• MiscreantMouse@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      wow, that must have been a big surprise to all the slaves.

      it pretty obviously meant the rights of white male landowners, in context, historically

    • paprika@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      unalienable rights to all men

      That bit is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. It’s not a legal document.

      The actual Constitution didn’t originally grant the right to vote, it was left to the states, but the general pattern up until the Fifteenth Amendment was that only white, landowning males could vote. Maybe you were talking about other rights, but the fact that certain people were literally slaves with no rights sort of punches a hole in the idea of “unalienable rights to all men”.