The doctrine of manhood suffrage was imported to America from France in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and began to infect American politics some twenty years after the Independence, though its final triumph was delayed another score of years. To some of us it seems almost incredible that any honest man could avoid being strongly prejudiced against a political institution which had produced such horrible results as manhood suffrage in France, and it would probably today be but a poor recommendation of any political scheme to an intelligent man that it was adopted by the French Revolutionary Convention of 1792. But a century ago the masses in the United States were not thinkers, and were even more inclined to be carried away by emotional crazes than they are at present; no doubt the success of the American Revolution had turned many heads. It was a time when young gentlemen were much afflicted by morbid sentimentality; when ladies did not fail to faint on proper occasion; when American gentlemen fought duels because of sham sentiment or to sustain a sham honor; when blood-curdling novels were devoured with gusto; when Byron’s all-defying pirate heroes were the rage; when young clerks went about gloomily brooding in turned-down collars and imagining that the whole world consisted of oppressors and the oppressed. To such a romantic and superficial young America the platitudes and empty sentimentalities of the French Radicals made a stronger appeal than the plain common sense talk of the British Tories. Besides all this a large part of the American people at the close of the American Revolution in 1783 were deeply grateful to the French nation for its timely and effective assistance in the war for Independence. Without French aid, it was thought that the revolt might have failed, and of course they did not stop to reflect that Lafayette and Rochambeau were noblemen; that it was a French monarchy and not a republic which had been so helpful to America. And so when a few years later France became a Republic, largely owing, it was thought, to American influence and example, there was great enthusiasm in many American hearts for France and everything French, including the new political theories of the Rights of Man, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Even the Terrorists for a time had their sympathizers here, some of whom probably were unaware of the facts as the newspaper accounts of doings abroad were meagre and distorted. The French partisans here even believed and circulated slanders against the noble and spotless Washington. It is easy to believe interesting lies. Did not our fellow Americans in the South work themselves up in 1860 to a silly belief that they were or were about to be plundered and oppressed by the perfectly harmless rest of us? Did not the English and French make themselves believe and declare in January, 1865, that the Southern States were on the eve of final victory when they were obviously tottering to a final fall? Have not we Americans to the last deluded man of us gone about for the past century believing and swearing that we won a signal triumph in the war of 1812 and refusing to credit our own officers and historians to the contrary? How many Americans failed to go wrong in their sympathies at the beginning of the last Russian revolution? The American radicals therefore probably chose to believe that Marat, Robespierre, Danton and Co., instead of being humbugs, blackguards and miscreants, were wise and honest republicans, whose massacres of harmless prisoners and other similar performances were excusable ebullitions of patriotic zeal. When for instance the news of the defeat of Brunswick by Dumouriez came to America in December, 1792, there were great rejoicings among them. There were dinners, suppers, speeches, cannon firing and processions in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities. The inns and taverns were filled with those whose heads were turned by liquor and enthusiasm; some wearing liberty caps and cockades; all singing, shouting and drinking toasts. On December 27th in New York City the whole day was given up to public rejoicing, including a celebration by the Tammany Society.

The instinct of imitation is strong, especially among children, savages and the lower classes. We had been imitating the British; we now took to imitating the French. Everything French was popular; became the rage. When the French Minister Genet, representing the Terrorist government, arrived here in April, 1793, he landed at Charleston, whence he proceeded to Philadelphia, the seat of the Federal Government. He really represented a band of blood-stained scoundrels who had usurped power in France, who had just guillotined the king and most of whom were for sale, yet he was hailed by a faction here as a hero and the emissary of sages and patriots. There were receptions, escorts, processions and banquets, where “Citizen” Genet was glorified, our own government was denounced, and an American reign of terror threatened. At some of the banquets a red liberty cap was displayed; half drunken young American radicals danced about the table; the guillotine was toasted, and capitalists were threatened with death. At that time England, outraged and disgusted by the insults and bloody rapine of the French Terrorist government, had gone to war with France; our howling mobs therefore yelled for war with England, and mouthing politicians who had never smelt gunpowder pretended to be eager to fight Great Britain, although we had neither army, navy, transports nor money. Two American privateers were actually fitted out to sail under French colors and prey on English commerce in defiance of the law and of the Federal Government.

Meantime the American friends and enemies of the French Revolution taunted and vilified each other in newspapers, pamphlets, and otherwise publicly and privately. Some of the American featherheads, in imitation of the antics of the French Republicans, addressed each other as “citizen” and “citess,” instead of Mr. and Mrs. this and that. Serious and sensible folk, including President Washington, looked askance at these follies, and by many they were treated with the ridicule they deserved. The rabble thereupon after their nature and in further imitation of the French democracy which they so admired, revenged themselves by flinging coarse insults at their unsympathetic fellow citizens, including Washington himself. In about three years’ time this wild craze passed away; but French influence continued. French dancing schools, fencing schools, dishes, names, expressions, customs, dress, music, and books were popular; French newspapers were published in all important cities, and some permanent progress was made by French Revolutionary influence and ideas.

We may here note that after the death of Robespierre and the overthrow of the Terror and on September 23rd, 1795, after a test of over three years, manhood suffrage was abolished in France almost without a protest. It was unanimously recognized that it was responsible for the Terror, for the disorder and insecurity of life and property which had prevailed since its adoption and for the complete financial and economic prostration of France, whose people were starving by thousands for need of that social order and confidence without which modern civilization is impossible. In the official report on the subject presented to the National Convention in 1795, and which was adopted after full discussion, we read these words: “We ought to be governed by the best; the best are the most highly educated, and those most interested in the maintenance of the laws. Now with very few exceptions you will only find such men among those who, possessing a freehold, are attached to the country which contains it, the laws which protect it, and the tranquillity which preserves it, and who owe to their property and their affluence the education which has fitted them to discuss with justice and understanding the advantages and disadvantages of the laws which determine the fate of their country.... A country governed by freeholders is in a social condition; a country in which the non-proprietors govern is in a state of nature.” Unfortunately the mischief that had been already done by the radicals has never been quite cured, and France has suffered many things since then; but that is another story. The extreme French Radicals did not for all this abandon their attachment to their revolutionary ideas; their influence in the United States continued to be very considerable, and the rapid spread of the new-fangled doctrine of manhood suffrage in the young American states after the death of Washington had removed his conservative influence was no doubt largely due to the effect of the plausible ranting and twaddle of the French Revolutionists and their followers.

Everything has to be paid for in this world, and for the help of France in the fight for independence, the United States had something to pay in the corruption, waste and deterioration caused by the adoption of the silly theory of the French radicals that in governmental matters one man’s judgment and intent are as good as another’s, those of the ignorant and thriftless equal to those of the frugal, industrious and well-informed.