Suffrage Debate,
N.Y. Constitutional Convention of 1821
Source: Peterson,
ed., Democracy, Liberty, and Property, 190-207
Chancellor Kent.
[p1]
I have reflected upon the report of the select committee
with attention and with anxiety. We appear to be
disregarding the principles of the constitution, under
which we have so long and so happily lived, and to be
changing some of its essential institutions. I cannot but
think that the considerate men who have studied the
history of republics, or are read in lessons of
experience, must look with concern upon our apparent
disposition to vibrate from a well balanced government,
to the extremes of the democratic doctrines. Such a broad
proposition as that contained in the report, at the
distance of ten years past, would have struck the public
mind with astonishment and terror. So rapid has been the
career of our vibration.
[p2]
Let us recall our attention, for a moment, to our past
history.
[p3]
This state has existed for forty-four years under our
present constitution, which was formed by those
illustrious sages and patriots who adorned the
revolution. It has wonderfully fulfilled all the great
ends of civil government. During that long period, we
have enjoyed in an eminent degree, the blessings of civil
and religious liberty. We have had our lives, our
privileges, and our property, protected. We have had a
succession of wise and temperate legislatures. The code
of our statute law has been again and again revised and
corrected, and it may proudly bear a comparison with that
of any other people. We have had, during that period,
(though I am, perhaps, not the fittest person to say it)
a regular, stable, honest, and enlightened administration
of justice. All the peaceable pursuits of industry, and
all the important interests of education and science,
have been fostered and encouraged. We have trebled our
numbers within the last twenty-five years, have displayed
mighty resources, and have made unexampled progress in
the career of prosperity and greatness.
[p4]
Our financial credit stands at an enviable height; and we
are now successfully engaged in connecting the great
lakes with the ocean by stupendous canals, which excite
the admiration of our neighbours, and will make a
conspicuous figure even upon the map of the United
States.
[p5]
These are some of the fruits of our present government;
and yet we seem to be dissatisfied with our condition,
and we are engaged in the bold and hazardous experiment
of remodelling the constitution. Is it not fit and
discreet: I speak as to wise men; is it not fit and
proper that we should pause in our career, and reflect
well on the immensity of the innovation in contemplation?
Discontent in the midst of so much prosperity, and with
such abundant means of happiness, looks like ingratitude,
and as if we were disposed to arraign the goodness of
Providence. Do we not expose ourselves to the danger of
being deprived of the blessings we have
enjoyed?—When the husbandman has gathered in his
harvest, and has filled his barns and his granaries with
the fruits of his industry, if he should then become
discontented and unthankful, would he not have reason to
apprehend, that the Lord of the harvest might come in his
wrath, and with his lightning destroy them?
[p6]
The senate has hitherto been elected by the farmers of
the state—by the free and independent lords of the
soil, worth at least $250 in freehold estate, over and
above all debts charged thereon. The governor has been
chosen by the same electors, and we have hitherto elected
citizens of elevated rank and character. Our assembly has
been chosen by freeholders, possessing a freehold of the
value of $50, or by persons renting a tenement of the
yearly value of $5, and who have been rated and actually
paid taxes to the state. By the report before us, we
propose to annihilate, at one stroke, all those property
distinctions and to bow before the idol of universal
suffrage. That extreme democratic principle, when applied
to the legislative and executive departments of
government, has been regarded with terror, by the wise
men of every age, because in every European republic,
ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has
terminated disastrously, and been productive of
corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny. And dare we
flatter ourselves that we are a peculiar people, who can
run the career of history, exempted from the passions
which have disturbed and corrupted the rest of mankind?
If we are like other races of men, with similar follies
and vices, then I greatly fear that our posterity will
have reason to deplore in sackcloth and ashes, the
delusion of the day.
[p7]
It is not my purpose at present to interfere with the
report of the committee, so far as respects the
qualifications of electors for governor and members of
assembly. I shall feel grateful if we may be permitted to
retain the stability and security of a senate, bottomed
upon the freehold property of the state. Such a body, so
constituted, may prove a sheet anchor amidst the future
factions and storms of the republic. The great leading
and governing interest of this state, is, at present, the
agricultural; and what madness would it be to commit that
interest to the winds. The great body of the people, are
now the owners and actual cultivators of the soil. With
that wholesome population we always expect to find
moderation, frugality, order, honesty, and a due sense of
independence, liberty, and justice. It is impossible that
any people can lose their liberties by internal fraud or
violence, so long as the country is parcelled out among
freeholders of moderate possessions, and those
freeholders have a sure and efficient control in the
affairs of the government. Their habits, sympathies, and
employments, necessarily inspire them with a correct
spirit of freedom and justice; they are the safest
guardians of property and the laws: We certainly cannot
too highly appreciate the value of the agricultural
interest: It is the foundation of national wealth and
power. According to the opinion of her ablest political
economists, it is the surplus produce of the agriculture
of England, that enables her to support her vast body of
manufacturers, her formidable fleets and armies, and the
crowds of persons engaged in the liberal professions, and
the cultivation of the various arts.
