The circumstances of the adoption of the system of manhood suffrage by state after state a century ago are not such as to justify us of today in according much authority to their determination. The movement was one of weakness, ignorance and degeneracy, not part of an effort to further achieve the highest ideals of republican theories, but a reactionary yielding to cheap, selfish and opportunist politics. It was successful because the mass of the American people lacked both the experience and the foresight necessary to enable them to realize the probably fatal result of the proposed change.

We have already noted that following the establishment of the Federal Government in 1789, though the upper and educated classes, especially in the older American states, did not display much enthusiasm for French radical political ideas, and though Washington and the propertied class were openly hostile to them, they were acclaimed by the working classes, the poor farmers, the immigrants, and many of the romantic youths of the country; and were partly adopted by Jefferson and such others as like him were somewhat under French influence. We may add to the influences favoring manhood suffrage in the old and populous states that of the resident foreigners, which was considerable. It would be a mistake to suppose that at this early period there had been little immigration to this country. The fact is that the proportion of immigrants to the whole population was then probably greater than at any subsequent time; the foreign element at the time of the independence, including British and Irish, Germans, Dutch, Swedes and French, probably amounting to about one-third of the entire population. Another class of people who unquestioningly accepted the doctrine of manhood suffrage was that of the frontiersmen or pioneer western settlers. It is the fashion in these days to hail every political novelty as an “advance,” and accordingly the twaddlers, including writers of that ilk, tell us unctuously that the adoption of manhood suffrage was part of the “advance” of civilization. The truth is, however, that it was not the fruit of an improved civilization, but was first adopted when and where the population was coarse, rough and unlettered. In the new and sparsely settled states, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee and Ohio, the principle of manhood suffrage was accepted almost as a matter of course and without any serious discussion. In those states there was at that time an approximation to practical equality among the inhabitants both in property and intelligence, the standard of both being low; political problems were simple and primitive; and an equal share in government to all men seemed natural and reasonable. There was but little property except land which was plenty and cheap; farming was the principal occupation; and the farmer was confined to the home market there being no railroads to carry his produce to distant places. The great differences between rich and poor existing in older communities were not present; none of the conditions which render manhood suffrage so objectionable in large cities were found in these new states. When Georgia adopted a low qualification in 1789 her population was less than two to the square mile; when Vermont entered the Union she had less than ten to the square mile; Kentucky had two; Ohio one; Tennessee two. There must have seemed little reason in attempting to create distinctions in rude and primitive communities where none actually existed.

Another consideration operating to lower the suffrage was the competition among the new states to get settlers on any terms. Nearly all of those who had land in the newer states had more than they could use and were not only very anxious to sell some of it, but to get new neighbors on any terms, since each new arrival measurably increased the value of their holdings. One of the baits to induce immigration was the right to vote and hold office offered to all new comers. Even in our own day a number of western states permit aliens to vote as an inducement to settle in their limits, and we have had in the last few years the curious spectacle of unnaturalized and presumably hostile Germans voting at elections. The right to vote was highly valued in those early communities, where fortunes were not easily made, and where political preferment was much sought after as the most available road to distinction. To close that avenue to ambition was to discourage new settlers. It was therefore inevitable that such of the original thirteen as were sparsely settled states with populations composed partly of frontiersmen, and also all the new states as they came in one by one, should be willing to waive property qualifications for voters. And thus it was that in 1789 Georgia reduced her suffrage qualification to a small annual tax requirement; that in 1791 Vermont and in 1792 Kentucky came into the Union under manhood suffrage constitutions; that in 1792 New Hampshire adopted manhood suffrage; that in 1803 Ohio entered with a minimum tax qualification and that Indiana in 1816, Illinois in 1818 and Missouri in 1820 were admitted as manhood suffrage states, while some of the others, such as Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, merely prescribed tax qualifications which were far from onerous.

