Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/295

 CH. XI.] The wealthy and the well-born are not confined to any particular spots in any state; nor are their interests permanently fixed any where. Their property may consist of stock, or other personal property, as well as of land; of manufactories on great streams, or on narrow rivulets, or in sequestered dells. Their wealth may consist of large plantations in the bosom of the country, or farms on the borders of the ocean. How vain must it be, to legislate upon the regulation of elections with reference to circumstances so infinitely varied, and so infinitely variable. The very suggestion is preposterous. No possible method of regulating the time, mode, or place of elections, could give to the rich, or elevated, a general, or permanent advantage in the elections. The only practical mode of accomplishing it, (that of a property qualification of voters, or candidates,) is excluded in the scheme of the national government. And if it were possible, that such a design could be accomplished to the injury of the people at a single election, it is certain, that the unpopularity of the measure would immediately drive the members from office, who aided in it; and they would be succeeded by others, who would more justly represent the public will and the public interests. A cunning, so shallow, would be easily detected; and would be as contemptible from its folly, as it would be difficult in its operations.

§ 820. Other considerations are entitled to great weight. The constitution gives to the state legislatures the power to regulate the time, place, and manner of holding elections; and this will be so desirable a boon in their possession, on account of their ability to adapt the regulation, from time to time, to the peculiar local, or political convenience of the states, that its