Although to be fair, it had to be amended with the 16th, and the biggest change was FDR's de-facto rewriting of it with the "New Deal" where the constitution was the "Old Deal".

As long as the government is willing to ignore the constraints of the constitution and the people don't rebel, it's just a piece of paper.

One needs to learn to cook because the ability to feed one's self is one of the essential definitions of a living creature.

My mother was a wonderful cook (and loved to do it), which provided a counter-incentive for me to go through the dinner-disaster steps necessary to learn. When I got out on my own (and out of the barracks), I found I had three choices: Eat mediocre food, Spend all of my extra money at good restaurants, or Learn to Cook.

I am now a good cook. (Though perhaps not as good as my mother was.)

Jan

Like you, I would prefer a statement by a contemporary of that document that stated in plain words what was meant by 'man/men'. I have spent many pleasant and otherwise educational hours in search of such a document, but have just now found some reasonable sources.

I have found the following statement (history.org) in an analysis of voting procedures in the Colonies from ~1600 to shortly after our independence:

"Typically, white, male property owners twenty-one or older could vote. Some colonists not only accepted these restrictions but also opposed broadening the franchise. Duke University professor Alexander Keyssar wrote in The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States:

"At its birth, the United States was not a democratic nation—far from it. The very word "democracy" had pejorative overtones, summoning up images of disorder, government by the unfit, even mob rule. In practice, moreover, relatively few of the nation's inhabitants were able to participate in elections: among the excluded were most African Americans, Native Americans, women, men who had not attained their majority, and white males who did not own land.""

John Adams wrote in 1776:

"Depend upon it, Sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end to it. New claims will arise; women will demand the vote; lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other, in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level."

The Declaration and subsequent Constitution obviously did not include women (Adam's wife attempted to get that philosophy inserted, but was apparently laughed at by her husband) or blacks (Jefferson's paragraphs against slavery were removed). Neither women and blacks had right to vote per the Constitution.

Thank you for your 'nudging' me to look One More Time. I hope that you will find my sources to be reasonable.

Jan

We are loosing the Subjunctive as we invent virtual reality. Would this were not so. We will have to reinvent it at a future time.

Jan

Yes, that works. She is pretty good about learning such things. Has been able to change a tire since she was 11 or so. I switch summer/snows and have three cars for the winter, so there is a lot of tire changing at my house.



European lug bolts (vs studs and nuts) are the dumbest thing ever. Just got a stud conversion kit for one of them.

Their unworkability had nothing to do with banksters and statists, the Federalists' 'National Bank' (Hamilton's idea) was because the Federal Administration had to beg funds from the states and because the States began to act like separate countries, establishing border check points like the EG Stasis

Actually the Articles were the original State's Rights Document, essentially they created 13 separate countries. e.g. the Border Wars between Pennsylvania and New York were fought over the town that is now Erie PA. and between Virginia and N C over the lands called Tennessee and Kentucky.

The Articles were cited in the court cases leading to the Civil War.

Blackswan, Nice sobriquet, by the way. In 1776 slavery was world wide, though most labor intensive slavery was between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the US, England and the Spanish and Portuguese Colonies being the exceptions.

The rights of man were frequently discussed after the Middle Sixteenth Century Locke led the way, Your line the Rights of Man was the title of an Essay, "The Rights of Man and Citizens" published Thomas Paine around the time, 1789, that our Constitution was ratified.

Slavery is an abomination on the face of humanity, but it is still heavily practiced in the world today. According to the US DO State's annual report there are twice as many slaves today as there were in 1861. It is a 1.4 trillion dollar illegal/legal industry

Karl Marx suggested “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”.

Which would explain why socialists and communists don't produce much of anything of value and merit.

Jan, you've provided no grounds for your assertion of a tacit understanding for the word in the context given. You say it, but you do not provide any reason why.

As such you aren't arguing from reason and asserting a proper argument, therefore you will have to take the answers which try to clarify absent your argument; though providing the specific reasons why you believe "men" in that Context had a tacit understanding of only meaning while males of property for us to chew upon and discuss would be an improvement.

I wouldn't call them age old. Nouns had gender in English not long ago. 50 years ago "tastes good like a cigarette should" was controversial because educated speakers would say as since it precedes a clause with verb. We're also losing the less/fewer distinction. Subjunctive mood is now optional. The language changes.

Interesting. Like the paleoanthropological difference between hominin (the branch leading to humans) and hominid (also includes our cousins).

Jan

Excellent. Thank you for that insight.

Jan

I always accepted the designation in context of Man or Mankind, meant all human beings, both sexes and regardless of color or stature. However, as I have discovered in my integrated research that not all 'Men' (mankind) are not human (conscious human beings) in the same sense as the majority, so I use the term hu-man-oid; which indicates the lack of 'being', the lack of an 'I' or identity and the lack of conscience.

IMHO, the phrase "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence had nothing to do with race or gender. Recall the Declaration was an open letter to King George III redressing grievances and declaring the independence of the colonies from British rule. Specifically, the rule of the king and his tyrannical monarchy. The Founding Fathers had a plan to create a constitutional republic and to do that they had to eliminate the monarchy in the colonies and to get the people to understand what was afoot and what was at stake. The phrase was an assault on the "divine right of kings" and was to end once and for all the notion of royal and common blood by birth. There would be no royal titles, no dynasties, and no rule by birth in the new nation. All men would be equal, meaning no royal class.

I recall reading the phrase was anathema in the House of Lords and encouraged even more resolve to crush the American rebellion. The phrase was a royal poke in the eye to the royals and was quite personal. American rebellion to break away from the British Crown was one thing, but the destruction of Royalty entirely was seen as an abomination that had to be extinguished.

In time the phrase would take on more meaning to include race and gender, but this is where it started. There is some contemporary hoopla regarding how can a slave holder pen such a phrase and not be a hypocrite. Well, now you know how.

Unworkable for the banksters and the statists, perhaps, but much more Jeffersonian than Hamilton's constitution which excluded any bill of rights. Ultimately the proof that the constitution was too statist is in the results seen today.