Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/243



Important as was the opening-up of the country geographically, still more remarkable were the political and social developments that came as a direct result of the belief in the democratic theory.

While the fathers of the Republic were firm believers in the political ideas which they had proclaimed, no attempt was made by them to put into practice, in the state governments, such theories as that of the equality of all men. It was to the state governments, however, that the Constitution later delegated the right to say what should be the qualifications for electors.

The consequence was that, when the Federal Constitution was adopted, the men who sat as delegates from the states were there more as representatives of the taxpayers than of the people at large. Thus, for example, the Massachusetts Senate consisted of forty men, apportionment among the counties being based on the amount of taxes each county paid.

Only in Vermont did full manhood suffrage exist, while elsewhere the voter had to be a taxpayer. In the same