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The True Citizen, Wednesday, January 19, 2022 — Page 5
Michael N. Searles
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA
Ronda Rich
THE ECONOMICS OF HOMEMAKING
We as Americans have lived
under the banner of democracy
as our credo. We rightfully
take pride in being the oldest
constitutional democracy in
the world dating back to June
21, 1788. Our democratic
roots were recognized as early
as the 1800s when Alexis de
Tocqueville made his historic
visit to the United States in
1831 and later published his
two-volume “Democracy in
America” in 1835 and 1840.
Tocqueville examined the
forces of the market economy,
western expansion, and Jack
sonian democracy in trans
forming America. Scholars
believe that Tocqueville wrote
Democracy in America par
tially to help the people of
France get a better understand
ing of their position between a
fading aristocratic order and
an emerging democratic order.
Yet with all the praise and
accolades of Tocqueville, the
United States had not fulfilled
its promise of being a full
democracy. In 1789, the Con
stitution granted the states the
power to set voting require
ments. The states limited
the right to about 6% of the
population. This minority was
composed of white males who
owned property or paid taxes.
Beginning in 1791, Vermont
removed the property owner
ship as a requirement for white
men to vote followed the next
year by New Hampshire, Ken
tucky and Delaware. Gradually
over the next three decades,
states opened the franchise to
white men without property.
It was not until the 1828
presidential election that non
property-holding white males
were able to cast a ballot in the
vast majority of states. How
ever, it was not not until 1856
that North Carolina abolished
the property qualification for
white men to vote.
In 1870, the Fifteenth
Amendment to the United
States Constitution prevented
states from denying the right
to vote on the grounds of
“race, color, or previous con
ditions of servitude.” This
right granted to black men
was short-lived. After Recon
struction beginning in the late
1870s, the former Confeder
ate states enacted poll taxes,
literacy tests, and grandfather
clauses among other measures
to take away the right granted
in the 15th Amendment. The
United States Supreme Court
in the follow
ing years up
held the states
in denying the
The last ten years of her life,
Mama once said, were the hap
piest of an extremely happy,
fulfilling life.
Daddy had “made his way
to the Lord” a decade before
Mama did so, for the final
chapter of her life, Mama was
able to “loafer” and do what
ever she pleased, whenever
she pleased.
She no longer had to rise at
dawn to make a pan of butter
milk biscuits and cook a full
breakfast of eggs, country ham,
grits, and gravy. And when
the time came for supper, she
no longer had to cook a meal.
Instead, she either had a bowl
of cereal or fried up a pan of
cornbread and enjoyed that
with a glass of sweet milk or
buttermilk.
Make no mistake about it,
though. Mama treasured her
years of staying home to raise
four children and diligently
looking after her husband.
On the day before her sud
den death stunned us all, she
talked about the 87 years that
had gone before.
“God has been so good to
me,” she said. “All I ever
wanted was to be a wife and
a homemaker. As a little girl,
that’s all I wanted - to grow
up, marry a good man and have
children. God has given me
everything I’ve ever wanted.”
Mama was good at being a
homemaker. Our little house
was always dusted and neatly
kept. Her morning routine
included cooking breakfast,
making beds, washing dishes
(she never owned a dishwater
though I longed for one my
entire childhood), sweeping
floors and, in summer, water
ing her flowers before the heat
attacked in a wave of humidity.
Probably because I wit
nessed daily the joy of Mama’s
homemaking, I wanted to be a
homemaker. I think that’s one
of the loveliest words in the
English language. To me, the
noun “homemaker” is glorious
and one of life’s most impor
tant occupations.
Mama taught me housekeep
ing — though on any given day
you’d probably dispute that
given what a mess my kitchen
is, with mail strewn from one
end to the other — how to sew,
cook, and bake. (Every time
I think of her stern
est commandment: SEE
Scrape every drop RICH,
out of the bowl and g
SEE
SEARLES,
8
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