...because I’m about to tell you something you don’t want to hear.
I’ve argued in the past – and I have not been refuted – that there is no “right” to vote. No such “right” can be justified on natural-law grounds. More, it is flatly contradicted by laws that limit who may vote and under what conditions – laws that have commanded near-universal acceptance since the earliest origins of voting.
Today, our favorite Bookworm joins the fray:
People are beginning to notice that the new leaders on the left are female. As a woman myself, some might think that I would find this a gratifying sign of progress in America. I don’t. I find it a worrisome thing because these women are driven by pure emotionalism, which has been channeled over the last few decades, especially at colleges, into a sense of perpetual victimhood and a deep hatred for America and her constitutionally-based institutions.
My theory is that the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was a mistake. It wasn’t a mistake when women were given weren’t so angry but for the last few years, thanks to academia, and its evil spawn in K-12 education, the media, and Hollywood, women have marinated in anger. For those who embraced that toxic marinade and emerged as Democrats, Progressives, Democrat-Socialists, or whatever name they give their leftism, it’s destroyed them.
These modern leftist women are not the people who got the vote 100 years ago. They have become a different creature altogether, and not the kind that should be trusted anywhere near power.
Bookworm’s argument is a utilitarian one. Even if I find her logic questionable, it is qualitatively appropriate. If the franchise is an awarded privilege rather than a right – a position I think she and I commonly hold – then awarding or withholding it on utilitarian grounds is appropriate. It’s been treated that way for centuries. Indeed, it’s the only way to treat the matter.
However, the question of what utilitarian grounds are appropriate remains to be addressed. Let us frame the question in Constitutional terms:
What basis for awarding the franchise would best serve the purposes set forth in the Constitution of the United States?
We begin.
Let’s start from the Preamble to Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
(I went to some effort to preserve the links in the above. No, they don’t appear on the parchment of the original Constitution; the Founders’ grasp of HTML was exceedingly weak. All the same, please follow them.)
While it was acknowledged that the preservation of the consent of the governed required that the officials of the United States should largely be chosen through an electoral process (NB: Not necessarily purely by popular vote, as was made plain in the segments concerning the election of federal Senators and of the President and Vice-President), it was also agreed that there had to be limits on the use of the vote: both as regards which citizens may vote and for what purposes the vote could be used. Imperative statements in the Constitution, both in its original text and as amended, are immune to repeal or modification by popular vote; they can only be addressed through the amendment procedure set out in Article V. This applies both to direct attempts to change the terms of the Constitution and to indirect attempts via popular referenda. The Constitution could not validly be deemed “the supreme Law of the Land” (Article VI) were its terms vulnerable to the franchise.
Under the federalist conception of American government, the federal government’s powers were defined by the Constitution. The several states were expected to produce subsidiary constitutions, which in time all of them did. Again, the powers of the state governments were supposed to be defined by those charters. To define, as I have said before, is to limit: That which conforms to the terms of the definition is separated from that which is outside its terms – and in constitutional practice any powers other than those defined are reserved, as Amendment X plainly states.
Hearkening back to the Preamble’s statement of purposes, it can credibly be argued that extensions of the franchise that have occurred since 1787 have been detrimental to those purposes. However, I would not limit us to the extension of the franchise to women as granted under Amendment XIX. I would go much, much further.
The vote is a form of authority. Robert A. Heinlein has compared it to the Rods and the Axe of Roman heritage:
Major Reid paused to touch the face of an old-fashioned watch, "reading" its hands. "The period is almost over and we have yet to determine the moral reason for our success in governing ourselves. Now continued success is never a matter of chance. Bear in mind that this is science, not wishful thinking; the universe is what it is, not what we want it to be. To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives—such as mine to make your lives miserable once a day. Force, if you will! -- the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is exerted by ten men or by ten billion, political authority is force."
"But this universe consists of paired dualities. What is the converse of authority? Mr. Rico."
He had picked one I could answer. "Responsibility, sir."
"Applause. Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal -- else a balancing takes place as surely as current ‘flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority... other than through the tragic logic of history. The unique ‘poll tax' that we must pay was unheard of. No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead -- and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple."
