Any attempt to depict the US as a free country prior to 1920 is a nonstarter. There was slavery, Jim Crow, and women could not vote. Seriously, give me a break.
We also had one of the strongest eugenics movements in the world, under the same progressive flag as women's suffrage. It took the horrors of WWII to snap us out of it.
And it set us back because we overcorrected. The biggest evil of historical eugenics was the non-consensual application, not the idea that we should improve the gene pool.
This thread is an interesting summary of possible "eugenics" type applications and if those surveyed consider them moral today:
The Catholic Church still opposes all of those except for offering network support and feeding single mothers (in which cases it recommends generosity). I don't think that's an overcorrection; I think it's the result of thinking very hard about human dignity over many generations.
You can't completely discount the past because it doesn't meet a modern standard. It's certain that something many are doing today will be considered abhorrent in one hundred years. So are we all today too evil to bother with? Are you no worse than a murderer because you live in our flawed times? I doubt it. There were people and institutions before 1920 that were terrible and some that should be celebrated.
It was a free country, for a subset of the population. I would suggest that the idea of liberty, the definition, was as worthy then as it is now. I would also completely agree with the expansion of the people who are entitled to it.
my ancestors had property rights and university education for women, always anti-slavery.. please do not lump me into your vague assertion
edit- the USA was divided strongly between states, which had constitutions of their own. There was a very bright line between the Massachusetts colonies and the Virginia colonies, and then others.. Property rights and real education for women were a large topic! slavery was hated for good reasons .. the social contract that "my particular ancestors" created, specifically are what the PP were dismissing.. its inaccurate to dismiss that
