Page:The Iowa journal of history and politics, v. II.pdf/46

32 There was little popular interest in the first elections. What Colonel Timothy Pickering said of the people of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, in general is true of the rural population of all the States: "They know little about the new government, and of course felt little interest in the election." In Virginia it was reported that not more than one-half and in some counties not more than one-fifth of the people voted for electors. The electorate, which generally speaking was based on the possession of a freehold, the poorer classes being therefore excluded, was on the whole indifferent. The voting was done chiefly by a small minority of interested property holders, a disproportionate share of whom in the northern States resided in the towns, and the wealthier and more talented of whom like a close corporation controlled the politics.

Some Pennsylvania statistics furnish a basis for an estimate of the ratio on the number of actual voters to the electorate in that State. The congressional vote of 1788 in Pennsylvania was about 15,000. A contemporary authority thinks that about 70,000 freemen in the State were entitled to vote. The ratio of voters to electorate was probably therefore roughly that of 15,000 to 70,000. In other words in 1788 no more than one-fourth of the eligible voters of Pennsylvania cast their ballots. It is interesting to compare this ratio with that of the presidential election of 1880, when the number of voters in the United States was five