Recently, there has been much discussion in the media about the division between political parties in the United States. People often seem to allude to better times when there was more cohesion between the political ideologies, and less fighting and uncivil behavior between its members. This is simply not true. The U.S. became what it now is, a strong democracy, through serious disagreements and harsh arguments between those with different viewpoints.
As seen during the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the War in Vietnam, our political parties have a history of being very divisive. After the Civil War, even while the Republicans had a huge majority in Congress, "the party was internally divided" (Foner - p 537). Disagreement about what rights to give African Americans took decades, and shockingly a full century passed before they had the right to vote.
Active and sometimes harsh debate will always be an essential part of the political process in this country, and it contributes to what makes the U.S. such a great democracy. Although sometimes it appears to take too long to accomplish goals, the will of the people is usually demonstrated through this process of debate and disagreement. In President Obama's State of the Union speech last week, he explained that our government exposes itself to criticism that other governments, like China, are not subject to because their government does not allow dissent among their leaders. The Chinese government can censor what is released by the media, and by doing this they make it seem as if they have no internal disagreements.
In an ideal government, the will of the people will be demonstrated. Even though there are sometimes unpleasant words coming from both the left and right, they lead to decisions that represent the will of the people. All angles of different issues are explored, and therefore although we may not always agree with what the media has to say, we at least have the opportunity to hear all opinions. And that is what makes the United States such a great democracy.
Black men were immediately given the right to vote after the civil war. It was extraordinarily difficult for them to vote in their own favor as it was typically an open ballot, and those who caused any problems were typically punished by those who wanted to maintain order in the south (KKK, White League, etc.). Of course none of this was going to be handled by those of power in the south and so you had Reconstruction which benefited very little and eventually was given up entirely. Jim Crow laws were instituted and all hell came loose, but black men had the right to vote.
ReplyDeleteThanks Hannah. Black men were given the right to vote from the fifteenth amendment, and an army in the south could enforce this, and black men actually did vote. When reconstruction ended in 1877, the army left, and therefore preventing blacks from voting could not be easily enforced. Loopholes were created by some of those in the south which included not letting people vote without paying, unless their grandfathers had voted (the grandfather clause), and since blacks grandfather's had been slaves and obviously then could not vote, this rule obviously was created to prevent blacks from voting.In the 1960's black men were again able to vote.
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