Year: 1865

The recent agitation of the right of suffrage
in peculiar case, has directed the attention
of the people to the general question, and
elected considerable discussion as to the
proper qualifications for voters in a Republ-
can Government And while some regard
the possession of property as the best general
evidence of good citizenship, others regard
virtue and intelligence the true safeguards of
Free Institutions as the proper quali6ca-
ton for the exercise of the elective fran
chise


While property qualification is very es.
sential qualification for suffrage in joint
stock company, whose object is confined to
making money, and dividing the profits
amongst them in proportion to the amounts
invested, such qualification will never be
tolerated as essential in Free Governments,
where the infinitely higher interests of liber-
ty and life are involved.


There seems, then, more plausibihty in the
theory which insists upon Virtue and intel
llgence,' as criterion, by which to regulate
the right of suffrage. But here there arises
an apparently iusuperable difficulty in fixing
the standard of virtue and intelligence. and
IN providing process to ascertain that the
precise standard has been reached. Besides
on this theory the more intelligent and yirtu
Gus the man, the better citizen he will be and
the better Government he will make. and
therefore the higher the standard the better
for the country. Then, of course, upon the
flrst trial 1t would be best to exclude as near
one-half the people as practicable. making the
standard just as high as the majority can at
tain. Then this majority having excluded
nearly one-half the people, might amend their
Constitution and exclude nearly one-h half the
balance, and continuing to pursue this pro-
cess, might eventually get very "select
few of highly virtuous aud intelligent peo-
pie to govern the balance.


OF course, if the right of suffrage is not a
right inherent in manhood citizenship, then
it is simply dependent on the will of the ma.
Jority, and may be based upon any whim
which the majority for the time being NAV
see fit to indulge.


Now, did the founders of this Republican
Government of ours. leave this important and
sacred right of liberty to the caprice of chance.
prejudice and passion? Did they declare no
principle which would prevent our Govern
ment lapsing into the Government Of the few.
and not of the many? Our Revolutionary
Fathers were wise people in their day, and
they pledged their "lives. fortunes and sacred
honor to the maintenance of the principles
they enumerated in the Declaration of indie
pendence, as fundamental TO Free Institu-
tions.


That great charter of American Independ
enee, which proclaimed to the world the
principles of Free Government announces
amongst self-evident truths


That ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. AND ARE
ENDOWED WITH CERTAIN IyAIIESABly RIGHTS.
AMONGST WHICH ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE
PURSUIT or HAPPINESS. ASp THAT TO sEcr,Rr
THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED
AMONGST MEH, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS
FIR ON THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.


There is the broad and just criterion of the
exercise OF the right of suffrage, covering all
cases, subject to no changes, or vacilations
from popular excitement or popular preju-
dice, based upon no casual or incidental cir
cumstance, but permanent as time and lust
as eternity. The governed are entitled to a
voice IN theA Government not the rich nor
the virtuous, nor the intelligent alone. but
the poor and the ignorant, and the vicious as
well. 1t is Government of the people and
for the people, and all the people are entitled
primarily to voice, an equal voice at the
ballot in the matter in which all are inter
ested


Now, every other theory of she right of suf.
trage is anti Republican and anti Democratic.
tor 1t rests upon the presumption, that in
equality of wealth or of intelligence. or what
not, creates inequality of rights; and hence,
that the rich aud the intelligent are entitled
to govern the poor and the ignorant, with or
without their consent Our Fathers an
nounced the only possible just foundation of
Free Republican Government and if that
principle is false or wrong, then there is no
principle upon which Free Government is
possible, and our Republic like those that
have gone before, must be perverted into an
aristocracy or monarchy. Without equal rights
and an equal voice in the Government by the
governed, our country cannot stand on the
great platform of free principles, constructed
by the founders of the Republic


And whenever we prove disloyal to that
we are afloat without chart or com
pass, to drift wherever the waves of nre;u-
dice or the winds of passion shall drive us.
If there be no such fixed principle, as that
announced by our Fathers, as amongst the
inherent rights of man essential to a free Gov
ernment, then all rights are visionary and
evanescent. If we may rightfully exclude
any considerable number of the governed
from a voice in the Government, because thew
lack some natural or acquired characteristic
then we may make the criterion what we
please, and change it as often as we please,
and establish an aristocracy at our pleasure.
If we may exclude from the right of suffrage,
for lack of property, of intelligence, or Of
virtue, then we may fix other criteria and ex-
clude Jews, Irish, Germans, In6dels, Catho-
hes, men over six feet high or under Eve. red