THE SAFEGUARD OF A PROPERTY QUALIFICATION FOR VOTERS WAS DISCARDED
BY A GENERATION OF AMERICANS WHO DID NOT REALIZE ITS VALUE OR THE
DANGERS ATTENDANT UPON UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE
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.