In the older states the advance of the manhood suffrage movement was aided by the influences already referred to; by the French Revolutionary party, including many foreigners; the city laboring classes, the thriftless and discontented, and the restless horde of theorists, dreamers, penny-a-liners, political adventurers, demagogues, agitators, radicals of every stripe, and many of that numerous class who had more facility in talking than in thinking. There is even yet among people of small intelligence a widespread belief in the miraculous efficiency of voting; and that belief is no doubt accountable for some of the eagerness with which the suffrage was demanded by superficial men who thought to better their condition by politics, and who, though plainly lacking in efficiency, unable even to get together a few hundred dollars in property to qualify them as voters, nevertheless rated high their own capacity to decide problems of state. We may add to this as helping the movement the plausibility to shallow minds of the assertion that all men are equal; and the prestige given it by its being quite unnecessarily put by Jefferson into the Declaration of Independence. Another cause which has been said to have contributed, was the severe financial panic of 1819 which brought widespread distress and consequent discontent with things as they were. Why not try a change? is an argument which has more or less success at every election. Then too the American easy good nature and hospitality of character must have helped along; that softness which makes many dislike to refuse a boon which will not cost anything in cash or its equivalent. It must have seemed to many men easy and pleasant to vote to allow their neighbors to vote, especially when to a dull man the reasons to the contrary were not altogether obvious.

Nor is it altogether strange that even in New York and Massachusetts few except the best trained minds had any real understanding of the dangers of letting in the ignorant and the thriftless classes to a voice in government. The American people had no experience of a political machine or of demagogues in power, and to most of them the operation of government seemed comparatively simple and within easy comprehension. Even in the old states the population was mostly rural; there were no railroads or telegraphs, comparatively little machinery, and none operated by steam. The property of the country consisted of houses, lands, farms, cattle and sheep; living was very plain, and the expenses of government comparatively small. Life was not then the complicated affair that it is at present, specialization was rare, efficiency in any branch of business was not near so difficult to achieve as it has since become. Under the election system then in practice, and following the old colonial traditions then still extant, the candidates for office had usually been men of distinction whose reputations were well known in the community, and who were personally known at least by sight and speech to most of the voters. The people had had no real experience of government by election in large constituencies. There were few large cities, the largest in 1820 being New York, with a population of 125,000, while Philadelphia had but 65,000 and Boston 45,000 population. Probably it was comparatively safe in most urban communities to leave the street door unguarded at night, a practice scarcely recommendable in New York or Chicago in these times. Their governors had previously either been sent from England or chosen by their state legislatures, and their high state officials had been appointed by the crown, the governor, the proprietor or the legislature. Their only real experience with the suffrage had been in small local elections, parishes, boroughs and towns, where the prizes of office were small and everyone knew his neighbor. Most of the voters were substantial American farmers and tradesmen, who anticipated as the result of the granting of manhood suffrage nothing worse than that the roll of new voters would include their own sons, the village schoolmaster, together with a few poor artisans and farm hands who had no class prejudices, who could be depended upon to vote with their well-to-do neighbors, and whose numbers were not sufficient to seriously affect election results.

To the extent to which the manhood suffrage movement was conscious of its own tendencies, it was a revolt led by political adventurers against government by the intelligence of the country, and above all and beyond all the forces operating in furtherance of the movement for manhood suffrage in the older states was the new influence of the politicians and political office seekers, who by 1820 began, though in a comparatively small way, to appear as a real political power in the land. Though many of our ancestors early distrusted and later learned to hate and despise the politicians, the people have never organized to oppose them and in the beginning failed to realize the insidious growth of their sway. The politicians then as now clamored for an extended electorate, the more ignorant, simple, emotional and easily influenced the better. They welcomed the uninstructed male vote of that day for the same reason that they welcome the still more ignorant female vote of this day. The ears of the masses were open to them because they could talk and bellow the political cant and jargon in which the rabble delight. Then as now they wanted all the offices made elective; suffrage for everybody, even aliens, and especially the ignorant and shiftless; and they kept up their efforts in the old states until the bars were let down, and every man had a vote.

Most of the old populous states began the change by lowering the qualification, changing it from the actual ownership of property to the payment of a tax, usually a small one, sometimes merely nominal. Pennsylvania, a state tainted with French radical sympathies, had already reduced the qualification to the payment of a state or county tax; this standard was adopted by Delaware in 1792. In 1809 Maryland adopted manhood suffrage. In 1810 South Carolina and in 1819 Connecticut reduced the qualification to an almost nominal tax rate. In 1829 Virginia reduced the property requirement and finally abolished it in 1850. New Jersey held out till 1844.

