Page:Democracy in America (Reeve).djvu/902

 In the states of Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, the only necessary qualification for voting is that of paying the taxes; and in most of the states, to serve in the militia is equivalent to the payment of taxes.

In Maine and New Hampshire any man can vote who is not on the pauper list.

Lastly, in the states of Missouri, Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, and Vermont, the conditions of voting have no reference to the property of the elector.

I believe there is no other state beside that of North Carolina in which different conditions are applied to the voting for the senate and the electing the house of representatives. The electors of the former, in this case, should possess in property fifty acres of land; to vote for the latter, nothing more is required than to pay taxes.

small number of custom-house officers employed in the United States compared with the extent of the coast renders smuggling very easy; notwithstanding which it is less practised than elsewhere, because everybody endeavours to suppress it. In America there is no police for the prevention of fires, and such accidents are more frequent than in Europe; but in general they are more speedily extinguished, because the surrounding population is prompt in lending assistance.

is mcorrect to assert that centralization was produced by the French revolution: the revolution brought it to perfection, but did not create it. The mania for centralization and government regulations dates from the time when jurists began to take a share in the government, in the time of Philippe-le-Bel; ever since which period they have been on the increase. In the year 1775, M. de Malesherbes, speaking in the name of the Cour des Aides, said to Louis XIV.

“ * * * * Every corporation and every community of citizens, retained the right of administering its own affairs; a right which not only forms part of the primitive constitution of the kingdom, but has a still