Addendum to yesterday’s post

As I said in yesterday’s post, Matthew Vadum proclaims it’s unamerican to register the poor to vote, equivalent to helping criminals break into your house, and “It’s about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers.”
My response to this last point is: That’s irrelevant (also inaccurate. As Digby points out——link in yesterday’s post——the Founders goal in restricting the vote had nothing to do with small government).
It’s reasonable to consider the Founders’ opinions, perspectives, views when discussing things such as how to interpret the Constitution (although that’s a complicated enough topic I’ll have to bring it up in more detail later). But their opinions, outside of the written text setting up our government, are not binding.
Adams, Jefferson and the rest could have written a property-restriction for voting into the Constitution if they’d wished. They didn’t. Arguing as if their opinions have some kind of legally binding quality in themselves is nonsense. Their insights are valuable——I’ve quoted them often enough——but they’re not prophets speaking the word of God. We’re no more obligated to follow their view of government outside the Constitution than we all have to run around wearing wigs or being bled like leeches.
I think every American citizen should have the right to vote. And this is an improvement, not a decline, from the era when they did not.