The great battles, however, and those which finally decided the controversy in the United States were fought in Massachusetts and in New York in 1820 and 1821, though in both states the success of the manhood suffrage party was a foregone conclusion before the final test was made. The situation was much the same as it has since been in relation to woman suffrage. As long as woman suffrage partisans had no votes anywhere the politicians gave them but scant courtesy. Even after they gained one or two states they were not much considered. But as soon as they had four or five states to their credit the politicians began to flock to their standard; the weaker and more unscrupulous going over first. The reason is plain. Every politician of note has his eye on the presidency either for himself or for his leader and his party. Under our system where the presidential vote is by states a single state may turn the election, and a woman suffrage state as well as another. Mr. Wilson for instance and Mr. Roosevelt, though on opposite sides on everything else, were united in patriotism, in burning desire for office and in devotion to democracy. Of course they both became champions of woman suffrage just as soon as a few states had been captured by the women and also of course their party followers took their cue accordingly. So it undoubtedly was in 1820. By that time there were nine new states west of the Alleghany Mountains. When it was seen that in all these new states manhood suffrage was in vogue, no presidential possibility dared oppose manhood suffrage anywhere, nor dared his followers differ from him on this point. It was a rush to get on the band wagon. And why should the professional politicians oppose a measure so obviously in their interest as a degradation of the ballot? Naturally therefore, in the New York Constitutional Convention of 1821 we had Martin Van Buren, a Jackson politician, leading the battle for extension of the suffrage and carrying all before him.

One naturally turns for enlightenment on the merits of the question to the records giving the arguments used pro and con in the discussions on the suffrage extension propositions of that time, but they are more interesting than important, because the debaters lacked the light of modern experience. Our political bosses and machines had not yet arrived, and America had then no immense populations of millions accustomed to live on daily wages, lacking the slightest knowledge of the principles or practical operation of finance, banking, trade and commerce; ignorant of the very elements of political economy, and yet ready to vote on all these matters under the direction of demagogues, themselves in the employ of bosses and machines. There were then no such divisions of classes as now; no large criminal and pauper population; no masses of foreigners herded together in tenement house life and ignorant of our problems and conditions. Our ancestors of a century ago were not gifted with imagination or prevision sufficient to enable them to foresee the enormous future immigration from Europe; the factory and tenement house systems; the vote market; the absolute and corrupt oligarchy of politicians, the political ring, machine and boss. Had they been gifted with this foresight it is safe to say that instead of lowering the suffrage qualifications they would have put the bars up so high that the disgraceful record of American politics for the last eighty years would never have been made.

In Massachusetts the Convention included as members, John Adams, Webster, Judge Joseph Story of the United States Supreme Court, Samuel Hoar and Josiah Quincy. The importance of protecting property interests had been recognized in that state ever since long prior to the Revolution, both by a suffrage qualification and in a provision whereby membership in the State Senate was apportioned according to the total taxes paid in each senatorial district. This system was continued by the Convention of 1820 but was subsequently abolished. Its sole importance was in its recognition of a principle; as a barrier against the rising tide of suffrage extension it was useless. The suffrage previously limited to owners of a moderate amount of property, real or personal, was by this Convention extended to all male citizens having paid any state or county tax. Adams, Webster and Story voted and spoke against the extension, but the writer has not seen a report of their arguments. Such of the speeches on the subject as are reported are not illuminative. They do not go deeply into the matter; those in favor of an extension have the tone of the perfunctory advocacy of a majority assured of success, those in opposition that of a hopeless protest. In favor of the extension it was argued that there was a popular demand for it; that it had been enacted in other states; that the existing Massachusetts qualification was in practice merely nominal; that it was easily evaded by perjury and sham transfers; that the sentiment of patriotism does not depend upon the possession of property; that the right to vote goes with the levy of a tax and that on principle all subject to even a poll tax were entitled to vote, and were unjustly degraded when the right was denied them. In opposition it was argued that property is the foundation of the social state; that there is no natural right to vote, and that the question is one of expediency; that the property qualification was necessary as a moral force and a check on demagoguery; that it encouraged industry, prudence and economy, was a protection against waste, elevated the standard of civil institutions and gave dignity and character to voter and candidate; that very few beside vagabonds were actually excluded from the polls, and while the qualification required was attainable by every efficient man, yet the principle was an important one and should be retained in the Constitution even though its enforcement had been somewhat lax and ineffective. The majority both in the Convention and at the polls in Massachusetts was decisive in favor of the proposed extension.

