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It differs by state but America only became a democracy by modern standards in the 1960’s. There was arguably a brief period after the Civil War before Reconstruction ended but women couldn’t vote so I give it a C- on my Democracy-O-Meter (patent pending).
Also, a Gentleman’s C is a term for a reason. That’d be an F at a commuter school. Only private schools put up with polite rich kids who are dumbasses but come from a “good” family.
give it a C- on my Democracy-O-Meter (patent pending
Are you grading on a curve? Where was there a more functional democracy in the mid-19th century?
The United States in the mid 1800’s is famously known as a place and time of peace and harmony where gentlemen-scholars voted in free and fair elections.
Imagine counting the first four score and seven years as democratic.
we count ancient Greece as a democracy, don't we?
Last I checked, democracy didn't mean "fair," it ment that the leaders were voted into power.
By this standard, the US is still a democracy. Leaders are still voted into power and that isn't going to change.
Will they let everyone vote? Obviously not, but you seem to think it's democracy when only white men can vote so...
we count ancient Greece as a democracy, don’t we?
We? No. But they gotta keep the bar as low as possible to justify this fantasy.
I guess this means that Russia is a democracy.
I'm prepared to argue that fake voting doesn't count.
By contrast to literally every other country. Yes very much in that time period. Believe it or not, most monarchies were also completely fine with slavery and plantations. And their citizens had even less political power.
By contrast to literally every other country.
One of the proximate causes of the American Revolution was British abolitionism leaking into colonial politics.
You had ex-military ultra-wealth planation owners defecting to the revolution in drovers following Dunmore's Proclamation.
most monarchies were also completely fine with slavery and plantations
They were completely fine with collecting rents off their subjects - slave or free. But quite a few of them had strong reservations against chattel slavery (the Spanish Catholics, most notably). And more simply could not stomach the expense of policing transatlantic trade from piracy.
That is what ultimately lead to the outlawing of the practice across Europe.
Democracy isn't defined relative to other countries. Only property-owners could vote, and only white men could own property, so that means the vast majority of the population couldn't vote. That doesn't sound like a democracy to me, that sounds like an aristocracy. I will grant you it was more democratic than monarchies and such, but even some of them (like the UK) had a parliamentary system so the king's power wasn't universal. They were deeply unequal, of course, but that's just the pot calling the kettle black, because so was (and is) the US.
Only recently has everyone above the 18 had the ability to vote, excluding those who are slaves as per the 13th amendment. For most of American history, women couldn't vote. Black people weren't considered people. We kicked out anyone Chinese. We locked away Japanese Americans because they were ethnically Japanese.
America was maybe a democracy for 56 years, since the Voting Rights Act of 1968. That's a stretch at best, as the country never healed for being an Apartheid for 200 years.
Right? Someone clearly hasn't read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
Inch by inch, in play at little games.
In a couple thousand years historians will call us the Merkin Empire
I sure hope not
That's exactly what he means. An artifice, a facade.
She*
Very convenient for keeping the cooties under control.
54-40 or fight
Yep... it was good run, but we need to renew the plant of freedom with the blood of tyrants