Morning journal and courier., 1882-01-19
Popular Government.

Real and Supposed Dangers to Which
 It Ls Exposed in the United States-The
 Effect of Frequent Presidential Flee
 tions - Universal Suffrage WOman's
 RfGhts-F9IitIcs in Ctties-Reform of
 the House ef Representatives.
 From an article in the latest number of the Ntneteetah Century on elective government, by Goldwin Smith, we make some extracts referring to the United States:
 '"The question whether an individual chief of the State is necessary concerns most the American republic. It is at present oompi- cated by the exigencies of party, which re- quires chief-as an army requires 8 general though such a minister Lord Aberdeen was hardly more than the president of a council. In Switzerland-an example which, for the reason already given, is always to be cited with reserve-there Is only titular president of the federal council, without per sonal power or prominent place in the minds of the people The belief in the ne- cessity of an individual chief seems to be tradition of monarchy. In framing their in- stitutions the founders of the American re- public, though they substituted election for inheritance and introduced the federal ele- ment, were guided by the principles which Montesquieu and other political philosophers of the time supposed themselves to have educed from the practice of the British Con stitution. In the place of the King, whom they imagined to be the real ruler, though he had already become a fgurehead, they put an elective chief magistrate, and they jeal- ously guarded what they had been taught to regard as the palladium of liberty, the sep aration of the executive from the legislative, though, had their eyes been strong enough to look through the haze of constitutional fiction, they would have seen that the iegis- lature in England was all the time appoint ing and removing the executive, and appoint ing and controlling the judiciary to boot The elective presidency is an almost unmixed evil, and an evil of the most formidable kind, especially since the multiplication of patronage has enormously augmented the magnitude of the prize and the number of the place hunters whose fortunes are staked on the election It involves the common wealth perpetually in troubles like those of disputed succession. It fills the country with the turmoil of con test which now extends over at least two years of every four, and dis turbs commercial and industrial as well as public life. It keeps party passions always at fever heat. It breeds ever increasing swarfns of wire -pullers, intriguers, office seekers, and political vermin of all kinds. It brings every dangerous question to head it did this in the case of the slavery question, which, in the absence of the artificial crisis produced by Presidential election, might possibly have dragged on and found grad ual and peaceful solution"
 ''Many Americans will tell you that uni versal suffrage is failure, and that 1t is the great danger of the State But they overlook the fact that the danger arises not from universal suffrage by itself, but from universal suffrage in con- junction with party government and direct elections. It is as the tool of faction and its demagogues that the rowdy is politically for midable. Universal suffrage, however, in America is no doubt to-day a very different thing from what it was when the great ma iority of the people were substantial farm CTS, and almost ali of them were holders of property, responsible, settled in their habita- tions, and of English blood. Prop erty qualifications are odious, and where power is in the hands of the people, to be odious is to be weak. On the other hand, an education qualification is not odious the writer at least has always found that artisan audiences receive the mention of it with favor it is most reasonable, since man can hardly give an intelligent vote or do himself and his concerns anything bat mischief by voting without the common organs of intelli- gence nor does there seem to be any in superable difficulty in the way of ascertain ing that an applicant for registration is able to read and write or at least to read. Writing, perhaps ought hardly to be required, for the horny hand of the farm-laborer may lose that faculty without default of brain or heart Under complete system of popular education, if we ever arrive at it, the school certificate might be the qualification. If sitting process Is necessary, let 1t be one of self f-disfranchisement by refusal of equi- table conditions, rather than one of disfran- chisement by exclusive legislation; the popu- lar feeling that government rests on the broad basis of equality and justice will be less impaired'
 ''There is a wide difference between the case of political and that of municipal suf- frage. This is point of the highest import ance in America, where the cities are vexed and pillaged by brood of municipal dema- gogues, such as the late MT. William N. Tweed. Legislatures, in regulating the mu-