In New York the Convention was practically committed to the new measure before it met. The State Assembly had previously reported in its favor solely on the ground that the property qualification excluded many of the militia; referring probably to that large body of young militiamen who were too young to have acquired property. The report said, “On that part of our Constitution which relates to the qualification of voters at election, your committee have to remark that although its provisions when applied to the State of New York may be salutary and necessary it excludes from a participation in the choice of the principal officers of our government, that part of the population on which in case of war you are dependent for protection, viz., the most efficient part of the militia of our state.” This meaningless “straddle” is very suggestive of Van Buren. As an argument for manhood suffrage it is worthless. It is of course absurd to say that because a man has served or may serve in the militia he should therefore be intrusted with any part of the functions of government irrespective of his lack of other qualifications. Were the argument good it would require the extension of the vote to boys of eighteen and upwards, and would call in question the right to vote of any man incompetent to bear arms because of age or infirmity. The business of government is one thing, and the business of fighting in the field is another and very different thing. But this flimsy argument was capable of being used in an emotional manner and no doubt was so employed in the Convention with considerable effect; and though some of the militia had certainly failed to cover themselves with glory in the war of 1812, and many commands had done nothing but parade, no politician cared to offend them or even to appear to have done so. Another so-called argument was that of the Convention Committee on the Elective Franchise which handed in a report in favor of the change, containing the meaningless assertion that property distinctions were of British origin, but that here all interests are identical. The true theory that voting is the exercise of a governmental function was not suggested by the Committee.

Manhood suffrage was opposed in the New York Convention by three of our ablest jurists, Judges Spencer and Platt of the Supreme Court and Chancellor Kent, the learned author of the Commentaries on American Law and one of the most eminent lawyers of the world. Judge Platt truly said that the “elective privilege is neither a right nor a franchise, but is more properly speaking an office. A citizen has no more right to claim the privilege of voting than of being elected. The office of voting must be considered in the light of a public trust, and the electors are public functionaries, who have certain duties to perform for the benefit of the whole community.” Chancellor Kent strongly and forcibly said “I cannot but think that considerate men who have studied the history of republics or are read in lessons of experience, must look with concern upon our apparent disposition to vibrate from a well balanced government to the extremes of the democratic doctrines.” Of the principle of universal suffrage he said that it “has been regarded with terror by the wise men of every age, because in every European republic, ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has terminated disastrously and been productive of corruption, injustice, violence and tyranny.... The tendency of universal suffrage is to jeopardize the rights of property and the principle of liberty.”

The vote in the convention in favor of the extension was 100 to 19. The people of the State subsequently approved it by a substantial vote. The majority in New York City favoring it was 4608. On March 4th, 1822, the Legislature took the oath under the revised Constitution. Flags were displayed, church bells rung, there were salutes of cannon and an illumination in New York City. Some slight vestiges of the property qualification still remained after the adoption of the Constitution of 1822 but they were abolished in New York State in 1826 by a vote of 104,900 to 3901.

Although the action of New York in 1821 following Massachusetts in 1820 practically insured the triumph of manhood suffrage in the United States, yet the most interesting and ablest discussion upon the subject was yet to take place at Richmond, Virginia, in the State Convention of 1829. The State of Virginia had still clung to the old freehold suffrage qualification; in that Commonwealth prior to 1829 it was not enough that a voter should have property or business experience; he must be the owner of land or a freehold interest therein. The standard was not high, from $25 to $50 according to circumstances, but it established the principle and excluded the most degraded. Unfortunately, it also excluded many thrifty and intelligent citizens whose holdings did not happen to be in the form of real estate. On the demand then made for extension of the franchise, an opportunity to consider and discuss the theory of suffrage was naturally presented to the Constitutional Convention. That body was composed of about one hundred members, including the ablest political thinkers and most skilful and aggressive debaters of Virginia. In point of statesmanship and forensic ability its membership has probably never been surpassed in the history of the United States. It included ex-Presidents Madison and Monroe, Chief Justice John Marshall, John Tyler, John Randolph, William Giles and Alexander Campbell. The convention sat for over three months and in the course of the discussion on matters connected with the suffrage dozens of speeches were made, the perusal whereof is very interesting to the political student. Unfortunately, it so happened that though the debates were able, the consideration of the whole matter was biased by local rivalries and by the slavery question, then beginning to confuse and prejudice the Southern mind, and the most distinguished of the delegates took only a minor part in the proceedings. Between the Blue Ridge and the sea was Eastern Virginia, the Old Dominion, where tobacco raising flourished, white labor was scarce and all influential white men were freeholders. West of the Blue Ridge lay a new region, where the industrial situation was similar to that of the free states, and where there was a large body of non-freeholding white working men of the borderland type, who for years had been agitating for the abolition of the old freehold qualification. It was a clash between the Old East and the New West; between free labor and slave proprietorship. The Convention not only undertook the individual suffrage controversy, but entered into the question which also divided the two sections of the State, whether the basis of county representation in the legislature or in either branch thereof should continue as heretofore to be property values rather than population; thus bringing up the fundamental question of whether numbers only should govern without regard to intelligence, creative power or value to civilization. In this controversy Eastern Virginia, having the greater share of wealth and of conservative ideas, stood for property rights, and the West stood for what it dubbed “progress” and the “rights of man.” The dispute threatened the disruption of the Commonwealth, which actually came to pass a generation later in 1863. The final action of the Convention was satisfactory to neither section. The question of county representation was finally settled by an elaborate compromise by which each county and region was given an arbitrary proportion. The champions of an extension of the suffrage were victorious by a vote of 51 to 37, Madison and Marshall voting with the majority and Monroe with the minority; and thus the suffrage which had theretofore been confined to owners of land was extended to such heads of families as were housekeepers and paid taxes. While the only immediate effect was to let in a class of owners of personal property, yet it was generally realized at the time that the new measure would practically open the door to all heads of families however limited their means, and that universal suffrage was but a short step further off.

