AccelePrep for the ACT Test 2nd Edition Student Text
C HAPTER 9 | T RY I T O UT ! R EADING P RACTICE • 171
20. Which of the following is regarded by the author ϐ ǫ Ǥ ϐ newspaper on December 23, 1823. G. Moore had a close friendship with the author Washington Irving. H. The names Dunder and Blixem appear in the original version published in the newspaper. J. A housekeeper in the Moore household was responsible for sending the poem to the newspaper. Items #21–30 are based on the following passage. Humanities: This passage is adapted from the speech “Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?” by Susan B. Anthony. Friends and Fellow Citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny. The preamble of the Federal Constitution begins: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. . . .” It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity but to the whole people—women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this government—the ballot. ϐ results in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people is a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic.
It is a hateful oligarchy of sex. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs or rulers over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household—which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects—carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation. But, it is urged, the use of the masculine pronouns he, his, and him, in all the constitutions and laws, is proof that only men were meant to be included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent and accept the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women from taxation for the support of the government, and from penalties for the violation of laws. Though the words persons , people , inhabitants , electors , citizens , are all used indiscriminately in the national and state constitutions, there was always ϐ ǡ ǡ they were synonymous terms, as for instance: “No person shall be a representative who shall not have been seven years a citizen, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he is chosen. No person shall be a senator who shall not have been a citizen of the United States, and an inhabitant of that state in which he is chosen.” But, whatever there was for a doubt, under the old regime, the adoption of the Fourteenth ǡ ϐ sentence: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
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