And inbetween (1863, 1963), two major civil rights leaders (one white, one black, both male), remind the nation about the original proposition of Justice.  

Meanwhile, before and after the Civil War, women ask to be included in the nouns referring to “citizens” and “persons.”  Somewhere around World War I, Congress passes this; with Maryland waiting til 1958 to send its acknowledgement in…

Yep, that’s what I love about this country, the “USA”:

1770s, let’s say 1776. . . . 

Some forefathers held a number of  meetings (summits) and designed, among other things Declared Independence from Longstanding and Egregious Pattern of Oppressions, declared certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, protested and enumerated (specifically) some nasty things the Mother Country (England) and its King had done, and in an attempt to make sure the people had a voice in their own government.  They designed two houses of Congress to meet and make laws; an EXECUTIVE Branch to enforce & execute them (NOT write them) and a JUDICIAL Branch to judge fairly as to the enforcement of these laws.  

This all based on the premise that no one individual or entity should have too much power over the people.  

The concept of a national definition of “Happiness” I don’t think was set in concrete; but that life and liberty would enable men to pursue it, at least.  

Keywords:  “Forefathers Design Congress”

For “oppression,” compare “abuse.”

SAMPLE:

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.  ((NB:  The standing armies of our day & time may have other names, but are backed up by police force….))
• He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

Hmmm. . . . . Interesting . . . . . 

1848 — 72 years later, women say, “Us, too!”

Some women, referring to the Declaration of Independence meet in NY to demand equal rights, including the vote.

Fighting for the Vote

The first women’s rights convention took place in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in July 1848. The declaration that emerged was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it claimed that “all men and women are created equal” and that “the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman.” Following a long list of grievances were resolutions for equitable laws, equal educational and job opportunities, and the right to vote.

 

1863 (87 years later….)

President Lincoln remembers what 1776 was about

Growing pains — some discrepancies of interpretation of the word “men” arise, and more discrepancies about the balance of powers between Federal and States.  

President Lincoln — following a 2-hour speech, gives a memorable 2- MINUTE speech referring to the above:

“With the Union victory in the Civil War, women abolitionists hoped their hard work would result in suffrage for women as well as for blacks. But the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, adopted in 1868 and 1870 respectively, granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women.”

 

1866-1868 –

13th, 14th, & 15th, Amendments still not thought to include women:

Constitutional Grants of Powers to Congress under the Civil War Amendments

AMENDMENT XIII

     Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865. 

     Section 1.  
     Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

      Section 2.  
     Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. 

AMENDMENT XIV

     Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868. 

     Section 1.  
     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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

      Section 2-4 [omitted]. 

     Section 5.  
     The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

AMENDMENT XV

     Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870. 

      Section 1.  
     The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

      Section 2.  
     The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

========

1871 (95 years later) Congress has yet to acknowledge women as citizens or persons, in re: voting

Petition to Congress, December 1871

In the year following the ratification of the 15th amendment, a voting rights petition sent to the Senate and House of Representatives requested that suffrage rights be extended to women and that women be granted the privilege of being heard on the floor of Congress. It was signed by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other suffragists. Well known in the United States suffrage movement, Anthony and Stanton organized the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869.

(http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/woman-suffrage/petition-to-congress.html)

1920 — US. Constitution 19th Amendment, gives

women suffrage.

Nineteenth Amendment 
     Passed by Congress June 4, 1919.  
Ratified August 18, 1920. 

Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. 

Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.  
    

Which countries granted women the vote first?  Do you see USA on here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women’s_suffrage

1958

Maryland finally sends its acknowledgement that women can vote (now 38 yrs old) to Congress.

1963  (187 years later). . .. 

This man, speaking at the “Lincoln Memorial” remembers both Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence.

Because of copyright (image is public domain), please review at link (title) for audio and transcription:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. 

1966 –  N.O.W.   formed, and says:

We, men and women, who hereby constitute ourselves as the National Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders.

The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.

We believe the time has come to move beyond the abstract argument, discussion and symposia over the status and special nature of women which has raged in America in recent years; the time has come to confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent women from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of which is their right, as individual Americans, and as human beings.

NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women, first and foremost, are human beings, who, like all other people in our society, must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential. We believe that women can achieve such equality only by accepting to the full the challenges and responsibilities they share with all other people in our society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life.

