Problems in American Democracy Part 62

15. What is meant by saying that the suffrage is a privilege and not a right?

16. What is meant by saying that "fitness" is the basis of the suffrage?

17. What can be said as to the question of Negro suffrage?

18. To what extent does intelligent voting depend upon actual exercise of the ballot?

REQUIRED READINGS

1. Williamson, _Readings in American Democracy,_ chapter x.x.xiii.

Or all of the following:

2. Beard, _American Citizenship,_ chapter vi.

3. Cleveland, _Organized Democracy,_ chapters x and xii.

4. Porter, _A History of Suffrage in the United States,_ chapter i.

5. Seymour, _How the World Votes,_ vol. i, chapters i and ii.

QUESTIONS ON THE REQUIRED READINGS

1. What is the relation of political to civil liberty? (Beard, pages 64-65.)

2. Name some groups of people who were excluded from the suffrage in colonial times. (Porter, page 5.)

3. What were some of the early arguments for giving propertyless men the vote? (Beard, pages 66-67.)

4. What was Dorr's Rebellion? (Beard, page 69.)

5. What is the significance of the "foreign vote"? (Beard, pages 73- 74.)

6. What are the four theories of suffrage? (Seymour, pages 1-2.)

7. In what form did the suffrage enter the American colonies?

(Seymour, page 9.)

8. What theory of suffrage supplanted the theory of natural rights?

(Seymour, pages 13-14.)

9. What effect has the suffrage upon the individual? (Seymour, pages 15-16.)

10. Discuss the educational test. (Cleveland, pages 172-174.)

11. To what extent is bearing arms against the country a disqualification for voting? (Cleveland, page 176.)

12. What is the purpose of compulsory voting? (Cleveland, pages 176- 178.)

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND REPORT

I

1. Civil rights guaranteed by the const.i.tution of your state.

2. History of woman suffrage in your state.

3. Citizenship as a prerequisite for voting in your state.

4. Present restrictions on the right to vote in your state.

5. List the groups or cla.s.ses of people in your community who are not allowed to vote. What is the proportion of these cla.s.ses to the total population of the community? What per cent of these excluded cla.s.ses are aliens? What is the basis for exclusion in each case? Would you favor the extension of the vote to any of these groups? Explain.

II

6. Colonial suffrage. (McKinley, _The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies in America_; Cleveland, _Organized Democracy_, chapter x.)

7. Dorr's Rebellion. (Consult any standard text on American history or an encyclopedia.)

8. Suffrage and the frontier. (Seymour, _How the World Votes_, vol. i, chapter xi.)

9. Property and tax-paying qualifications in the nineteenth century.

(Porter, _A History of Suffrage in the United States_, chapters ii- iv.)

10. Woman suffrage in the nineteenth century. (Consult Porter, Seymour, or the _Cyclopedia of American Government_. [Footnote: Throughout the remainder of this text the student will find it to his advantage to make frequent use of the _Cyclopedia of American Government_, edited, in three volumes, by A. C. McLaughlin and A. B.

Hart. N.Y. 1914. Appleton and Company. This cyclopedia will furnish considerable material for students seeking either general information on political subjects, or special information for topic work. ])

11. History of the Nineteenth Amendment. (Consult American Yearbooks, and also newspaper files for August, 1920.)

12. Effect of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments upon the suffrage. (Kaye, _Readings in Civil Government_, pages 113-116.)

13. Negro suffrage. (Consult an encyclopedia, or any standard work on American government.)

14. Types of individuals who are excluded from the suffrage.

(Cleveland, _Organized Democracy_, chapter xii.)

15. Duties of the American voter. (Forman, _The American Democracy_, pages 14-15.)

FOR CLa.s.sROOM DISCUSSION

16. To what extent is the doctrine of natural rights still influential in American political discussions?

17. Do you favor an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution, providing that no state may extend the suffrage to persons who are not citizens of the United States?