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IV

THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE

E TOCQUEVILLE, the aristocratic delineator of
American Democracy, narrates that in his trav-

els into the primeval America he arrived upon the shores of a crystal lake, embosomed in untouched forests; that in the midst of the lake was a beautiful islet, shaded to the banks with trees old as the daylight of time. He crossed over to the island and was delighted with the richness of the soil and the exuberance of growth of tree and flower, and was awed by the silence and beauty and solitude of the scene. However, amidst the majesty of this morning of nature, he found upon the island some remains of man. Upon careful inspection he discovered, amidst the glory of nature, where a European had made his home. But how changed! The logs of the cabin had fallen to the ground and had sprouted anew, and over their remains had grown the flower and the tree. The scattered stones of the hearth lay under the fallen chimney and were blackened with the old fire, and were over-scattered with the thin ashes of another day. He stood in silent admiration of the glories of nature and the littleness of man, and as he left the solitude he exclaimed with melancholy, "Are the ruins, then, already here?"

So, Mr. President, when I received from your able and courteous secretary the formulation of the question for discussion, which betokens within itself that, whilst we are in the very glory of the dawn of our day, the sacred temple of our hopes and love was broken, I was led to exclaim with the old philosopher, "Are the ruins, then, already here?"

In my poor way, I will this evening examine the sacred edifice, and we will together touch its walls and attempt to ascertain whether foundation and lintel and jam and turret stand true and plumb as when they left the hands of the master builders; for, as Mr. Lowell relates, when Guizot once asked "How long I thought the Republic would last?" "I replied," said he, “so long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant." Do we not all assent to his reply?

The formulation of the subject for investigation, "Does the experience of this Republic up to the close of the nineteenth century justify universal manhood suffrage, or should the elective franchise be limited by education, property, or other qualification," carries in it the most important and vital questions of our civil life.

The question is of to-day, and I will not take precious time to present the rubbish of the history of the franchise. A word, however, is necessary that we may intelligently grasp the conditions of the early days of the Republic and understand their influence upon the present. Being a Virginian, I will be excused by the in

dulgent audience for having taken Virginia as a general type showing the evolution of the present franchise condition.

The status in Virginia explains why the Fathers, when they annunciated the great salient principles of free government, a radical departure in the lines of government, did not also announce manhood suffrage, the present essence of democracy.

Necessarily, when the great truths of representative government were proclaimed by the Fathers, they could not at once disembarrass themselves from all of the accompaniments of government as theretofore experienced by them. It is generally understood that the limitation of suffrage to freeholders, which practically made an aristocratic government, and the equal representation of the counties, which was sectional, were voluntarily adopted by the people of Virginia. Such was not the case. This limitation of suffrage to freeholders was the result of the commands of the King of England, and these commands were enforced by the bayonets of two regiments of his soldiers, and it was without any act of assembly. Thus, at the time of the Revolution, for more than a century freehold government had been the practical law of the people. Yet it was contrary to the salient principles of the peoples' free government. The question then naturally arises, why was this system continued after the people had substituted their own in place of the rule of the King of England? This is frequently asked by

those who look toward the reimposition of suffrage limitation.

In Virginia when the convention of 1776 met and adopted its Declaration of Rights:

That all men are by nature, equal, free, and independent;

That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people;

That government is and ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people; and

That a majority of the people hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to act for the public weal;

there was then in the condition of affairs a practical necessity for the continuation of the anomaly of freehold suffrage. The convention, composed of some of the greatest and wisest of the Fathers of the Republic, was sitting within sight of the bayonets of the King of Great Britain, and within sound of his cannon. They had inaugurated the war in which every right of life and property was imperilled. The freeholders were a great and powerful body upon whom was the chief reliance for defence against the tyranny of England, and hence they adopted the proposition that the right of suffrage "shall remain as at present exercised." There was no time to change and pull down and build up. It was the time to fight. The Fathers thoroughly understood the controvention of the principles announced

by them and as set out by their theory of government. Mr. Jefferson earnestly insisted that the people, "So soon as leisure should be afforded them for entrenching within good form the rights for which they had bled,” should do so. This demand for equal exercise of suffrage never afterwards was at rest. Alike in the North as in Virginia the demand was unceasing on the part of the plain people that they should have a part in the management as they had in the perils of the government. This culminated in Virginia in the memorial of 1829 presented to the convention by John Marshall, in which the following pregnant words

occur:

"If we are sincerely republican, we must give our confidence to the principles we profess. We have been taught by our fathers that all power is vested in, and derived from, the people; not the freeholders; that the majority of the community, in whom abides the physical force, have also the political right of creating and remoulding at will, their civil institutions. Nor can this right be anywhere more safely deposited. The generality of mankind, doubtless, desire to become owners of property; left free to reap the fruits of their labors, they will seek to acquire it honestly. It can never be their interest to overburden, or render precarious, what they themselves desire to enjoy in peace. But should they ever prove as base as the argument supposes, force alone, arms, not votes, could effect their designs; and when that shall be attempted, what

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