The U.S. is not technically a democracy
By Nancy Isenberg
American “democracy” has never been a democracy at all. John Adams argued that the best form of government was “mixed,” by which he meant elements of a monarchy (Executive), aristocracy (Senate), and democracy (House). And if that wasn’t complicated enough, most of the founders agreed that the federal Constitution established a “republic,” which for Adams was an “empire of laws, not men.”
The most obvious and consistent anti-democratic defect in U.S. society is the endless means used to restrict suffrage. Women, of course, did not secure the right to vote until 1920, though they comprised over half of the adult population. Before the Civil War, states created a hodgepodge of unfair voting regulations. In 1821, New York eliminated property requirements for white men, but retained them for free black men. Eight states passed laws disenfranchising the urban poor, and the new state of California prohibited slavery but established the practice of peonage on Native Americans that denied them political rights.
In the aftermath of Reconstruction, southern states used poll taxes to deny poor black and white men the vote. It was so effective that only 20% of the southern population participated in the presidential elections of 1920 and 1924. Poll taxes were not deemed unconstitutional until 1966. Finally, the Electoral College denies voters the right to directly elect the president, which the Supreme Court reconfirmed during the contested 2000 election. The winner-take-all proviso for awarding state electoral votes disfranchises minority party voters. The real leader in democratic reform is Australia, which made voting compulsory. This innovation has produced vastly higher turnouts and greater legitimacy for the victors.
Isenberg is the T. Harry Williams Professor of American History at Louisiana State University and author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.
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