National Woman Suffrage Association Reading Reaction

After reading the "Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States" I was most intrigued with the closing paragraph. The closing paragraph of this piece began with the sentence, "We ask of our rulers, at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation." I appreciated this sentence because the title "our rulers" does not seem to imply the government of our nation. Instead I feel as though the women writing this piece meant all the men "above" them. I think that the women were using "our rulers" in a sarcastic way to strengthen their point that women deserve to be granted the same rights that men in the country receive.

I also found the article intriguing for the descriptive way women symbolized men. In the article the authors did not always use the term male and men, instead the authors found other ways to strengthen their points. In one part of the article the authors talked about the fact that women were not given the opportunity to go to universities and law schools, the authors then stated that sons of China, Japan and Africa are welcomed there. And when discussing the aristocracies of the world, stated that the son was above the mother who bore him. The authors used these ways to describe men to deliver there points in a manner that was more moving to the reader.

This piece discussed the contradictions of the Constitution towards women. The women writing this declaration went through each aspect of the Constitution which afforded women rights that they were not receiving. The strongest of those points being that women are not given the right to vote. Our country amended the Constitution to make all people citizens, allowing blacks to vote. When the Constitution was amended they decided that women, though citizens, did not deserve the right to vote.

Women at that time were not given the right to vote, yet were expected to cooperate with ever aspect of the government. Women were expected to pay their taxes, despite one our nations reasons for leaving England being "no taxation without representation". In most states a women's property and earnings were owned by her husband.

I feel as though this article was similar to Douglass' article, however, I felt as though Douglass' was more powerful. First of all Douglass concentrated on the accomplishments of the nation much more than this article did. This article quickly gave praise to the nation and then went on about each aspect where the Constitution was not working properly for women. Douglass seemed to be more powerful in his words inciting action. This article read more like a petition asking these items to be considered.

Douglass Reading Reaction

Douglass' speech on the Fourth of July used the past of our country to shame the state that our nation was presently in. Douglass discussed the struggle our founding fathers went through to free themselves, and thus us, from oppression. Douglass discussed this in great length to remind the audience of the reasons why their fathers seeked liberty and freedom. This remembrance of the creation of our nation allowed the audience to grow increasingly proud of our history.

Douglass then took on the voice of a slave in our nation. Douglass discussed the fact that the Fourth of July to a slave is a mockery. The fact that the nation prides themselves on how they were able to free themselves from slavery, while they continue to enslave people in their own country is hypocritical. Douglass called slavery the cruelest practice existing in the world at that time.

Douglass argued that there was no need to prove to the audience that slaves deserved freedom just as much as slave owners did. Douglass used pieces of our nations Constitution and practices to show how hypocritical slavery was.

Douglass attempted to draw a link between both the past and the present. Douglass wanted the audience to remember what they're fathers went through to get their freedom from oppression, and now our own country is oppressing people in the same way sense that they freed themselves from. This connection between the past and present allows Douglass to make his audience feel shame from being so ignorant.

Reading this speech from Douglass is incredible. I think it is impressive that a person would make such a controversial speech on the Fourth of July. With slavery being such a prominent and accepted aspect of our nation at the time, it seems daring to express such a dissenting opinion on the day our nation gained our freedom.

Locke Reading Reaction

After reading the Locke reading I was surprised at how closely his work matched the way our government is constructed in this country. Obviously the Founding Fathers of our country considered many ideas about the best way to shape a government before constructing an outline for it, but it seems as though Locke's beliefs and writings had a profound effect on them.

Locke's ideas seemed to be a response to his feelings on an absolute monarchy. The reading we did on Hobbes he explains an absolute monarchy where one sovereign had total control. The sovereign had all rights to the government, while all those being governed had no write to judge or object to the government. This allowed the sovereign to have absolute power. The point of Hobbes absolute monarch was to take them out of the state of nature. The state of nature is when everyone is living in fear, acting for and protecting themselves, with no trust or companionship with anyone else.

Locke argues that an absolute monarchy doesn't take them out of the state of nature because the sovereign has absolute power and thus can do whatever he wants without being judge. This leaves the people under the sovereign in fear with no power to fight back. Locke stressed that one person could not control all aspects of the government without any control over the one leader. Lock, thus, developed the concept of checks and balances. Locke believed that there must be different branches of government that each have their own responsibilities.

Reading Locke's ideas, that seem to be the heart of our government, astonishes me that his idea of government have carried on for so long. I would suspect that ideas written so long ago would be out of date. However, despite the expected flaws that every government has, I feel as though a democracy is a very effective and efficient way of running a government.