We organize to initiate or support action, nationally, or in any part of this nation, by individuals or organizations, to break through the silken curtain of prejudice and discrimination against women in government, industry, the professions, the churches, the political parties, the judiciary, the labor unions, in education, science, medicine, law, religion and every other field of importance in American society. Enormous changes taking place in our society make it both possible and urgently necessary to advance the unfinished revolution of women toward true equality, now. With a life span lengthened to nearly 75 years it is no longer either necessary or possible for women to devote the greater part of their lives to child-rearing; yet childbearing and rearing which continues to be a most important part of most women’s lives-still is used to justify barring women from equal professional and economic participation and advance.

AND:

NOW we have Congress Designing Fatherhood, trying to “equalize” the progress since, say, women got the right to vote, own property, sue their husbands in divorce situations, and become increasingly educated:

1990s, before women’s right to vote turns 100, Fatherhood Fights Back . . . 

The Fatherhood Industry – initiatives to promote responsible fatherhood, stigmatize absentee fathers

Progressive, The ,  Nov, 1999   by Judith Davidoff

Created in 1994 to “counter the growing problem of fatherlessness by stimulating a broad-based social movement to restore responsible fatherhood as a national priority,” the National Fatherhood Initiative believes that “fathers make unique and irreplaceable contributions to the lives of their children.”

In its first year, the group convened a National Summit on Fatherhood in Dallas. The purpose, according to the group’s literature, was to gather the nation’s “civic, business, and philanthropic leaders” together to “build a national consensus on the need to quickly reduce father absence.” The National Fatherhood Initiative provides technical assistance to the Governors’ Task Force on Fatherhood Promotion, whose goal is to help “rebuild the institution of fatherhood” in the twenty-first century. And the group works with the bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Fatherhood Promotion,formed in 1997 to promote leadership in combating “fatherlessness.”

1992/1993, Jack Straton writes about “what’s Fair to Children of Abusive Men?

1994 – VAWA act passed.  Losing no time, 

1994 — NFI Formed

JUNE 1995? — Clinton, Fatherhood Executive Memo (see my blogroll), directing ALL Federal Depts & Agencies to review and revise their policies to include fathers.

June 1998 — House of Reps passes a resolution (see below; I also posted the 1999 Congressional resolution earlier).

http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/bills/105/hr417eh.txt.pdf.

AND SO ON, AND SO FORTH…

The Declaration of Independence AND The Gettysburg Address AND the “I Have a Dream” speech contain complete sentences:  subject, object, verb.  They reference specific time and place and identified principles.

• Several of the doctrines I find so damaging and hurtful to families in this nation, USA, today, do not even have a verb!  They are buzzwords, sound-bytes, with no nutrients inside.  They are enzymes, not protein, not fiber, not a healthy balance of nutrients.  When even the SUBJECTs (agents of the missing verbs) are missing, then we have no open accountability for either precipating the action leading up to the desired state:
• “Promoting Responsible Fatherhood.”
• “Healthy Families”
• “No Child Left Behind” 
• “Personal Work and Responsibility Act” (i.e., get off welfare)
• “Violence Against Women Act”
• “Parental Alienation Syndrome”
• “Equal Parenting” (a made-up word, attempting to eradicate the difference between “mother” and “father” and in essence, delete the word “mother” from public discourse, reducing us instead to “female.”), and, as I said yesterday,
• “Explicating Domestic Violence in the Context of Custody.”
• “Best Interests of the Child.”  (anyone have a DEFINITION of that??)

We would be better off promoting justice, rather than “fatherhood” (but not motherhood”), to promote which requires UNDERmining the justice process, outside of plain view of the participants.

That’s enough for today.  More of the same can be found at the HHS website.

I will share some of the “funding” of the fatherhood movement (some, only) in a separate post.

1998 H. Res 417 s

Next thing you know, about 222 hundred years later

DOCID: f:hr417ih.txt]

105th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 417

 Regarding the importance of fathers in the raising and development of
                            their children.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 30, 1998

   Mr. Pitts (for himself, Mr. Turner, Mr. Rogan, Mr. McIntyre, Mr.
  Gingrich, Mr. Armey, Mr. DeLay, Mr. Boehner, Mr. Gephardt, and Mr.
 Bonior) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
                Committee on Education and the Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 Regarding the importance of fathers in the raising and development of
                            their children.

