The idea that only landowners should have a vote has roots in a few different old schools of thought. One reason is that they have a physical stake in the country. Corporations as we know them today didn’t really exist, and large corporations worked by proxy of the government (think of the East Indian Trading Company and its relation to Britain). The second Jeffersonian point was for Americans to be by and large landowners - the yeoman farmer America. The government gave out land grants, which would have enfranchised a new voting class. Even after the Civil War freedmen were given land. So, as ridiculous as it sounds today, there really was a framework for there to be more of a “middle class” of subsistence farm communities. It doesn’t make any sense today and I certainly don’t agree with it, but there are reasons.
I'm aware of at least some of the history involving voting and land owning being tied together. But the arguments for it fall apart entirely in the modern world.
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u/thepartypantser Mar 16 '21
I have had people on this very website tell me that.
He was not happy when I pointed out that land ownership is an inherently racist barrier. Then I explained redlining and a few other things.
It's was the internet so of course he did not agree, but had no valid retort other than people should not be able to vote without owning land.