Does the Constitution Guarantee the Right to Sell Your Vote?

We Americans give our founding fathers a great deal of credit for their wisdom and strength.  We admire their courage in standing up to a regal regime – George III and friends.  We particularly value their approach – a reasonable attempt to go along and get along with George’s massive bureaucracy; then a less reasonable (if you were on George’s side that is) approach to stand up to George and his minions; then a carefully worded Declaration of Independence highlighting George’s many failings and abuses; and finally, a protracted war against the most powerful military of its time – successfully fought and won by a spunky group of homeboys and girls.

Then, of course, they had to set up a government – a way of governing this brave new land of theirs.  Maybe the revolution and the fighting was the easy part, huh?

Can you believe it – they didn’t agree on many aspects of governance?  But they knew this one thing – it must be limited or they knew they could find themselves in the same mess they just eliminated.  So, with these two dominating beliefs – we don’t agree on much and we don’t want to have another overbearing, dominating, abusive government, they set out to find a way to form a democratic republic (the people rule) and still let people make their own decisions but have some government to do some necessary things.

Now that is a brief lesson in why we  used to have a constitution limiting government – power to the people and the states – and this simple overriding concept that the people would be responsible – not the government.  So what happened?  They did, after all, set up these three branches – to balance each other and to check up on each other; you know, separation of powers.  There was nothing in there about executive orders – nothing in there about telling the states what they could or could not grow or make or not make – not much about who could vote or not vote – and, nothing in there about the people selling their votes to get something in return.

Yes, we slipped that in – the vote was really restricted when these fellows set things up.  Why?  Well, they had this idea that the vote was the very determinant of whether this thing they were setting up would work and would last.  The vote was key and it was going to be parceled out as if mattered.  It did matter – you see, and this is very difficult to grasp today – these founders had this idea that the vote was a privilege, not a right.  You had to earn it – you had to participate and contribute to the community – be an upright citizen – pay your own way as well as pay into the community pot – be informed – volunteer – maybe even do something for the public good.  In other words not be a taker, be a giver.  No, not rhetorically speaking; not with words but with actions.  Measurable, tangible, real deeds.

So this may be where these fellows went wrong?  They didn’t realize that voting was a right – and that you didn’t need to earn the right – you just attained it by being here or there.  Once you had attained this right – no further obligation or responsibility required.  And soon, pretty soon, the politicians figured it out – they could buy that vote and so they started the bidding process.  One would say – here, you get a free education – just vote for me.  Next one said – I’ll give you that education and some money in your pocket just vote for me.  Soon someone said, "How would you like to be paid even if you don’t have a job?"  The next one topped that by handing out jobs.  Then one came along offering help paying your electric bill.  Next one said, "I’ll pay your rent."  Then someone came along and said – I’ll pay your doctor bills.  Then the next one offered – free prescription drugs.  Next guy said I can do better than that – free contraceptives – free abortions.  Heck, we’ll pay it all - free health care – no co-pays, no deductibles – let me buy your vote with all these goodies – someone else can pay. 

Boy, oh boy, those founders of ours sure didn’t grasp how to run a country did they?  They missed out on this whole concept of selling your vote.