Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/664

644 Government derived from the breadth of the basis on which it rested, and from the universal feeling that it was in the fullest sense the Government of the people. It was enabled in this way to put forth a power which no autocracy could have put forth. Many Americans, it is true, will tell you that universal suffrage is a failure, and that it is the great danger of the state. But they overlook the fact that the danger arises not from universal suffrage by itself, but from universal suffrage in conjunction with party government and direct elections. It is as the tool of faction and its demagogues that the rowdy is politically formidable. Universal suffrage, however, in America, is no doubt to-day a very different thing from what it was when the great majority of the people were substantial farmers, and almost all of them were holders of property, responsible, settled in their habitations, and of English blood. No absolute rule can be framed for all countries, nor even, supposing that such a rule could be laid down, would it be practicable everywhere to get up the hill again, when once you have gone down, and withdraw powers once granted to the multitude. Property qualifications are odious, and, where power is in the hands of the people, to be odious is to be weak. On the other hand, an education qualification is not odious; the writer, at least, has always found that artisan audiences receive the mention of it with favor; it is most reasonable, since a man can hardly give an intelligent vote, or do himself and his concerns anything but mischief, by voting without the common organs of intelligence; nor does there seem to be any insuperable difficulty in the way of ascertaining that an applicant for registration is able to read and write, or at least to read. Writing, perhaps, ought hardly to be required, for the horny hand of the farm-laborer may lose that faculty without default of brain or heart. Under a complete system of popular education, if we ever arrive at it, the school-certificate might be the qualification. All voters ought also to be liable to every civic duty, such as that of national defense, and that of serving on juries, if the system of jury-trial is retained on its present footing. If a sifting process is necessary, let it be one of self-disfranchisement by refusal of equitable conditions, rather than one of disfranchisement by exclusive legislation; the popular feeling that government rests on the broad basis of equality and justice will be less impaired. The sentiment of monarchies and aristocracies has been studied; it is now time to study the sentiment of republics. A good deal of sifting, and, on the whole, of the right kind, would probably be done by abstention, when there were no longer organized factions to marshal the irresponsible, and march them to the poll. As the possession of a vote excites interest in public affairs, the suffrage has a certain educating power, though by no means so great a power as some sanguine advocates of extension have maintained. A consideration, perhaps, of not less importance is that, under a thoroughly popular system of suffrage, the holders of property and the highly educated are spurred by regard for