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3rd section of the Constitution, the senators of the United States are to be elected by the legislatures of the individual States; and by section 2 of the first article, the members of the House of Representatives of the United States are to be elected by the electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures; in other words, by the electors of the House of Representatives of each State.

The condition of the franchise, therefore, in the individual States, has a most direct bearing upon the elections for the senators and representatives of the United States.*

What this franchise has gradually become is, accordingly, a matter of the first importance in reference to the United States' Constitution, and to the question whether it continues in theory and in fact what it was at the time of its formation sixty-five years ago. To exhibit this point I will avail myself of

* The individual States are divided into electoral districts; the smaller elect the members of the House of Representatives of the State, the larger the Senate. The franchise is, with, I believe, only one exception (that of North Carolina), the same

for both.

the authority of Mr. Justice Kent, whose "Commentaries on the American Constitution," published in 1844, are held in equal estimation with those of Mr. Justice Story, and both are fully entitled to a place beside those of Blackstone, wherever the English language is spoken.

At pp. 227-229, vol. i., of his learned work, Mr. Justice Kent thus expresses himself:

"The progress and impulse of popular opinion is rapidly destroying every constitutional check, every conservative element, intended by the sages who framed the earliest American constitutions, as safeguards against the abuses of popular suffrage.

“Thus, in Massachusetts, by the Constitution of 1780, а defined portion of real or personal property was requisite in an elector; that qualification was dispensed with by the amended Constitution of 1821.

"By the practice under the Charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut, a property qualification was requisite to constitute freemen and voters. This test is continued in Rhode Island, but done away with in Connecticut by their Constitution of 1818.

"The New York Constitution of 1777 required the electors of the Senate to be freeholders, and of the Assembly to be either freeholders, or to have a rented tenement of the yearly value of forty shillings. The amended Constitution of 1821 reduced this qualification down to pay

ment of a tax, or performance of militia duty, or assessment and work on the highways. But the Constitution as again amended in 1826, swept away all these impediments to universal suffrage.

"In Maryland, by their Constitution of 1776, electors were to be freeholders, or possessing property to the amount of 301.; but by legislative amendments in 1801 and 1809 (and amendments are allowed to be made in that State by an ordinary statute, if confirmed by the next succeeding legislature) all property qualification was disregarded.

"The Constitution of Virginia, in 1776, required the electors to be freeholders, but the Constitution of 1830 reduced down the property qualification to that of being the

owner of a leasehold estate or a householder.

"In Mississippi, by the Constitution of 1817, electors were to have been enrolled in the militia, or paid taxes: but those impediments to universal suffrage were removed by the new Constitution of 1833.

"So the freehold qualification, requisite in certain cases by the Constitution of Tennessee of 1796, is entirely discontinued by the Constitution of 1835.

"All the State constitutions formed since 1800 have omitted to require any property qualifications in an elector, except what may be implied in the requisition of having paid a State or county tax, and even that is not in the constitutions more recently formed or amended, except in the Rhode Island Constitution of 1843. *

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"Such a rapid course of destruction of the former constitutional checks is matter for grave reflection; and to counteract the dangerous tendency of such combined forces as universal suffrage, frequent elections, all offices for

short periods, all officers elective, and an unchecked press; and to prevent them from racking and destroying our political machines, the people must have a larger share than usual of that wisdom which is ' 'first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated.'

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The actual state of the suffrage in those States where the right of suffrage is exercised without any qualification whatever, is thus described:

"In the States of Maine, Vermont, New York, Maryland, South Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois,* Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama, no property qualification whatever, not even paying taxes or serving in the militia, is requisite for the exercise of the right of suffrage. Every free male white citizen of the age of twenty-one years, and who shall have been a resident for some short given period, varying in those States from two years to three months, is entitled to vote."

To this enumeration the following States are now to be added:-Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, California; and finally the once aristocratic State of Virginia, which, on the 25th of October, 1851, adopted the same

* In Illinois, “aliens, being residents, are entitled to vote."

ultra-democratic form of constitution as the States above named by a vote of 75,748 to 11,060 against it.

The following States have retained the semblance of a qualification :—

"In the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Georgia, Ohio, and Louisiana, the elector is required, in addition to age and residence, to have been assessed and paid, or, in Ohio, 'charged' with a State or county tax, or in Connecticut to have served in the militia."

In Rhode Island, North Carolina, and New Jersey, a qualification as to property is still requisite, but in the latter is rendered nugatory.

"The Rhode Island Charter of 1663 prescribed no regulation as to the right of suffrage." In 1724 an Act was passed limiting the franchise to those who possessed a freehold estate of a certain value, or was the eldest son of a freeholder. This requisite value was said to be 134 dollars. The new Constitution of 1843 has defined it to mean that sum clear of all encumbrances, and has required residence in the State of two years, and of six months in the city or town in which

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