman republic.

231 points by 037 2y ago

If you get the chance to visit Independence Hall in Philadelphia, it's a must-see. Book your tickets in advance as they frequently sell out.

jmclnx 2y ago

It is too bad the current crop of pols are ignoring all these documents and setting up to steal assets from working and poor people.

orochimaaru 2y ago
I believe when this document was written, the only people allowed to vote were white males not in indentured servitude. The document was written by people who were actively amassing wealth. It doesn't mean its not a wise document but make no mistake about the people who were excluded from its initial benefits. The major benefit of the document was an establishment of a constitutional republic with the ability to modify the constitution when desired by a majority of the republics representatives. That was path breaking at a time when the world was steeped in feudal politics.
- chasil 2y ago
  As far as I would think, each state could set their own requirements for voting, and some ownership of land was also a requirement from what I remember. So Google suggested "who could vote in 1789” and the top result was from the Regan library. https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/03/29/road-to-the-voting-rights-act-voting-rights-from-1789-to-1869/ https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/03/29/road-to-the-vot... Reading... "The most common requirements for voter eligibility was that each prospective voter had to be a white male who owned property of a certain dollar value. "...by the time of the 1828 Presidential Election, the majority of the land-ownership requirements were eliminated from state laws. The final state to remove the property requirement was North Carolina in 1856, just five years before the Civil War began. "...Certain states went through cycles where the right to vote was granted, removed, and re-granted to ethnic minorities over the course of decades... In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to all American men regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The right to vote was now Federally defined, but it would take one-hundred years of historical, social, and political developments for the VRA to universally enshrine it."
  - jdougan 2y ago
    That essay is not well worded. They're confusing property in general with land specifically, with wasn't universal across the States. As I understand it, some States' property requirements could be met with non-land assets. See [1] for an interesting overview of the situation in New Jersey. The following quote makes no sense if property was restricted to land-only: > Today a man owns a jackass worth fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies. The man in the meantime has become more experienced…and he is therefore better qualified to make a proper selection of rulers — but the jackass is dead and the man cannot vote. Now gentlemen…in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?" > -- Attributed to Benjamin Franklin, taken from “The Casket, or the Flowers of Literature, Wit and Sentiment,” 1828 [1] https://www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhibits/when-women-lost-the-vote-a-revolutionary-story/pages/how-did-the-vote-expand-new-jersey-s-revolutionary-decade https://www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhibits/when-women-lost-...
    - chasil 2y ago
      Alas, the search engine has led us astray once more.
- apercu 2y ago
  > The document was written by people who were actively amassing wealth. It doesn't mean its not a wise document but make no mistake about the people who were excluded from its initial benefit Fair, but the document was written 200 years ago and society evolves....
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  > I believe when this document was written, the only people allowed to vote were white males not in indentured servitude. No, the rules for who could vote were determined by the individual States. Women and Africans could vote in New Jersey when this document was written, for example. Later Constitutional amendments made the practices much more consistent across States. Something to keep in mind is that people voting for Presidents and Senators is a 20th century invention, voting rights were much more local back then.
  - eszed 2y ago
    TIL: > Suffrage was available to most women and African Americans in New Jersey immediately upon the formation of the state. The first New Jersey state constitution (of 1776) allowed any person who owned a certain value of property to become a voter. In 1790, the state constitution was changed to specify that voters were "he or she". Politicians seeking office deliberately courted women voters.... But, unfortunately: > Under the auspices of election reform, in 1807 a "progressive" law was passed which abolished the property requirement for voting, boosting the number of eligible voters, while explicitly barring women and black voters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_New_Jersey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_New_Je... Thank you for that!

relaxing 2y ago

A couple interesting references in this article- - The constitutional debate with Elbridge Gerry (MA), the name behind Gerrymandering - The proposal to increase the size of the House of Representatives from one representative for every 40,000 people to one for every 30,000, which if continued today would make it much harder to gerrymander, among other things.

bobthepanda 2y ago
Right now it’s not even one for every 40,000. The size of the house is capped at 435 by an act of Congress. One for every 40,000 might be overkill given that would result in 8,500 reps in the House.
- kiba 2y ago
  I am not sure if that's overkill. It might be a logistical issue with the current building though. 1 per 40,0000 is like the mayor of a town.
  - saulpw 2y ago
    What if it were a two-tiered system, in which 8500 local representatives elected their set of ~435 national representatives?
    - kiba 2y ago
      I am not sure why you think thousand of representatives are inherently difficult to manage.
      - BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
        Consider that for each representative you add, each individual representative becomes less influential and has fewer opportunities to affect change. While I do believe the house should be larger, perhaps 600 representatives, once the house gets too large you simply won’t be able to allocate speaking time on the floor in a reasonable way. The house would organize itself around voting blocs and certain representatives would naturally end up exercising an undue amount of sway because they control those blocs. With each individual representative having much less influence, they’d have no choice but to gang together to try and achieve something.

aqueueaqueue 2y ago

Quite the sliding door moment

jmyeet 2y ago

Spoiler: we could not in fact keep it. The US "experiment" is touted as a success but it demonstrably is not. Less than 80 years after this utterance, the country descended into a Civil War, then the most deadly war ever fought. The US was founded on white supremacy and chattel slavery. Chattel slavery may be gone but slavery is alive and well in the form of convict leasing. And of course white supremacy is resurgent. As someone wh grew up in the 70s, 80s and 90s, I rreally wish there was a way for younger people to experience that. There were problems, of course. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation loomed large. Homophobia was worse. Racism was worse. Many, myself included, describe the 1990s as the last good decade. Standard-of-living peaked in 1972 [1] but even in the 1990s, things were still pretty good. Rent was cheap, housing was cheap, food was cheap. There were houses in the 1990s for under $100k that now sell for $2M+. I lived frugally but comfortably on $10k/year as a student, including renting a 2 bedroom apartment. I cannot adequately express my view of how dire things are now. We are bouldering towards neofeudalism. There is no opposition. Nobody is coming to save us. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

mmooss 2y ago
> There is no opposition. Nobody is coming to save us. Of course. It depends on the people - either we oppose it and save us, or nobody will. That's the nature of democracy. If you expect someone else to do it, that is, in a way, 'neofeudalism' - you are docile while some powerful person does things.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  Realistically, virtually every revolution in history involved some degree of foreign assistance, and more organization than spontaneous popular action.
tomrod 2y ago
We can reclaim it.

mullingitover 2y ago

This is very timely, and reminds me of George Washington pleading for Americans to beware party politics in his farewell address[1], where he willingly surrendered power and went home: > The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty. > ...It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. He could've written this last week. [1] https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/W...

yibg 2y ago
Unfortunately people as a mass, don’t tend to learn from history. Or at least forget the lessons from history fairly easily. Maybe we are doomed to repeat the same historical lessons.
- mmooss 2y ago
  The US has been a 'democratic republic' for almost 250 years, so many generations have learned. Such government has thrived in every culture and place, from East Asia to South Asia to almost all the Americas, many parts of Africa, Europe of course. Somehow, democracy works exceptionally well - far better than any alternative ever has - and is resilient. ... unless the people are somehow convinced that it is not, that it is not important, and they despair and give up.
  - eszed 2y ago
    Indeed. However, parliamentary democracies have a better track record of stability than federal structures (modeled after that of the US). Adjust for cultural and historical differences as you see fit, but the US has heretofore been an outlier.

dllthomas 2y ago

It seems relevant to keep in mind that, IIUC, Octavian believed (or pretended to believe) that he was saving the Roman republic.