Voting--The Pinnacle Of Democracy, Suffrage For All. While

Voting--the pinnacle of democracy, suffrage for all. While it took a couple of centuries for the United States to guarantee universal suffrage, we now have it, regardless of sex or race. The struggle of acquiring suffrage is a long history, one that we as Americans paradoxically praise and condemn, but it is history, and now we must look towards the future. Yet, Harvard Professor Dr. Judith Shklar argues otherwise in her lecture â€Å"Voting† where she navigates the history behind the long battle for universal suffrage in the United States. More importantly, she provokes the audience when she presents an unorthodox history of the struggle for suffrage: They[Americans] have seen them [voting and earning] as attributes of an American citizen†¦The†¦show more content†¦As a result, while both social status and standing are relative, the latter is seemingly more feasible than the other to obtain, especially with natural-rights theory as the foundation of American democracy. Later, Shklar mentions that â€Å"natural-rights theory makes it very difficult to find good reason for excluding anyone from full political membership† (Shklar 395). The result of having the theory of natural rights as the backbone is that anyone who is denied the vote would naturally be deprived of exercising their voice, or in another word, a slave. Eventually when the white manhood suffrage movement used the word slave, they would often not simply just refer to â€Å"reduced political independence†¦[but] the actual condition of most American blacks† (Shklar 396). Shklar highlights the fear and apathy that white men and consecutive suffrage groups had towards being a slave, one who is stripped of rights and humanity which are both synthesized into the vote. As she describes the fights for suffrage, Shklar will often bring up primary sources that shed light to the atmosphere at the time. Of course, this reflects the common characteristic of any academic, but this is not an academic paper where she is including her citations; this is a lecture that she is giving. She raises direct sources from historical figures and historians to highlight behaviorShow MoreRelatedThe American Election Process Is Good For The Country1807 Words   |  8 Pagestheir basic right to vote, and it helps always elect a new candidate over having a single leader for life. Throughout the history of America, a lot of things have happened for Americans to be able to elect their leader. The Revolutionary war was the pinnacle point as it was the war that separated America from the control of Great Britain and is what landed America as a country of its own and not to be controlled by any other country. But a downside to this war was that even though it let people electRead MoreManagement Course: Mba−10 General Management215330 Words   |  862 PagesHughes−Ginnett−Curphy The Art of M A: Merger/Acquisitions/Buyout Guide, Third Edition Reed−Lajoux and others . . . This book was printed on recycled paper. Management http://www.mhhe.com/primis/online/ Copyright  ©2005 by The McGraw−Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval