When the American Founding Fathers laid out the constitution of the United States, not everyone could vote as they are able to do today. For starters, women were not allowed to vote. Neither were slaves allowed to vote either. In fact, a slave did not count as a full person for the purposes of the decennial census which is used to determine proportion representation in the House of Representatives.
As for men, only white property owners were allowed to vote. Now, it must be stressed that the US Constitution did not properly place limits on who could vote. It was a state’s right and the 13 states largely limited the vote to white male property owners.
With that in mind, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was on C-Span this past Sunday and said that nations such as Egypt were likely not ready for full democratic elections. He suggested that perhaps the US Founding Fathers did well to limit the right to vote during the nation’s fragile infancy. He added that the decision to limit the right to vote was done to ensure the continuity of the government. The question might well be asked just what kind of government continuity was sought for because it was one which sanctioned slavery and benefitted wealthy white males. Santorum stated that the purpose of liberating Muslim nations should not be to enable an open free elections.
He believes that democracy will come to a people when they are ready for it. Presumably, Santorum seems to believe the United States can arbitrate a more incremental path towards freedom. The US Civil War seems to argue against that notion.
He was quoted as saying ““Were we ready for an election when the United States was formed to have everybody in the United States vote? Well, our Founders didn’t think so. They limited the people who could vote in an election. Now you could say that’s horrible, that’s terrible. Well, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But it was a decision that was made to make sure that there was some continuity and stability within the government.”