ABSTRACT
The most fundamental question of government is: Who should rule? Although it is generally assumed that in the United States the people rule-that is, we adhere to the principle of popular sovereignty-the U.S. Constitution contains no specific provision guaranteeing the citizen the right to vote or to run for office. Until the 1950s, who could vote had been left up to the states themselves, with the exception that the right of citizens to vote should not be “denied or abridged . . . on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (Fifteenth Amendment) or “on account of sex” (Nineteenth Amendment). However, state governments denied or abridged the right to vote for other reasons.1 In 17 states the citizen had to be literate (defined differently by the various states), and all states held to a minimum voting age requirement. Some states allowed a person to vote after he or she had lived in the state only six months, and others demanded two years. To vote on certain kinds of issues, such as approving bonds, a half-dozen states have required that the citizen be a property owner.
