January 28, 2024
Dear editor;
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union” begins the document establishing the framework upon which our country was governed, for approximately the next 237 years. Written by land-owning white men in the 17th Century, just as it implies, it is not perfect; words or clauses may need re-interpretation, and amendments added, nevertheless, the Constitution as best it can, gives details instructions on government by the consent of the governed–the rule of law–the foundation of our democracy in the United States.
To provide a strong central government as envisioned by the Founders, all the states had to be united. In the South, enslavement of human beings existed since 1619, almost 150 years before there were states, and as such, slavery was the basis of their social and economic systems.
To appease the southern states to sign on, slavery would be permitted, with other provisions and the Constitution of the United States was unanimously ratified in 1787; human enslavement would continue for another 80 years.
Ratified in 1865-68, two years after the end of Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments abolished slavery, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States (except Indigenous peoples), and granted the right to vote to all citizens (except women).
The period of Reconstruction began and, in the South, where the new laws were enforced by Union troops, an uneasy peace ensued—until they left, ushering-in a new era of Black subjugation and exploitation. Jim Crow laws in the South were often enforced by overt, indiscriminate vigilante terror and murder; and in the North, a more subtle discrimination and segregation prevailed that still exists. Black enslavement ended, but not White supremacy. Despite bumps in the road toward “a more perfect union” created by state and local officials, the Constitution endures.
Granting women, the right to vote in 1920, along with the passage of the Native Indian Citizen Act of 1924, the phrase “We the People”, for the first time since the Republic’s inception, meant “All of us,” though the privileges of citizenship still were not equally distributed: Jim Crow laws were designed to marginalize and keep Black people “in their place” and “separate but equal” were often used catch phrases along with “states’ rights”. The marginalization of Black people, especially in the South, was envied and studied by the Nazis in Germany in preparation for their soon-to-come de-humanization of Europe’s Jews.
The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1965 curtailed the inequalities of the Jim Crow laws; segregation in businesses such as theaters and restaurants, discriminatory practices in employment, and public-school segregation were outlawed; obstacles to voting—illegal taxes, literacy testing, harassment and intimidation were all banned—95 years after the 15th Amendment was ratified. Actual equality between “we the people” exists on paper and in the law but prejudice and bias in the minds of people can have a long, deep, almost-debilitating, sometimes unconscious muscle-memory.
The writers of the Constitution envisioned a man elected president so morally and ethically compromised as Donald Trump, hence, the judicial and legislative checks; being short by a few million votes in the popular count, he was installed by electoral votes as proscribed in the Constitution, ironically to appease the southern states during ratification. Upon losing re-election, Trump, assisted by MAGA sycophants in Congress, and others, attempted to seize power by fraud, the “big lie”, fake electors, even by extorting state election officials and violence, unabashedly violating his oath of office: “to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”, the violation of which prohibits holding any future office, as per the 14th Amendment, sec. 3.
At this writing, several states are withholding Trump’s name from appearing on their ballots, pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a court composed of nine justices three of whom are Trump nominees.
Buckle-up! The road is getting bumpy! Go in peace.
Dave Hoehne, Aurora