[coldtea]

Well, the same white men created Jim Crow and seggregation.

If you were a black man would you have been disenfranchised when those laws were in force?

I'd say yes.

The fact that it was/is worse elsewhere, e.g. in some places in Asia, doesn't make the critique (of how white Constitutional/law makers historically disenfranchised certain demographics in the US) invalid.

[rayiner]

> you were a black man would you have been disenfranchised when those laws were in force?

In a counter-factual world where the founders hadn’t exported their ideas all over the world, I’d be disenfranchised in my own home country! Because everyone was disenfranchised. Everyone was a serf.

[coldtea]

In the real world, as a black, you would be disenfranchised in the US, even into the 1960s (and even now in certain systemic aspects), and the Constitution didn't prevent that. In fact it was written by people owning slaces or disenfranchizing blacks, the poor, and women, themselves.

And what we're debating in this subthread, is whether "a constitution interpreted precisely as written by wealthy, landed 18th century white men disenfranchises every person who is not a wealthy, landed 18th century white man, roughly in proportion to how much they share in common with such a person".

The fact that the constitution inspired changes "all over the world" doesn't change that fact.

Regarding slavery, which is something somewhat major you'd agree, the Constitution didn't even inspire enough within the US itself, since it took until the Civil War (and, more importantly, it took a civil war) to get it abolished.

>Because everyone was disenfranchised. Everyone was a serf.

You try to paint it as some unique development, but things like Magna Carta and habeas corpus (and even a bill of rights) already existed, as you're aware, the Swiss cantons had democratic (even direct democratic) institutions and the landsgemeinde system, and other such developments.

Slavery too had already disappeared in practice in western europe, but also many other places, centuries earlier. Which is likely why you had to change it to "serfdom", but even that wasn't applicable. The British, the Dutch, and other peoples had also quit (or effectively quit) serfdom as well, before the Constitution. Why, even russia (famous for its miserable serfdom system) had abolished serfdom right about before the Civil War!