PROPERTY SAFEGUARDS IN THE ELECTION OF DELEGATES
Under the protection afforded by these outward signs of regularity, the
leaders in the movement for the new Constitution set to work in their
respective legislatures to secure the choice of delegates prepared to
take the heroic measures which the circumstances demanded. The zealous
and dynamic element, of course, was favored by the inertness, ignorance,
and indifference of the masses, and the confidence of the legislatures
in their ability to exercise the ultimate control through the ratifying
power. No special popular elections were called to complicate the
problem of securing the right kind of a Convention and the leaders were
confronted with the comparatively simple task of convincing the
legislatures of the advisability of sending delegates. Naturally the
most strenuous and interested advocates of change came forward as
candidates.
The resolution of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation
calling for the Convention provided that the delegates should be
“appointed by the states.” The actual selection was made in each case by
the legislature, both houses participating, except in Georgia and
Pennsylvania, which had unicameral assemblies. That is, the delegates to
the federal Convention were selected in the same fashion as were United
States Senators under the present Constitution, in all states, previous
to the adoption of the principle of direct election. This fact in itself
removed the choice of delegates one degree from the electorate.
A further safeguard against the injection of too much popular feeling
into the choice of delegates to the Convention was afforded by the
property qualifications generally placed on voters and members of the
legislatures by the state constitutions and laws in force in 1787.[95]
In order to ascertain the precise character of the defence afforded to
property by this barrier to universal manhood suffrage, it is necessary
to inquire in detail into the qualifications then imposed.[96]
The New Hampshire constitution of 1784 was in force when the call for
the election of delegates came. It provided that “no person shall be
capable of being elected a senator who is not of the Protestant
religion, and seized of a freehold estate in his own right of the value
of two hundred pounds.”[97] Members of the lower house were required to
possess an estate “of the value of one hundred pounds, one-half of which
to be a freehold.” The suffrage was widely extended, for freeholders,
tax payers, and even those who paid a poll tax could vote.
Massachusetts conferred the suffrage upon all males possessing a
freehold estate of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate of
the value of sixty pounds. A senator was required to be “seized in his
own right of a freehold within this commonwealth, of the value of three
hundred pounds at least, or possessed of a personal estate of the value
of six hundred pounds at least, or of both to the amount of the same
sum.” Every member of the house of representatives was required to be
“seized in his own right of a free hold of the value of one hundred
pounds, within the town he shall be chosen to represent, or any ratable
estate to the value of two hundred pounds; and he shall cease to
represent the said town immediately on his ceasing to be qualified as
aforesaid.”
Like the neighboring state of Rhode Island, which sent no delegates to
Philadelphia, Connecticut had continued after the Revolution under the
old royal charter form of government without taking the trouble to draft
a constitution. Under this old system, the suffrage was restricted to
holders of real or personal property of a certain value. According to
McKinley, “The forty-shilling freehold, translated later into seven
dollars income from land, was retained as one of the alternative
qualifications of the suffrage until the amendment in 1845 of the
constitution of 1818.”[98] The alternative qualification here spoken of
was the ownership of forty pounds’ worth of personal property, which was
established in 1702 and remained until after the Revolution. The
Connecticut Register of the time thus quaintly describes the franchise:
“The qualifications for freemen are that they be at least twenty-one
years of age, possessed of freehold estate to the value of 40s. per ann.
or £40 personal estate in the general list of estates in that year
wherein they desire to be admitted Freemen; or are possessed of estate
as aforesaid and by law excused from putting it into the list; and being
of quiet and peaceable behaviour.”[99]
New York gave a special position to the rights of property in the
senate. Senators were required to be freeholders, and were chosen by
freeholders “possessed of freeholds of the value of one hundred pounds.”
With regard to the voter for members of the lower house, it was
stipulated that “he shall have been a freeholder, possessing a freehold
of the value of twenty pounds within said county, or have rented a
tenement therein of the yearly value of forty shillings, and been rated
and actually paid taxes to this state.” An exception to this rule
conferred the suffrage on all who were freemen in Albany, and in New
York City, on or before October 14, 1775.
These qualifications worked an extensive disfranchisement in New York.
“The census of 1790 shows that out of a population of thirty thousand
[in New York City], there were but 1,209 freeholders of £100 valuation
or over; 1,221 of £20, and 2,661 ‘forty-shilling’ freeholders. Property
interests—something like a landed aristocracy—controlled municipal
elections.”[100] Some notion of the extent to which the adult males
would have voted if permitted, is afforded by the elections of 1788, at
which members of the state ratifying convention were chosen under the
universal manhood suffrage rule,[101] and members of the assembly were
chosen under the regular property qualifications. For example, Richard
Harrison received 2677 votes as member of the convention, and 1500 votes
as member of the state assembly.[102] In Albany county the vote for
members of the assembly ran about 1600 under that for members of the
convention.[103] It looks as if one could safely guess that about
one-third more voters would have been active participants in elections
if they had not been shut out by the prevailing property qualifications
in New York.
New Jersey had a legislature of two houses, a council and a general
assembly. Every member of the former had to be a freeholder and “worth
at least one thousand pound proclamation money, or real and personal
estate within the same county;” and every member of the latter body was
required to possess at least half as much in real and personal property.
As for the suffrage, the constitution provided “that all inhabitants of
this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money
clear estate in the same ... shall be entitled to vote for
Representatives in Council and Assembly.”
