
Democracy in the US


	The state of democracy in the United State has changed dramatically especially from 1865 through 1924; though at first glance it may not seem it, the United States has become less democratic in dealing with different groups of people.  Before continuing it is important to first define what it is that is being talking about; democracy.  There is a list of minimum requirements that, scholars argue, if any of these points are missing then the country is not truly a democracy.  There are as follows: there must be control over government decisions about policy constitutionality vested in elected representatives chosen in frequent fair elections.  There must be a government which encourages and allows rights of citizenship such as freedom of speech, religion, opinion, and association.  The country must have a majority rule accompanied by respect for the minorities.  Finally, all adult citizens must have the right to vote in elections and run for political office (Class Handout). When looking at particular groups of people and the definition of democracy we can see that though it may seem that some have gained democracy when looking deeper we actually see that in the end they lost it.  Though the government may have tried to help these people something occurred that caused their rights to be violated.  Then there are other groups of people that we can see obviously lost their democracy.  These are the groups of people that the government did not even try to help; in fact they often hindered their rights as citizens. 
	At first glance it seems that African Americans gained democracy in the stated time period; however when looking at them closer we see that though the federal government granted them certain rights, some states passed laws to keep them from exercising their rights.  At the end of the Civil War African Americans were given their legal emancipation from slavery, they were able to now legally own land and by 1870, through the 15th amendment, they were given the right to vote.  It stated:
"The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude." (Roark A-19)

So it seemed that the United States was taking a step in the right direction in giving all adult citizens the right to vote in elections.  However the certain states, especially southern ones, passed laws and instituted fees for the rights which should have been free. Many southern states initiated a poll tax; this tax that people had to pay in order to vote at the polls was generally too high to pay for most blacks.  Though there were some poor whites that could not afford to pay the tax either rich white men would pay it for them.  They felt as though the white men would vote along with the democratic party whereas they felt that the African Americans would vote mainly republican with the North.  They also instituted literacy tests and proof of land ownership in order to vote, and many African Americans were unable to read and could not obtain land. They were unable to attain any land because of sharecropping.  Sharecropping was supposed to be a way for African Americans to eventually own the land they were working, however because of the high interest rates and rental fees put on by white southerners it was almost impossible for them to ever own any land.  So though by federal law all African American men were allowed to vote the laws passed by the states stopped them from bring able to do so.  Also in 1896 the Supreme Court ruled, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, that segregation was ok and instituted the "separate but equal" law, even though the facilities were never really equal.  Whites were in the majority so, yes, they had rule, however the government did not have much respect for the African American minority.  So even though the Federal Government tried to make the United States more democratic by passing the 14th and 15th amendment the States were able to find ways around their ruling actually making the US, in the south, less democratic.  African Americans were not the only group whose democracy was denied. 
	 When looking at the progress of industrial wage earners in the stated time period it is shown that by World War I they gained a tremendous amount of labor laws to get them to work their hardest in the countries time of need.  Previous to World War one the industrial wage earner was not treated like a human being, the businesses did not care for their well being and they had no rights, if they complained then it was very likely that they could lose their job.  They were given no benefits while working and if they were injured then they would just be replaced no big deal.  Pre World War One, the government did not encourage the rights of the working class, they could obtain any rights, and had they tried it was very likely that they would just end up losing their jobs, and being replaced with the next available worker.  Their lack of rights can be seen when looking at the Pullman Strike of 1894; after three of the Union Leaders were fired workers went on strike but got nothing out of it.  It showed that labor had little recourses, strikes had little effect, and unions had little voice.  The government clearly did not encourage the freedom of speech or the freedom to assemble peacefully.  Though the government did not stop unions from forming or union leaders from speaking they also did not do anything to punish those that stopped did try to stop it.  Pullman impugned upon their freedoms by not allowing the union to form and firing three of the union labor leaders.  However this did not work, because days later the workers went on strike.  The Pullman workers got nothing out of the strike, at the time it seemed as though it would be up to the working class to get their rights, and it partly was. However World War One pushed the process faster.  By World War One, various Labor Laws were created to make the working class want to work their hardest.  They instituted the eight hour work day, overtime pay, minimum wage, along with other labor rights. In 1914 it seemed as though the government had begun to encourage the rights of the working class but at the end of World War One when the government no longer needed them to be as productive or loyal the labor rights had been taken away and they were back to where they started.  This was worse then not giving them anything to begin with, the government gave the working class a taste of what they could have and then just took it away from them when their services were no longer needed.  The government was using the working class giving them benefits in exchange for giving their all and then when they were no longer useful to the government the rights were taken away and the government went on not caring about the working class, the majority at the time.
	During World War I, the government felt as though the nation should be untied in the cause, however it is apparent that there were many wartime dissenters, those that did not agree with the war.  One main anti-war activist was Eugene V. Debs the leader of the socialist party.  Three Acts were passed under the Wilson administration, all of which undermined the First amendment "in the name of self defense" (Roark 805).  They were the Espionage act in June 1917, the Trading with the Enemy Act in October 1917, and the Sedition Act in May 1918.  The Espionage act and the Sedition act made it illegal to even speak out against the government.  The Sedition act stated: 
"Whoever, when the United States is at war,... shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States . . . or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy"
(http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1918/usspy.html) 

Eugene Debs was convicted under the espionage act for speeches condemning the war and calling it a capitalist plot, because of this he was sent to an Atlanta Penitentiary.  Many papers and journals were shut down, just like Eugene Debs, all because some of the things that they had said the government found to be objectionable (Roark 805).  This was a huge violation of the First Amendment rights of the people, that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press" (Roark A-13).  To say that the United States became less democratic at this point in history is an understatement, the freedoms of speech and of the press are perhaps the most basic units in creating a democracy and through these three acts the government took them away.  The ironic twist is that the Wilson Administration claimed that they were doing this too defend democracy, that the whole war was to help defend democracy, however by taking away the rights of free speech and freedom of the press they were in fact taking away democracy from the people. 
	We can see through certain groups of people that the government did try to help increase the democracy in the United States, such as African Americans and the Working Class.  However through different circumstances their rights were in the end inevitable taken away.  Then there are groups of people, such as the Wartime dissenters, who had their democracy taken away from them by the government.  No mater how it was taken away through these groups of people we see that in fact democracy decreased in the Untied States from 1865-1924.



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