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6,000 years of recorded world history reveal the most common form of government is monarchy and the most powerful monarch was the British Monarch. The British Empire at it peak controlled 13 million square miles – almost a quarter of the Earth’s land, and nearly half billion people – one-fifth of the world’s population at the time.
In the British Empire, the most important vote was that of the King. America separated from Britain in the Revolutionary War and set up State and Federal governments which were controlled by the vote of citizens.
Soon other countries rejected their monarchs and replaced them with elected representative governments called republics.
During the Civil War, Republican President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, followed by the Republican controlled Congress pushing through the 13th Amendment ending slavery, 14th Amendment giving rights to freed slaves, and 15th Amendment assuring freed slaves had the right to vote.
The momentum of the anti-slavery movement was channeled into the women’s suffrage movement, to allow women to vote, and the temperance movement to prohibit alcohol.
The women’s suffrage movement spread in the late 1800’s thru many countries, including Sweden, Finland, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and in America. After World War I, American men voted for women to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment, AUGUST 26, 1920: “The right of citizens of the U.S. to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
A leader in the women’s suffrage movement was Susan B. Anthony, praised by President Gerald Ford, February 13, 1976: “Susan B. Anthony…with other dedicated women…took the cause of women’s suffrage to State capitals across our growing Nation… The irreversible change she wrought…led to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.”
Susan B. Anthony also fought to prohibit alcohol, addressing the Daughters of Temperance, March 1, 1849: “Ladies! There is no Neutral position for us…If we sustain not this noble enterprise…then is our influence on the side of Intemperance. If we say we love the Cause and then sit down at our ease, surely does our action speak the lie. And now permit me once more to beg of you to lend your aid to this great Cause, the Cause of God and all Mankind.”
Women’s suffrage leader Julia Ward Howe, the first woman member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, had written The Battle Hymn of the Republic, stating in the 3rd verse:
“I have read a fiery gospel Get the book America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations After World War II, emerging nations, countries recovering from war and post-colonial countries allowed women to vote:
France 1944
Much later, some Islamic countries allowed women the right to vote: Iraq 1980
Nations practicing Islamic Sharia Law, such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Brunei and ISIS controlled areas of Iraq and Syria still limit a woman’s right to vote.
With the expansion of the number of people involved in voting came increased methods to sway voters, including:
Manipulation of public opinion,
Stalin is attributed with saying “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” Tactics developed: allow non-citizens to vote,
“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance,” John Philpot Curran stated, “…which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” Eternal vigilance is necessary to keep voting honest, as well as to keep honest citizens voting.
President Richard Nixon address the League of Women Voters on their 50th Anniversary, April 17, 1969: “A year before the 19th amendment was adopted the League of Women Voters was founded, and that organization, in the past 50 years, has played a major role in this Nation on a nonpartisan basis… Since about 1947, a tremendously escalating role of women in politics in the United States… I often say that men do the talking and women do the working in campaigns…”
Nixon continued: “As we look at the past 50 years we wonder what could happen in the next 50 years… As I look around the world and as I find that India has a woman Prime Minister, Ceylon has a woman Prime Minister, Israel has a woman Prime Minister.”
To the Daughters of the American Revolution, President Calvin Coolidge remarked April 19, 1926: “Who has not heard of Molly Pitcher, whose heroic services at the Battle of Monmouth helped the sorely tried army of George Washington! We have been told of the unselfish devotion of the women who gave their own warm garments to fashion clothing for the suffering Continental Army during that bitter winter at Valley Forge. The burdens of the war were not all borne by the men…” Coolidge continued: “Since 1880 there has been a marked increase in the tendency to remain away from the polls on the part of those entitled to vote… Election day in the olden times was generally considered more or less sacred – one to be devoted to the discharge of the obligations of citizenship… If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government… Such a system of government is doomed to failure.” For God’s Glory Alone Ministries thanks Bill Federer and www.AmericanMinute.com
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