Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/67

 CH. IX.] by citizens and burgesses, or others chosen by the citizens or burgesses, according to the qualifications prescribed by custom, or by the respective charters and by-laws of each borough, or city. In these, the right of voting is almost infinitely varied and modified. In the American colonies, under their charters and laws, no uniform rules in regard to the right of suffrage existed. In some of the colonies the course of the parent country was closely followed, so that freeholders alone were voters; in others a very near approach was made to universal suffrage among the males of competent age; and in others, again, a middle principle was adopted, which made taxation and voting dependent upon each other, or annexed to it the qualification of holding some personal estate, or the privilege of being a freeman, or the eldest son of a freeholder of the town or corporation. When the revolution brought about the separation of the colonies, and they formed themselves into independent states, a very striking diversity was observable in the original constitutions adopted by them; and a like diversity has pervaded all the constitutions of the new states, which have since grown up, and all the revised constitutions of the old states, which have received the final ratification of the people. In some of the states the right of suffrage