Applause, indeed. If the voter cannot be held responsible for his use of the franchise, he must not have it. But how could any republic enforce those terms upon millions of voters?
The Founders decided to leave the problem to the state governments, each of which enacted requirements for wielding the franchise. As far as I can tell from my research, they arrived at a single solution.
The original conception of the franchise was that it should apply solely to persons with a substantial tie to the locale in which they live: i.e., the ownership of real property. It was wisely conceived and worked well, absent any laws against non-whites owning real property. Here’s the great Isabel Paterson on the subject:
To form a true and workable federation, the component states must cede the attribute of sovereignty of the border. But they must retain a legitimate control over admission to the state's body politic, to preserve their political entities. This is the power to admit to the franchise. Race, color, or previous condition of servitude are irrelevant. They ought not to be considered disqualifications. The correct qualifications lie in local residence and allegiance and real property. Only in these requirements can a moral principle be found. If the franchise calls for qualification at all, it is clearly conditional, not absolute. So far as the conditions are practical, they must relate to the function of the instrument. The action is that of measured extension from a permanent base, so it must be attached to immovable local property. Liquid capital will not do. These qualifications are moral as well as material, being all within the competence of the individual; a responsible person can fulfill them by his own choice and efforts. But it is absolutely necessary that the power to designate qualifications should also be in the state. If the Federal government has power to fix or alter any particular, even negatively, it has the ultimate full power of fixing all requirements by particulars. And a defect running through the whole structure is much more grave than a localized error. [Emphasis added by FWP.]
Miss Paterson regarded federal interference in the states’ power to award or withhold the franchise as a supremely grave error. She notes in particular the pernicious effects of Amendment XVI:
Interference in this manner is by decomposition. It was forty years before the decomposition of the bases became fully apparent; but it made the next attack possible, when a national function was nullified, by the income tax amendment. Previously no direct or personal tax could be laid except in proportion to the population. Then the action would be equated in every voter and representative. If a tax were proposed, each would know that he must pay a proportionate share; while if any region were to receive an extra share in expenditure (as in river or harbor works, etc.), its influence would be greatly outweighed by that of the other areas....But when the Federal government could mulct a wealthy state in taxes disproportionate to the population, to buy out a poor state by expenditures disproportionate to the population, the equation vanished. The mass-inertia veto was lost. (The weight, the interest, thereafter took effect in unbalance, as uncompartmented liquid ballast surging from side to side, dislocated mass.)
[FWP: Note that Miss Paterson’s reasoning applies equally well to every form of income taxation, whether implemented at the federal, state, or any other level. But that’s a discussion for another time.]
Reimplemented for the 21st Century, a franchise founded on the ownership of real property might work thus: your franchise is tied to the name on the receipt for your property taxes. If you paid property taxes on your residence during the current year, you’ll be mailed a ballot -- one ballot; otherwise, not. This would avoid all questions about the enfranchisement of men versus women, white versus black, and so forth, while simultaneously eliminating the voting power of the non-self-supporting and transients of every kind. It would also tend to exclude persons on welfare or other forms of government-provided support, as such persons are unlikely to own real property.
Is it normally the case that the payer of residential property taxes is a man – i.e., a male human being? Why yes, it is. So what? If he were so inclined, he could give the ballot to his wife, his ten year old daughter, or his dog. The point is that the franchise has been limited to persons who have invested in the district and would therefore bear the consequences of any decisions made by its elected officials. Escaping those consequences would require him to change his residence, a protracted procedure fraught with several complexities and difficulties.
I can see no valid arguments for the enfranchisement of persons without that substantial tie to the district which would be affected by their votes. As for persons who rent rather than buy their homes: Sorry, dude. You want a say in how things will be run around here? Buy some land. What’s that? You say you can’t afford it? Well, then we who have committed ourselves to the financial support of the district through our property taxes are indisposed to afford you any say in local affairs.
I could go on, but I think I’ve established my position clearly enough. Let the arguments begin – and no slinging of insults, or I’ll put you on the banned list. Only evidence and reason will pass muster in the comments section here.
