tution, as it existed in the * eyes and expectations of its careful and prudent founders, has taken place in the gradual lowering throughout nearly all the States of the Union, and the entire abandonment in two-thirds of them, of those qualifications for the exercise of the franchise which existed when the Constitution was adopted. These qualifications have been already described, and have been seen to have been founded on property, on residence, on the payment of taxes, varying in degree in the different States, but all resting on one or the other requirement, as an essential principle of stability: their very variety being justified, as affording "checks upon undue legislation," and as tending to protect individual interests without sacrificing the general good; and defended by the example of their utility in helping to produce and to maintain a system of fair and equal liberty, such as we happily enjoy in this country. It will be remembered that, by clause 1 of the * Page 91. 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, a 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 307.; 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. 66 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. * * * 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.'" 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." |