Lilith,

This criticism may be generalized as “What is a citizen” or “What is a human”. This is an example of what I was referring to as an internal crisis.

If the changing notion of what constitutes a human or a citizen could not be integrated into the structure of the ideals of democracy; if democracy could not move beyond the concept that a citizen had to be a free male real estate owner, then democracy would take a place in the Museum of Antiqued Ideas. That has not happened.

The philosophical underpinnings of the Declaration and the rather more practical foundation of the Constitution were not broken when the definitions of human and citizen changed. Ref Constitutional Amendments, 13, 15, 19, 26

As I recall, there was much bruhahah about the issues at the time.

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Eudaimonia