Political Science Of The State

POLITICAL SCIENCE.
that population is the basis of election, that suffrage is direct
and universal, and the act of voting is to be by secret ballot;
and that all Frenchmen twenty-one years of age, and in the
enjoyment of their civil and political rights, are electors,
although without property of any kind. This constitution
in the main was well suited to introduce the empire.
199.
The English colonies in America brought no abstractions
states of Amerf- with tnem> but only those practical safeguards
can union. which, as sprung from the Anglican stock, they
had learned from their very infancy to value. Although
equal among themselves, and thus destined to found democ-
racies, they had assignments of land made to them and asso-
ciated to a great extent a freehold estate with full citizenship.
I believe that in all the original thirteen colonies no one but
an owner of land could have the right of suffrage. But a
.change came on. At and after the revolution which separated
the colonies from Great Britain, moral and political theories
began to be current, such as " the rights of man," the equality
of men in the state, while at the same time the number of
such as had no property or no landed property, and a growing
hatred of privilege, increased ; and it came to be regarded as
an odious thing to make political differences between those
who otherwise had common rights. Indeed, the common
notion of citizenship involved the right of suffrage. All the
new states made suffrage universal, all the old changed their
constitutions in the same direction, and, so far as I am in-
formed, no states now place any restrictions on suffrage, other
than residence for a certain period, or naturalization, except
two—Massachusetts and Connecticut,, where ability to read
must be made evident before full citizenship is conceded.
The constitution of the United States has properly nothing
to do with qualifications for suffrage, but a recent amendment -
to that instrument does encourage the extension of suffrage
to the last degree. I refer to Article XIV., § 2, which was
dictated by the fear that colored persons would be kept from