One interested in Virginia history can hardly help wishing that he might have witnessed the Convention in session. Some of those present had taken part in the American Revolution; all had breathed the Revolutionary atmosphere. Monroe, old and feeble, presided as long as he could hold the gavel, but finally was compelled by weakness to retire. He was able to tell the Convention of a visit to another Convention in Paris over thirty years before, and of witnessing (an ominous spectacle) the murder of one of its members in the convention hall. Madison, another ex-President, was seventy-eight years of age; he spoke two or three times during the session, but his voice was so low that he could not be heard beyond a distance of a few feet. When he arose to speak the members left their seats and grouped themselves respectfully about him. Randolph, who bitterly opposed the suffrage extension scheme, had been the most popular speaker in the state; he was at that time stricken and shriveled by disease, but the older delegates remembered him as one who in his youth had been described as beautiful, fascinating, and even as lovely. Alexander Campbell was there, a young man destined in later years to be the founder of a great religious denomination.

These Virginia Convention debates were the last, the ablest, and the most exhaustive public discussions of the suffrage question in the United States and must be considered as having included all the arguments on either side which were strongly present to the minds of American politicians and publicists of the time. They were opened with great ability by Judge Upshur in a very forcible argument lasting several days in favor of property representation. Many of the superficial minded among the delegates favoring extension had come to Richmond relying upon the proposition that suffrage is a natural right. Upshur shattered this notion right at the beginning, and it was but little heard of in the Convention afterwards. The absurdity of a savage being born with a natural right to participate in a government which was not even imagined until thousands of years afterwards was easily made apparent. “Is it not a solecism” (said Barbour) “to say that rights which have their very being only as a consequence of government, are to be controlled by principles applying exclusively to a state of things when there was no government?” Some of the delegates were evidently familiar with Rousseau, and with his theory of a social compact. They discussed at length, but without result, the question whether suffrage is or is not a right derived from this supposed agreement; and if so, whether it was strictly personal or individual, or whether property rights were also included within the contract, and might therefore properly be considered in allotting suffrage privileges. This naturally raised the question also inconclusively debated whether property as such is a constituent element of society; or whether it is not rather a result of society action, and its acquisition one of the principal inducements to enter social bonds.

Although the doctrine that governments were instituted and maintained for the protection of private property as well as life and limb was prominent in the minds of all the conservatives and was acknowledged by nearly every delegate in the Virginia Convention, yet the undoubted fact that the act of political voting is a responsible public function needing special preparation and qualification was not in Richmond any more than previously in Boston realized by the body of delegates; nor was the fact that government is a business organization, needing the services of expert business men, suggested among them; nor the manifest expediency of using the practice of business as a school for the voter. The philosophy of the delegates did not go beyond the theory of government as an agency for the protection of private property rights and the kindred belief that a permanent and tangible interest in the State was a necessary requirement of a voter. We have seen that in the Virginia Bill of Rights, adopted in 1776, the right of suffrage was expressly limited to men having “sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with and attachment to the community.” In 1829 the principal, and with most of the Virginia delegates the only objects aimed at in imposing a qualification upon the voters were the protection of property and the creation of an electorate interested in the prosperity of the state; the right of society to demand that the voter bring to the polls a trained and disciplined mind was lost sight of altogether.

