The American Democrat/On Universal Suffrage
ON UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.
There is no more a literal universal suffrage, than a literal equality. All these terms must be received in a limited sense, their meaning amounting merely to a comparison with other and older conditions of society. One half of every population is excluded from the suffrage on account of sex, and more than half of the remainder on account of age. From the class that these two great rules do not affect, another, but a small portion, is excluded for their extreme poverty, their crimes, a want of residence or as vagabonds, or for some other cause. The most popularly governed of the American states admit these doctrines.
The policy of adopting a suffrage as wide as that which is commonly called universal, has been much and plausibly contested. Better political tests, perhaps, might be applied than those which now exist, and there can be little doubt that the present system is carried too far in its application and under the particular circumstances of the country, if not too far as a general principle.
The governments of towns and villages, for instance, are almost entirely directed to the regulation of property, and to the control of local interests. In such governments universal suffrage is clearly misplaced, for several grave and obvious reasons, a few of which shall be mentioned.
Towns and villages having no legislative control over the greater interests, such as the general protection of life, the person, the character, and property, there is neither the same necessity for, nor the same justice in, letting in all classes to participate in power. The laws which control the great and predominant interests, or those which give a complexion to society, emanate from the states, which may well enough possess a wide political base. But towns and villages regulating property chiefly, there is a peculiar propriety in excluding those from the suffrage who have no immediate local interests in them. An undue proportion of the dissolute, unsettled, vicious and disorganizing, collect in towns, and that balance of society, which, under other circumstances, might neutralize their influence, is destroyed, leaving, as a consequence, the power to control their governments, under a suffrage that is universal, in the hands of the worst part of community; for, though these persons may not be in sufficient force absolutely to elevate men of their own class to office, they hold a balance between conflicting parties, uniformly act together, and commonly in favor of those who are most disposed to sacrifice principle to expediency. A system must be radically wrong, when the keeper of a tavern, or of a grocery, through his facilities in humoring one of the worst of our vices, can command more votes than a man of the highest attainments, or of the highest character.
The great immigration of foreigners into the country, and the practice of remaining, or of assembling, in the large towns, renders universal suffrage doubly oppressive to the citizens of the latter. The natives of other countries bring with them the prejudices of another and an antagonist state of society; or what is still worse, their reaction; and it is a painful and humiliating fact, that several of the principal places of this country, are, virtually, under the control of men of this class, who have few convictions of liberty, beyond those which arise from a love of licentiousness, who are totally ignorant of its governing principles, and who, in their hearts and language, are hostile to the very people whose hospitality they enjoy. Many of these men cannot even speak the language of the land, and perhaps a majority of them cannot read the great social compact, by which society is held together. Whatever may be said, on general principles, of the necessity of giving to a government the broadest possible base, few will contend that circumstances like these, ought not to qualify the regulation in practice.
Local and limited governments, like those of towns and villages, are best managed in the hands of men who have permanent and fixed interests within their boundaries, and there is little propriety in admitting the more floating part of the population to a participation of an authority that scarcely controls a single right which affects transient persons.
Universal suffrage, in the more extended sense, cannot be received as a naked proposition, without reference to facts. Some nations are totally unqualified to exercise this trust, intelligently and safely, while in others, it may be the best and most sure foundation of society. As a general rule it would be highly dangerous, though the communities that can safely bear it are to be envied and esteemed.
Systems arc to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions. Principles also become modified in practice, by facts, and universal suffrage presents very different results in one state of society, from that which it presents in another. So long as the laboring classes of a country can receive high wages, the love of independence that is natural to man, will induce them to give their votes according to their own interests, pleasure, judgment, passions or caprices; for these are equally governing motives of human actions; but when the pressure of society shall become so great as to compel the man of small means to depend on the man of large for his comforts, or even for his bread, as is the natural tendency of all civilized society, the power of money will probably be felt adversely under a suffrage that includes all, or as nearly so, as is practicable. It may then become necessary to liberty, itself, to limit the suffrage.
The representative will necessarily have a direct moral relation to his constituency. In a community that contains many men of character and intelligence, the representation will be of a higher order, than in a community that contains few. We are not to judge of the general effects of the American system, therefore, by the present condition of its representation, though those who have the best means of observation, are of opinion that it will even now sustain a favorable comparison with that of any other country.
There are periods in the histories of all countries, in which entire nations may be said to be on their good behavior. These are the times of struggles and changes, when attention is drawn to the acts of publick men, and principles have unusual influence. Such was the case at the commencement of the American revolution; at one period of the French; and is, in a degree, the present state of the British parliament. At such periods, the same representative acts under impulses very different from those which commonly influence him, and care must be had, in comparing systems, to take into the account all the facts that would be likely to affect them.
Universal suffrage is capricious and uncertain in its minor consequences, often producing results directly contrary to those which were expected.
The transitory nature of the American population renders universal suffrage less advantageous and more injurious, than it would prove to be in a less vacillating condition of society. Thus it is, we see new men, and even strangers, filling offices in places that they entered a year previously, to quit the year that will succeed. The effect of this passing connection with a community is bad, on many accounts, but it becomes seriously so, when the floating and unstable members of society have suffcient interest to unsettle its concerns with their own fluctuating interests.