Progress Does Not Always Come Easy

As a legislator in my state
I drew up my first law to say
That citizens could never vote again
After they had passed away.

My fellow members faced that troubling issue
Bravely, locked in hard debate
On whether, after someone’s death had come
three years should be adequate

To let the family, recollecting him,
Determine how a loved one may
Have cast a vote if he had only lived
To see the later voting day,

My own neighbors warned me I had gone
Too far in changing what we’d always done
I lost the next campagne, and failed to carry
A single precinct with a cemetary.

Jimmy Carter

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