The Delaware constitution of 1776 provided that members of both branches
of the legislature should be chosen from among the freeholders of the
county, and that “the right of suffrage in the election of members for
both houses shall remain as exercised by law at present.” The election
law which then governed the suffrage in Delaware was the act of 1734
which enfranchised freeholders owning “fifty acres of land, with twelve
acres cleared and improved, or otherwise worth £40 lawful money.”[104]
The first constitution of Pennsylvania established in 1776 was the work
of a radical party, and it provided for a single chambered legislature
based on a widely extended suffrage. “Every freeman of the full age of
twenty-one years,” runs the instrument, “having resided in this state
for the space of one whole year ... and paid public taxes during that
time, shall enjoy the right of an elector: _Provided_ always that sons
of freeholders of the age of twenty-one years shall be entitled to vote
although they have not paid taxes.”[105]
In Maryland a distinction was made between town and county in the choice
of delegates to the lower house of the state legislature. Generally
every freeman “having a freehold of fifty acres of land,” or “having
property in this state above the value of thirty pounds current money”
could vote in the county in which he resided for members of the house of
delegates. All persons qualified by the charter of Annapolis to vote for
burgesses could vote for delegates from that city; and in Baltimore
persons “having the same qualifications as electors in the county” could
vote for delegates. County delegates in the state legislature were
required to possess “real or personal property above the value of five
hundred pounds current money.” The senators were chosen indirectly by
electors selected by the qualified voters for delegates. These
senatorial electors were to possess the qualifications of delegates, and
senators themselves had to possess “real and personal property above the
value of one thousand pounds current money.”
The Virginia constitution of 1776 stipulated that members of both houses
of the legislature must be “freeholders or duly qualified according to
law;” and added that “the right of suffrage in the election of members
of both houses shall remain as exercised at present.” Under this
provision, persons owning twenty-five acres of improved land or fifty
acres of unimproved land were admitted to the suffrage, “together with
certain artisans residing in Norfolk and Williamsburg.”[106]
At the time of choosing delegates to the Convention, North Carolina was
under the constitution of 1776 which prescribed property qualifications
for members of the legislature and for voters as well. Each member of
the senate was required to possess “not less than three hundred acres of
land in fee,” and each member of the lower house “not less than one
hundred acres of land in fee or for the term of his own life.” A
freehold qualification of fifty acres of land was required of voters for
senators, and the suffrage for voters for members of the lower house was
extended to all freemen who paid “public taxes.” In the towns entitled
to representation the possession of a freehold or the payment of a
public tax qualified for voting in the election of members of the lower
house.
The legislature of South Carolina, that chose the representatives of
that state to the Philadelphia Convention, was elected under the
constitution of 1778 which prescribed high property qualifications.[107]
“No person who resides in the parish for which he is elected shall take
his seat in the senate, unless he possess a settled estate and freehold
in his own right in the said parish or district of the value of two
thousand pounds currency at least, clear of debt.” Non-resident senators
were required to be the holders of such an estate worth at least seven
thousand pounds, clear of debt. The member of the lower house was
required to possess an estate and slaves or realty worth one thousand
pounds,[108] while each non-resident member of that house had to own a
freehold estate worth at least three thousand five hundred pounds, clear
of debt. The suffrage was restricted to persons owning fifty acres, or a
town lot, or paying taxes equivalent to the taxes on fifty acres of
land.
In 1787, the Georgia legislature consisted of one chamber, under the
constitution of 1777, which stipulated that members of the house of
representatives “Shall be of the Protestant religion, and of the age of
twenty-one years, and shall be possessed in their own rights of two
hundred and fifty acres of land or some property to the amount of two
hundred and fifty pounds.” The suffrage was widely extended to every
white male having in his own right property “of ten pounds value and
liable to pay tax” or “being of any mechanic trade.”
From this review it is apparent that a majority of the states placed
direct property qualifications on the voters, and the other states
eliminated practically all who were not taxpayers. Special safeguards
for property were secured in the qualifications imposed on members of
the legislatures in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey,
Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Further
safeguards were added by the qualifications imposed in the case of
senators in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York,
Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
While these qualifications operated to exclude a large portion of the
adult males from participating in elections, the wide distribution of
real property created an extensive electorate and in most rural regions
gave the legislatures a broad popular basis.[109] Far from rendering to
personal property that defence which was necessary to the full
realization of its rights, these qualifications for electors admitted to
the suffrage its most dangerous antagonists: the small farmers and many
of the debtors who were the most active in all attempts to depreciate
personalty by legislation. Madison with his usual acumen saw the
inadequacy of such defence and pointed out in the Convention that the
really serious assaults on property (having in mind of course,
personalty) had come from the “freeholders.”[110]
Nevertheless, in the election of delegates to the Convention, the
representatives of personalty in the legislatures were able by the sheer
weight of their combined intelligence and economic power to secure
delegates from the urban centres or allied with their interests. Happily
for them, all the legislatures which they had to convince had not been
elected on the issue of choosing delegates to a national Convention, and
did not come from a populace stirred up on that question.[111] The call
for the Convention went forth on February 21, 1787, from Congress, and
within a few months all the legislatures, except that of Rhode Island,
had responded. Thus the heated popular discussion usually incident to
such a momentous political undertaking was largely avoided, and an
orderly and temperate procedure in the selection of delegates was
rendered possible.