Tag Archives: declaration of independence

Property Requirements, Voting, and the Plymouth Oration

My Country – Property Requirements for Voting In April 1821, Massachusetts began a movement to remove property requirements for voters. According to A Constitutional History of the American People, 1776-1850, Volume 1, by Francis Newton Thorpe, “the landless man, it was though, could not be trusted.” Generally, our founding fathers considered property as the basis of …