I think the US Constitution is a funny document, but I have a small rebuttal on the racism front. I have no doubt it is a racist document but I'd like to give your politicians a small defence. When the constitution was drawn up, the nation of France - somewhat central and connected to the revolution had just imploded. We aren't at the guillotining stage yet, but they're not far off throwing the King under the bus.

This has a knock on effect closer to home in Haiti, once again we're not at Toussaint Louverture quite yet, but we're getting a lot of murmuring and rebellion springing up and any politician can see its only a matter of time. It would not have been a great time to declare citizenship for anyone who wasn't white and male. That's patriarchal and racist of course, but the women's marches during the French Revolution and the rebellions on Haiti made it a less than ideal time to start handing out badges of citizenship. The US was only a few years old and wouldn't have had the stability or the centralisation to put down an internal rebellion. It would've been too politically contentious, even if the will was there (and it probably wasn't)

Abolitionists would've been on the political scene from around 1790 trying to reduce the slave trade, but the American economy would not have been ready for the radical shake up of offering citizenship to all its people. It would've destroyed the nation in a sort of pre-emptive abortion - as would not taking lands from the indigenous people. I don't necessarily agree with the morality of slavery or theft, but I think those men believed firmly in what they were doing, and could (and did) force through the forging of a superpower nation.... one that many people enjoy today. Compare and contrast with Haiti to see the alternative.

I'm throwing this rebuttal out because being argumentative comes with the territory, but also... they did forge a nation where a gay white man can write an essay like yours. There aren't many places in the world where this is true - and we must be careful about how we critique decisions and people of the past incase we throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think they did their best, and their best wasn't good enough by today's standards... but I think our decisions today (like tacitly endorsing sweatshops because we like cheap clothes and that's another country's problem) will be condemned by people a few generations down the line. We did know. We did nothing. We liked the T-shirts.