Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/150

144 Universal suffrage, in the more extended sense, cannot be received as a naked proposition, without reference to facts. Some nations are totally unqualified to exercise this trust, intelligently and safely, while in others, it may be the best and most sure foundation of society. As a general rule it would be highly dangerous, though the communities that can safely bear it are to be envied and esteemed.

Systems arc to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions. Principles also become modified in practice, by facts, and universal suffrage presents very different results in one state of society, from that which it presents in another. So long as the laboring classes of a country can receive high wages, the love of independence that is natural to man, will induce them to give their votes according to their own interests, pleasure, judgment, passions or caprices; for these are equally governing motives of human actions; but when the pressure of society shall become so great as to compel the man of small means to depend on the man of large for his comforts, or even for his bread, as is the natural tendency of all civilized society, the power of money will probably be felt adversely under a suffrage that includes all, or as nearly so, as is practicable. It may then become necessary to liberty, itself, to limit the suffrage.

The representative will necessarily have a direct moral relation to his constituency. In a community that contains many men of character and intelligence, the representation will be of a higher order, than in a community that contains few. We are not to judge of the general effects of the American system, therefore, by the present condition of its representation, though those who have the best means of observation, are of opinion that it will even now sustain a favorable comparison with that of any other country.