Whereas studies reveal that even in high-crime, inner-city neighborhoods, well
        over 90 percent of children from safe, stable, two-parent homes do not
        become delinquents;
Whereas researchers have linked father presence with improved fetal and infant
        development, and father-child interaction has been shown to promote a

http://frwebgate1.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=9851889234+2+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve

1998_H04249.pdf (application/pdf Object).

The vote (Roll No. 212) was yeas 415, nays 0, not voting 18.

REGARDING IMPORTANCE OF FATHERS IN RAISING
AND DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR CHILDREN

(House of Representatives – June 09, 1998)

H. Res. 417

Whereas studies reveal that even in high-crime, inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of
children from safe, stable, two-parent homes do not become delinquents;

Whereas researchers have linked father presence with improved fetal and infant development, and
father-child interaction has been shown to promote a child’s physical well-being, perceptual
abilities, and competency for relatedness with other persons, even at a young age;

Whereas premature infants whose fathers spend ample time playing with them have better cognitive
outcomes, and children who have higher than average self-esteem and lower than average
depression report having a close relationship with their father;

Whereas both boys and girls demonstrate a greater ability to take initiative and evidence
self-control when they are reared with fathers who are actively involved in their upbringing;

Whereas, although mothers often work tremendously hard to rear their children in a nurturing
environment, a mother can benefit from the positive support of the father of her children;

Whereas, according to a 1996 Gallup Poll, 79.1 percent of Americans believe the most significant
family or social problem facing America is the physical absence of the father from the home and the
resulting lack of involvement of fathers in the rearing and development of their children;

Whereas, according to the Bureau of the Census, in 1994, 19,500,000 children in the United
States (nearly one-fourth of all children in the United States) lived in families in which the father was
absent;

Whereas, according to a 1996 Gallup Poll, 90.9 percent of Americans believe it is important for
children to live in a home with both their mother and their father’;

Whereas it is estimated that half of all United States children born today will spend at least half their
childhood in a family in which a father figure is absent;

Whereas estimates of the likelihood that marriages will end in divorce range from 40 percent to 50
percent, and approximately three out of every five divorcing couples have at least one child;

Whereas almost half of all 11- through 16-year-old children who live in mother-headed homes
have not seen their father in the last twelve months;

Whereas the likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is reared
without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent
families;

Whereas children of single-parents are less likely to complete high school and more likely to have
low earnings and low employment stability as adults than children reared in two-parent families;

Whereas a 1990 Los Angeles Times poll found that 57 percent of all fathers and 55 percent of all
mothers feel guilty about not spending enough time with their children;

Whereas almost 20 percent of 6th through 12th graders report that they have not had a good
conversation lasting for at least 10 minutes with at least one of their parents in more than a month;

Whereas, according to a Gallup poll, over 50 percent of all adults agreed that fathers today spend
less time with their children than their fathers spent with them;

Whereas President Clinton has stated that `the single biggest social problem in our society may be
the growing absence of fathers from their children’s homes because it contributes to so many other
social problems’ and that ‘the real source of the [welfare] problem is the inordinate number of out
of wedlock births in this country’;

Whereas the Congressional Task Force on Fatherhood Promotion and the Senate Task Force on
Fatherhood Promotion were both formed in 1997, and the Governors Fatherhood Task Force was
formed in February 1998;

Whereas the Congressional Task Force on Fatherhood Promotion is exploring the social changes
that are required to ensure that every child is reared with a father who is committed to be actively
involved in the rearing and development of his children;

Whereas the 36 members of the Congressional Task Force on Fatherhood Promotion are
promoting fatherhood in their congressional districts;

Whereas the National Fatherhood Initiative is holding a National Summit on Fatherhood in
Washington, D.C., with the purpose of mobilizing a response to father absence in several of the
most powerful sectors of society, including public policy, public and private social services,
education, religion, entertainment, the media, and the civic community;

Whereas both Republican and Democrat leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate
will be participating in this event; and

Whereas the promotion of fatherhood is a bipartisan issue: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) recognizes that the creation of a better America depends in large part on the active involvement
of fathers in the rearing and development of their children;

(2) urges each father in America to accept his full share of responsibility for the lives of his children,
to be actively involved in rearing his children, and to encourage the academic, moral, and spiritual
development of his children and urges the States to aggressively prosecute those fathers who fail to
fulfill their legal responsibility to pay child support;

(3) encourages each father to devote time, energy, and resources to his children, recognizing that
children need not only material support, but more importantly a secure, affectionate, family
environment; and

(4) expresses its support for a national summit on fatherhood