Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/147

Rh A government founded on the representation of property, however direct or indirect, is radically vicious, since it is a union of two of the most corrupting influences to which man is subject. It is the proper business of government to resist the corruptions of money, and not to depend on them.

To a qualification of property, if placed so low as to embrace the great majority of the people, there is no very serious objection, though better tests might, perhaps, be devised. Residence, character, information, and fixed relations with society, ought to be added to this qualification; and it might be better, even, could they be made entirely to supersede it. In local governments, or those of towns and villages, which do little more than control property, a low property qualification is the true test of the franchise, though even in these cases, it might be well to add information and character.

ON UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.

There is no more a literal universal suffrage, than a literal equality. All these terms must be received in a limited sense, their meaning amounting merely to a comparison with other and older conditions of society. One half of every population is excluded from the suffrage on account of sex, and more than half of the remainder on account of age. From the class that these two great rules do not affect, another, but a small portion, is excluded for their extreme poverty, their crimes, a want of residence or as vagabonds,