The narrowing effect of sectionalism and prejudice on the human mind is curiously illustrated by the remarkable fact that in the Convention debates it was assumed on both sides that the entire benefit of the protection of private property by the Commonwealth inured to its individual owners. West Virginia delegates, therefore, insisted that the rich automatically received a preponderant share in the blessings of government; for example, said they, ten Virginians each owning $20,000 of property receive in all $200,000 of protection, which is double the total benefit received by one hundred citizens owning $1,000 each; thus one group of ten men get twice as much aggregate benefit from the state as another group of a hundred men. Over and over again it was urged that government protection of property was principally for the benefit of the rich minority. According to this absurd theory, the State of Virginia had no interest in the preservation of the accumulated private property within its borders; and would not be damaged if its dwellings, furniture, barns, stock, crops, vehicles and vessels of every description were destroyed. The Virginia clerks, laborers and hired workers of every description would not suffer in such case by being deprived of employment; possibly they could subsist on air, ruins or radical doctrines. The lack of business training and of business conceptions among the exceptionally able men of that Convention, and the need of such training for the membership of similar bodies today is strongly brought to our attention by the circumstance that such foolish reasoning passed unchallenged. The fact that all property is of common utility; that it constitutes a vast store from which all, rich, poor and middling are alike supported; that the workman needs the factory at least as much as the proprietor, was not in the mind of the Convention; the probability that the destruction of the entire property of the ten rich men above referred to would injure the community at large even more than the owners was apparently not appreciated by the Virginia delegates in 1829 any more than it would be by the members of one of our aldermanic boards today.

The principal arguments urged in the Virginia Convention in favor of manhood suffrage were, (1) the difficulty of applying any standard of property qualification; (2) that in the ship of state all are passengers, and the poor among them have the same interest in protection from the elements as the rich; (3) that gratitude requires that old soldiers, though poor, should be given a vote by the country they have served; (4) that manhood suffrage had worked well in other communities; (5) that men are naturally not robbers of each other but are inclined to be affectionate, social, patriotic, conscientious and religious; (6) that all men either have or desire property and are, therefore, natural supporters of property rights. The answer to these propositions is obvious, (1) the difficulty of making the standard of qualifications for any employment or function an absolutely perfect one is never considered a sufficient reason for failing to establish any standard whatever. Witness the arbitrary standards of age and residence for voters and office holders, the qualifications of teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc.; (2) in no ship is the management, whether in fair weather or foul, left to the untrained or those without pecuniary interest in the voyage; (3) suffrage should never be given or accepted by the unqualified as an expression of gratitude; the veterans might as well demand to be licensed as dentists as to be allowed to meddle with state affairs; (4) experience shows that manhood suffrage has not worked well but evil all over the world; (5) some men are robbers and still others lack capacity to select agents or rulers who are honest. The main question is one of capacity to exercise the voting function to the advantage of the state. (6) That all men do not sufficiently desire property to enable them to act prudently and justly in their property dealings is shown by the immense number of spendthrifts, wasters, idlers, cheats, rogues, gamblers and vagabonds in the world.

Some of those who then and there favored the extension would probably oppose it today in our thickly populated communities. Eugenius Wilson, for instance, an advocate of extension, admitted that suffrage should be restricted in an inferior, corrupt or uninstructed constituency.

The convention was, of course, regaled by the radicals with the usual popular sing-song cant. It was told that the suffrage was “an inestimable privilege of the individual citizen,” a proposition which is in flat contradiction to the experience of every voter and to the plain facts. This proposition Leigh had the courage to deny, saying that good government for all and not a mere right to individuals to vote is the real desideratum. The majority leaders talked of the “original principles” of government, among them being that each citizen may vote, etc. Upshur denied that there were any original principles of government, because he said “political principles do not precede, they spring out of government.” He further said that property as well as persons is a constituent element of Society; that the very idea of Society carries with it that of property as its necessary and inseparable attendant, and that when man entered Society it was to procure protection for his property; take away all protection to property and our next business is to cut each other’s throats; the great bulk of legislation affects property rather than persons, and without property government cannot move an inch. Leigh uttered some things worth quoting, among them these true and forcible words: “Power and property” (said he) “may be separated for a time by force or fraud but divorced never. For so soon as the pang of separation is felt, if there be truth in history, if there be any certainty in the experience of ages, if all pretensions to knowledge of the human heart be not vanity and folly, property will purchase power, or power will take property. And either way, there must be an end of free government. If property buy power, the very process is corruption. If power ravish property the sword must be drawn, so essential is property to the very being of civilized society, and so certain that civilized man will never consent to return to a savage state.”

