Citizen Nation

When the Constitution was first established and ratified, slaves were counted as less than full persons for purposes of representation in our government. To be precise, each was 3/5 of a person. This “compromise,” as it is often called, was created (of course) without the consent or input of enslaved people, as a way to balance power and apportionment between slave and free, large and small states at the time of the Constitutional convention. Continue reading →

All women were omitted from many of the privileges of American citizenship, and some of them strenuously and articulately resisted. In addition, millions of women suffered under the double burden of being both female *and* enslaved. Even free white women used “slavery” as a way to talk about their legal predicament, and to advocate not only for abolition but for gender equality. We will read three examples of nineteenth-century women’s writings on citizenship and legal rights, plus a short overview from a women’s history textbook. Continue reading →

What was American democracy like in the first half of the 19th century? Would it be recognizable to us as “democracy”? What was happening with voting rights in this era (and why)? Continue reading →

On Tuesday 9/16 our class will focus on the Constitution, and on the “Constitutional moment,” i.e. the era and cultural milieu in which it was framed. Your reading is Chapter 2 of Schudson’s Good Citizen and also the full text of the US Constitution. You’ll want to bring both of these items to class. The Constitution can be found in the back of any US history textbook you have on hand, or you can print a copy from the web, or download it as a mobile app onto your phone.

Tuesday’s soapbox speakers are Tommy, Stephen, and Tony C.

For Thurs 9/11, we move from a generic, conceptual definition of citizenship to (in Bellamy’s terms) a more empirical examination of actual citizenship in the American colonies and early republic. Who could be a citizen? Who was deemed capable of consenting? Who represented whom and how? Continue reading →

Links for today:

Scottish independence… the 16-year-olds can vote

MacLean’s article (29 July 2014)
BBC News video

For our next class on TUESDAY 9/9: read Richard Bellamy, Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction and write a 2-3 page response paper considering some of these critical thinking questions; bring the book and your paper and be prepared to discuss them in class. Continue reading →

This is the course website for “Citizen Nation” at Worcester State University in Fall 2014, which can be taken as History (HI) or Political Science (PO), as well as for Honors credit. Continue reading →