This fear of entrenched tyranny and loss of liberties is what motivated many of the founders to insist on the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution.[1] After the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery, a dire form of tyranny, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments have been interpreted by the Supreme Court to extend the Bill of Rights and all men’s right to vote to each of the states. Women’s right to vote followed in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. The right of indigenous people to vote came last and outside the Constitution, through state laws. The last state to act was Utah in 1962.
Excerpted from America: Democracy or Republic?
[1] See the Anti-federalist Papers. The same fears are often on display all around the world, whenever and wherever people are considering new ways to govern themselves.
