Gerrrymandering

In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. Now districts must be equal in size within the state by population and must be contiguous. This gives us some very unique districts. Illinois 4th district was featured by The Economist as one of the most strangely drawn and gerrymandered congressional districts in the country and has been nicknamed "earmuffs" due to its shape. It was created to pack two majority Hispanic parts of Chicago into one district.

Technically districts should be drawn to give equal representation for the given district but this is not so. The districts are cut up in such a manner to give itself a distinctive advantage come election time. That means if one party has the majority of the state legislature they usually want to draw the districts so that they have a better chance of winning. This makes elections of state legislatures very important. There should be laws against gerrymandering and draw lines with more equal representation. The problem is democrats tend to live in the urban areas and therefore would most likely win most of the seats in Congress. My opinion is that gerrymandering complicates the political process and should be done away with.

Social rights

Our Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, but are we actually all equal. According to Marshall, social citizenship includes “the whole range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in society”. The best example Marshall explains,  "explain to a pauper that his property rights are the same as those of a millionaire, he will probably accuse you of quibbling."  He states that "The Poor Law" was an aid since it relieved industry of all social responsibility outside the contract of employment and schooling increased the value of the worker without educating him above his station. Most of the time, higher income individuals will believe there are too many handouts and lower income people will say there isn't enough help.

Now Marshall's point of view is from a white man. Mr. Fredrick Douglas speaking to a black crowd must feel even more distant from having an equal right to the pursuit of happiness our declaration states. Douglas' speech tells the horrible acts of the slave trade, "the crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe...... that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on." He gives many more examples of how Negros are treated and how the 4th of July should be a mockery to them. It amazes me now how slavery could've existed. Douglas states how profitable the industry was and they needed to revolt as much as they could to change the system. Douglas finished off believing slavery will eventually be a thing of the past and he was right.