Political development is a process that normally brings about the broadening of civil liberties so that each minority group receives an opportunity to participate in governance and have their opinion represented. Historically, the growth of political and legislative attention to minority groups was a gradual process, which involved a number of civil rights movements and even social disobediences in response to discrimination. The present paper argues that historically, the right to vote of religious, socioeconomic groups, gender, and racial minorities was disputed but finally granted to them. Nowadays, the issue at stake is the suffrage of prison inmates and non-residents of the country, so the focus has shifted.
Firstly, religious minority groups were for a long time prevented from voting (Keyssar, 2000, p. 38). In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Catholics were excluded from suffrage due to the ideological fear that they would undermine the social unity in the predominantly Anglican society, whose values were questioned and rejected by Catholics. In addition, Jews were traditionally prevented not merely from participation in elections, but even from naturalization, so they had no opportunity to change their religious affiliation in some time in an attempt to receive suffrage. In particular, a series of Test Acts and Disenfranchising Acts were intended to outline the boundaries of the voting right. In the period of WWI, such groups as Mennonites and Doukhboros were temporarily not allowed to cast a ballot, given their unwillingness to serve in the armies. Therefore, the considerations of groups eligible to participate in the political process, social use, and social conformity were viewed as priorities: due to the fact that there was a potential danger of social disintegration in religious diversity, governments managed it by narrowing the boundaries of voting rights. However, by the 20th century, most Western countries and North America adopted pertinent laws, which prohibited any discrimination by religious characteristics.
Furthermore, lower classes were traditionally excluded from suffrage on the basis of their socioeconomic background. In the past, there existed an income census, according to which only landowners or citizens, who paid higher taxes due to their high financial status, so in terms of income, the right to vote was granted only the purely utilitarian basis, i.e., depending on the contribution social groups made to the state treasury. In addition, due to the domination of elitism in politics, lower-class citizens were considered a potential threat of revolution, civil war, and the subsequent change of power and removal of privileges wealthier people enjoyed.
In addition, women were for a long time considered not properly qualified for participating in elections. In fact, gender minorities had few opportunities to get appropriate education, and even de Tocqueville notes that education women can access does not reflect the objective reality and is to a great extent abstractive or “timid, withdrawn, almost cloistered education” (de Tocqueville, p. 591); therefore, it does not develop young woman’s self-protection and self-help skills. The philosopher urges that women be taught social skills, which will allow them to make good mothers and relatively autonomous wives. The lack of intelligence and education were the main prejudices against women as contributors to the political process. In this sense, Susan Anthony, one of the first female suffragettes, sought in her speeches to prove that women were competent enough to rule the state shoulder-to-shoulder with men. Primarily, she notes that women are fully aware of the existing policies, which suppress their rights; apart from suffrage, they are also “robbed” in marriage (Anthony, par.5) and are normally prevented from engaging with professional work. Representing the opinion of contemporary womanhood, Anthony also demonstrates deep knowledge of history and refers to the earlier Federalist Papers, which actually imply equality of suffrage. Furthermore, the speaker also encourages her audience to avoid the stereotypical approach to women as a defenseless person and look beyond the frames of biological sex: “Women do possess all these [intelligence and patience] in an eminent degree, and I insist that they shall appeal to the courts, and through them establish the powers of our American Magna Charta to protect every citizen of the republic” (Anthony, par. 18). Thus, the activist finally shows that women have enough common sense, natural abilities, and knowledge to make political decisions.
Racial minorities for a long time had no opportunity to express their political views due to the governments’ fears of possible social disunity. For instance, African Americans in the United States were prevented from voting even after the abolition of slavery, given that slavery was actually one of the causes of the Civil War between the North and the South, so formerly enslaved citizens were likely to bring disorder to governance. In this sense, Frederick Douglass, in his essay “What the Black Man Wants,” proves that his peers from the racial group are already “civilized enough” and seek peace rather than civil wars; moreover, prominent political activist Martin Luther King in his address at the prayer proposes specific steps African Americans will take after being given the right to vote in order to demonstrate they are able to think strategically and are sophisticated enough to understand laws and observe them (King, par. 7-8). He also shows that African Americans are oriented to future fruitful cooperation, so they are already “true-born” Americans and actually have common, rather than conflicting interests with Whites.
As a result of the popularization of human rights and the gradual disappearance of elitist ideology from politics, poorer citizens, women, and non-Whites received full access to the political process in the United States, yet the progress of democracy posed new challenges and issues in voting rights. Nowadays, prison inmates’ and foreigners’ right to cast a ballot has become a point of vibrant debate. The confrontation is associated with the fears that prison inmates are ideologically antisocial and foreigners haven’t yet acculturated to understand the distinctive features of the American political process. Therefore, these two groups are believed to cause the disruption of society, so their decisions might appear physically and ideologically harmful to the “common good.” As one can assume, the social focus has changed over time, whereas the fears of low competence, disruptive ideologies as motivations for preventing the groups from voting have remained. However,
Works cited
Tocqueville, Alexis De, Democracy in America. New York: Harper Perennial, 1969.
Douglass, F. “What the Black Wants”.
King, M.L. “Give us the Ballot…”
Anthony, S. “Speech of Being Convicted”.
Keyssar, A. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books, 2000.