What does the record of the expansion of suffrage tell you about trends in the United States from 1789 to the present?

“i think it is very plausible that if there are five votes to end the death penalty, it could be with the people who are on the court right now,” - smith

so basically it is not clearly and consistently imposed

1. the townshend acts of 1767 “threaten the country with poverty and ruin.”

at a town meeting held at faneuil hall in boston on october 28, 1767, boston freeholders and residents discussed the implications of the brutal townshend acts levied against the colonists. the townshend acts were a set of four acts passed by the british parliament in the summer of 1767 in order to generate revenue for the crown (through duties on goods such as lead, glass, paper, and tea) as well as exert british control over the increasingly rebellious colonists.

during the oct. 28 meeting, the bostonians found:

the excessive use of foreign superfluities is the chief cause of the present distressed state of this town, as it is thereby drained of its money: which misfortune is likely to be increased by means of the late additional burthens and impositions on the trade of the province, which threaten the country with poverty and ruin.

as a result, the citizens unanimously voted to boycott all british-made goods.