Lecture 7: What’s Missing / Amendments

GOVT 2305: Federal Government

Instructor: Tom Hanna

2026-09-09

Today

  • The unfinished contract
  • What was missing at the Founding
  • Civil War and voting amendments
  • ERA and the 14th Amendment angle
  • Why formal amendment matters
  • An open question about consent

Why This Matters

Why This Matters

By the end of today you will explain how the original bargain fell short of its own ideals, how formal amendments renegotiated it, and why an unsigned contract still makes rights ethically urgent.

Bridge

  • Government = organized coercive force accepted as legitimate
  • Origins and safeguards (Lectures 5–6)
  • Today: what the original deal left out — and how the country has tried to rewrite the terms

The Bargain

The deal on paper

The people agree to… The government agrees to…
Give up some freedom Protect fundamental rights
Submit to some coercion Life · Liberty · Property

Classical liberalism (reminder)

  • Limit the power of government
  • Expand political participation
  • Allow individuals to flourish

The unfinished contract

Illustration of a torn or unfinished written contract symbolizing the incomplete original constitutional bargain

Torn document representing the unfinished social contract

The Breach

Biggest flaw by its own ideals?

Slavery

Antithesis

Slavery was the absolute antithesis of the contract’s promise of liberty and participation for all.

Excluded from the deal

  • Enslaved people — denied rights; treated as property inside the system
  • Women — citizens, but locked out of the political side of the bargain
  • Limited voting — property, race, gender barriers

Imperfect by its own standards

America started imperfect by the measure of its own ideals

Douglass

Frederick Douglass — 1852

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?

Douglass on the Founders

Historical portrait of Frederick Douglass

Portrait of Frederick Douglass

“I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic… With them, nothing was ‘settled’ that was not right.”

Douglass’s move

Condemn the breach — and invite the country to live up to its own ideals

Renegotiating the Terms

A 200-year renegotiation

Amendments as formal rewrites of the original agreement

Civil War Amendments

Year Amendment Core change
1865 13th Abolishes slavery
1868 14th Citizenship · equal protection · due process
1870 15th Vote not denied by race

Voting and participation

Year Amendment Core change
1913 17th Direct election of Senators
1920 19th Vote not denied by sex
1964 24th No poll tax in federal elections
1971 26th Vote at age 18

Expanding the contract

Horizontal timeline of constitutional amendments from 1865 to 1971 expanding rights and participation

Timeline of major amendments expanding the constitutional contract

Expanding the circle

Concentric or growing circles showing expansion of constitutional protection and political participation over time

Diagram of the expanding circle of those protected and participating

Ink Needs Backup

Writing it down ≠ making it real

14th Amendment ratified 1868 — sex discrimination under equal protection recognized in 1971

About 103 years

Ink on parchment is only the first step

Enforcement statutes

  • Civil Rights Act of 1964
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965
  • Title IX (1972)
  • Americans with Disabilities Act (1991)

Formal amendment still matters

Hard to adopt · hard to repeal · signals near-consensus · binds ordinary politics

Outside formal amendment (preview)

Statutes · judicial interpretation · political practice — most of this returns in Bill of Rights and Courts lectures

ERA and the 14th

Equal Rights Amendment

Attempted — not ratified

Unfinished renegotiation

Shows how hard formal change is — and that “almost” is not enough

The 14th Amendment angle

One view: ERA may be unnecessary — and may single women out as a class needing special protection they already have under the 14th

The counter

The 14th is not explicit on sex — so protection still depends on the goodwill of future Courts

Spooner’s challenge

If you never signed the contract, are you bound by its terms?

Three steps (open question)

Three-step flowchart: no personal consent, original signers dead, participation compelled

Flowchart of Spooner’s three-step argument

Why that makes rights urgent

If no one really agreed explicitly, respecting basic rights is both an ethical imperative and a practical one

Discussion

Discussion

What else needs to be done along these same lines — expanding the circle of those protected and those who participate?

Next

Next class (September 14): Bill of Rights, Part 1

Come ready to connect amendments and structure to specific listed rights.

Reminders

  • Module 1 Study Guide and Connect due September 18

Authorship and License

Do not submit to Quizlet, Chegg, Coursehero, or similar commercial sites.

Author Tom Hanna
Website tomhanna.me
License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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