Santorum Says Maybe It Wasn’t Bad That Founders Limited Who Could Vote. Guess What? He’s Right!

There’s No Such Thing As A “Right” To Vote

Former Senator Rick Santorum appeared in an interview in C-SPAN Television to discuss foreign policy and ended up discussing the merits of democracy. Santorum commented on the fact that the Founders of America specifically limited who could vote when discussing the Egyptian elections.

“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.”

Santorum is right.

The original U.S. Constitution did not state specifically who could vote, but it was built around the concept that a “person” had rights, with voting not explicitly named as one of them. While the Founders did name certain rights such as free speech, a right to bear arms and the right to be free of unreasonable searches, they did not name voting as an inherent right. Thus, each state took a different approach to how they delineated who could and who could not vote.

Many people believe that only whites could vote, but that was not true. Many white citizens were denied the ability to vote because they held no land. States such as New Jersey allowed women to vote if they owned a certain amount of property. Many non-whites were allowed to vote if they owned land as well and freed slaves could vote in four of the initial states. Native Americans, slaves and people who could not pass literacy tests or poll taxes were not allowed to vote.

So in truth, no one has a “right” to vote, only the right not to be discriminated against for certain specified reasons. With the addition of many Civil War era amendments, there were laws passed which outlawed the barring of voting based on certain discriminatory criteria such as race, sex, or naturalized citizens who were not born in the U.S. In some states, felons can be barred from voting and it is a current political controversy over whether the voting ability to some of these people will be restored.

The passage of the 17th amendment, which allowed for people to directly vote for their senators, was a major milestone in regards to voters ability to choose their representatives. The Founders of the United States were very skeptical about direct democracy, making it so that only state legislatures could vote for senators. This changed in 1913 with the passage of the 17th amendment.

Modern day proponents of limited government and republican ideals generally oppose the 17th amendment, owing to the fact that average citizens are not keenly attuned to national and international issues which federal senators must deal with. The passage of the 17th was widely seen as a blow against federalism, for the senators would now be less accountable to the states which they serve, and to the state’s elected legislators who are more in touch and able to keep federal senators held accountable, more so than the citizenry as a whole.

The Founders were aware of the fact that the average citizen does not generally concern him or herself with issues of governance, and therefore must be restricted from having voting rights in which their ignorance might adversely affect others. Opponents to this viewpoint might argue that each individual should have a say in their governance, and that may be true, but how much say? Shouldn’t it be proportional to their actual contribution to their community? Isn’t that why we have an electoral college system?

Many libertarians believe that voting is not a right, but a privilege. Free speech would not technically be a right if it could be voted away. What would be the point of the Second Amendment if the citizenry could simply wipe it off the map with a simple voting majority? No, certain things are not, and should not, be up to a vote. No one has a “right” to vote on whether or not to have free speech. And that is why voting is not a right.