If You Need Another Reason to Vote

This was stolen from an email Siskbert sent me today. No idea if he is the author or not (I suspect he might be.) Since he refuses to create his own blog (COWARD!) I am posting it here. If someone else should have credit, perhaps he will let us know.

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A little over 232 years ago, fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence. They did with the full knowledge that if the revolution failed for any reason, each and everyone would most likely be hung from his neck until dead. Probably in full sight of their families. Why? Because they believed in the concept of freedom from tyranny. In the concept of fair representation. In the idea that every man (well, land-holding white male) had the right to vote for a candidate to represent him on the local and national level.

Luckily, for our sake, they won.

94 years later in 1870, after a bloody civil war that claimed the live of over 620,000 soldiers (plus innumerable women, children, slaves, elderly, infirm, etc, etc) the 15th amendment was ratified, and it read "...the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

That would be 214,000 more American soldiers lost than in all of WWII. Plus one sitting president who gave his life for the idea that all men ARE created equal.

Of course, it wasn't until August 18, 1920 (yes, one hundred and thirty-one long years after Washington took the oath of office the first time), that women were given the right to decide who should be president. Or governor. Or mayor. Or even PTA secretary possibly. (Unless you lived in Wyoming that is. Yet that was only local.) But that was only after the Suffragettes were jailed, tortured, went on hunger strikes and endured humiliation, scorn and ridicule.

Oh, to you who make up over fifty-percent of the current electorate: you can thank one lone mother for that right. Mrs. J. L. Burn (Febb Ensminger) of Niota, Tennessee wrote to her son, Harry Burn, the youngest member of the Tennessee legislature and the last hold-out vote against the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In her letter, she told him "don't forget to be a good boy" and "vote for suffrage." So he did what every good son should do, he did what his very intelligent mother told him to do. And with that, Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment and make it part of the law of the land.

But it was just 44 short years ago that the Civil Rights Act of 1966 passed prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin by federal and state governments.

Forty-four years ago. That's it. Barely four more years than I've even been on this planet.

One more set of numbers to leave you with: there 8,760 hours in a year; 35,040 in four years. So is giving up just one of those hours in order to reward all the above sacrifices made so we can live freely in this rather great country really so much to ask for?

Or to put it more simply, say thank you to all those who've given up so much for you: vote. It doesn't matter for whom, or why, just vote.