The proposal to continue the freehold basis of suffrage was defeated by a vote of 37 to 51, Monroe voting yea and Madison and Marshall voting nay, and by a similar vote the right of suffrage was extended to housekeepers, being heads of families and paying any tax whatever. The reader may be curious to know how the people of Virginia themselves stood on the question, but it is impossible to say. The vote on the adoption of the constitution was 26,055 in favor, to 15,563 opposed; but this vote was not a measure of Virginia popular opinion in regard to a property qualification. The election went off on a different question and curiously enough, the new constitution which extended the suffrage was adopted by the votes of those opposed to the extension. The western counties though favoring, were disappointed because they were not given the legislative representation they claimed; in that respect the new constitution was considered favorable to the east, which though opposed to suffrage extension, voted for ratification, while West Virginia voted to defeat it. Of the total vote in opposition, 13,337, or over five-sixths, came from the region west of the Blue Ridge.

Thus the Virginia discussion of the suffrage question, which engaged the ablest public men of the state for a generation and which ought to have produced a valuable result, came after all to nothing but compromise forced by clamor. Though property qualifications were reduced by the convention, the true principle involved was not presented or passed upon. The champions of good government unfortunately took their stand, not on the broad ground of property rights and political efficiency, but on the narrow claim of landholders and slave owners to control the legislature of the state; they permitted themselves to be placed in the false position of attempting to deny to the most enterprising and successful business man the vote which they offered to the shiftless proprietor of a log cabin in the backwoods. They stood on no sound principle and they were defeated.

And now, looking back after a century and considering the immense importance of the subject, one cannot help regretting that the fruits of the convention labors were merely local and temporary; that it met after suffrage extension had been practically allowed to go by default throughout the Union, and that the Virginia delegates came to Richmond pledged each to one side of a sectional dispute, instead of prepared to take part in a philosophical or statesmanlike search for political truth. Very different might have been the result had the Virginia political mind taken up this question freed from local and slavery prejudice, and had the political talent wasted in a struggle for sectional control been employed in the useful work of studying the real foundation principles of suffrage in a democracy and presenting the conclusions to the Virginia electorate and to the world. In such case it might have reached such a result and brought out such a declaration of principles as would have saved the country and the world centuries of wallowing in the slough of political corruption and despond.

To complete the record it may be added, that in 1850, by a vote of 75 to 33, another Virginia convention further extended the suffrage to all male adult residents. As before, the question was confused with the old dispute over the apportionment of the respective claims of the east and west to representation in the legislature; this was again settled by a compromise after a prolonged deadlock and the settlement was approved by a popular vote of 75,748 to 11,060. This may be said to be the final close of the property qualification controversy in Virginia and in the Union, though it had been substantially decided a generation before; and since 1850 there has been nowhere any serious discussion of the question of the right of property to direct representation in government and it has been generally regarded since that time as forever disposed of. But nothing is finally settled till it is settled right.

And so, after a survey of the entire history of the establishment of manhood suffrage in the United States, we see that this great experiment was originally undertaken by the American people, with but little realization of its importance and almost no foresight of its calamitous results. We have here another of the numerous instances of the truth of the dictum that “Often the greatest changes are those introduced with the least notion of their consequence, and the most fatal are those which encountered least resistance.”

The majorities in favor of manhood suffrage, wherever the question was tested, were overwhelming, but they prove nothing; they merely illustrate once more the well known human lack of vision. Many other equally foolish measures have been adopted by similar majorities and attended by similar popular manifestations of satisfaction. The vote in South Carolina for secession was unanimous and the popular rejoicing thereat was unbounded. Yet we all now see that that secession vote was a stupendous blunder made without moral or political justification or ground for hope of success. Many of the French Revolutionary lunatic performances were almost unanimously decreed and approved by popular vote. In like manner the American people in the first quarter of the nineteenth century were blinded into the acceptance of manhood suffrage or into comparative indifference concerning it, little realizing that in place of thereby securing as they were told for themselves and their descendants a greater measure of political liberty, they were thereby fast riveting upon them the chains of political bondage.