Mark Small

The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution removed selection of U.S. Senators from States’ legislatures: “The Senate of the United States shall be comprised of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof...” 6/20

This country, as the Declaration of Independence makes clear, was founded on the premise that government exists by consent of the governed: “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” 7/20

In 1787 the Constitution began with “We the People,” instead “Men.” To some the difference was cosmetic. Only white, male landowners were eligible to vote for delegates to the Constitutional Convention. 8/20

The 55 delegates chosen and who attended the Convention, at one time or another, likewise were white, male landowners. Women could not vote or engage in most legal transactions. The people indigenous to this continent had no rights. 9/20

People held in “involuntary servitude” - neither the word “slave” nor any derivative of that word appears in the original Constitution - were bought and sold as chattel - i.e., as common goods. 10/20

Slaves were freed and given (what were supposed to be) equal rights as a result of the Civil War. Women, after years of struggle and with ratification of Amendment XIX on March 29, 1920, obtained the right to vote. 11/20

Indigenous peoples still were screwed. 12/20

By the early Twentieth Century, people wanted to directly elect their Senators. On June 5, 1914, Amendment XVII was ratified. We the “People” now chose our Senators by popular vote. 13/20