[p8]
Now, sir, I wish to preserve our senate as the
representative of the landed interest. I wish those who
have an interest in the soil, to retain the exclusive
possession of a branch in the legislature, as a strong
hold in which they may find safety through all the
vicissitudes which the state may be destined, in the
course of Providence, to experience. I wish them to be
always enabled to say that their freeholds cannot be
taxed without their consent. The men of no property,
together with the crowds of dependants connected with
great manufacturing and commercial establishments, and
the motley and undefinable population of crowded ports,
may, perhaps, at some future day, under skilful
management, predominate in the assembly, and yet we
should be perfectly safe if no laws could pass without
the free consent of the owners of the soil. That security
we at present enjoy; and it is that security which I wish
to retain.
[p9]
The apprehended danger from the experiment of universal
suffrage applied to the whole legislative department, is
no dream of the imagination. It is too mighty an
excitement for the moral constitution of men to endure.
The tendency of universal suffrage, is to jeopardize the
rights of property, and the principles of liberty. There
is a constant tendency in human society, and the history
of every age proves it; there is a tendency in the poor
to covet and to share the plunder of the rich; in the
debtor to relax or avoid the obligation of contracts; in
the majority to tyrannize over the minority, and trample
down their rights; in the indolent and the profligate, to
cast the whole burthens of society upon the industrious
and the virtuous; and there is a tendency in ambitious
and wicked men, to inftame these combustible materials.
It requires a vigilant government, and a firm
administration of justice, to counteract that tendency.
Thou shalt not covet; thou shalt not steal; are divine
injunctions induced by this miserable depravity of our
nature. Who can undertake to calculate with any
precision, how many millions of people, this great state
will contain in the course of this and the next century,
and who can estimate the future extent and magnitude of
our commercial ports? The disproportion between the men
of property, and the men of no property, will be in every
society in a ratio to its commerce, wealth, and
population. We are no longer to remain plain and simple
republics of farmers, like the New-England colonists, or
the Dutch settlements on the Hudson. We are fast becoming
a great nation, with great commerce, manufactures,
population, wealth, luxuries, and with the vices and
miseries that they engender. One seventh of the
population of the city of Paris at this day subsists on
charity, and one third of the inhabitants of that city
die in the hospitals; what would become of such a city
with universal suffrage? France has upwards of four, and
England upwards of five millions of manufacturing and
commercial labourers without property. Could these
kingdoms sustain the weight of universal suffrage? The
radicals in England, with the force of that mighty
engine, would at once sweep away the property, the laws,
and the liberties of that island like a deluge.
[p10]
The growth of the city of New-York is enough to startle
and awaken those who are pursuing the ignis fatuus of
universal suffrage.
[p11]
It is rapidly swelling into the unwieldly population, and
with the burdensome pauperism, of an European metropolis.
New York is destined to become the future London of
America; and in less than a century, that city, with the
operation of universal suffrage, and under skilful
direction, will govern this state.
[p12]
The notion that every man that works a day on the road,
or serves an idle hour in the militia, is entitled as of
right to an equal participation in the whole power of the
government, is most unreasonable, and has no foundation
in justice. We had better at once discard from the report
such a nominal test of merit. If such persons have an
equal share in one branch of the legislature, it is
surely as much as they can in justice or policy demand.
Society is an association for the protection of property
as well as of life, and the individual who contributes
only one cent to the common stock, ought not to have the
same power and influence in directing the property
concerns of the partnership, as he who contributes his
thousands. He will not have the same inducements to care,
and diligence, and fidelity. His inducements and his
temptation would be to divide the whole capital upon the
principles of an agrarian law.
[p13]
Liberty, rightly understood, is an inestimable blessing,
but liberty without wisdom, and without justice, is no
better than wild and savage licentiousness. The danger
which we have hereafter to apprehend, is not the want,
but the abuse, of liberty. We have to apprehend the
oppression of minorities, and a disposition to encroach
on private right—to disturb chartered
privileges—and to weaken, degrade, and overawe the
administration of justice; we have to apprehend the
establishment of unequal, and consequently, unjust
systems of taxation, and all the mischiefs of a crude and
mutable legislation. A stable senate, exempted from the
influence of universal suffrage, will powerfully check
these dangerous propensities, and such a check becomes
the more necessary, since this Convention has already
determined to withdraw the watchful eye of the judicial
department from the passage of laws.
[p14]
We are destined to become a great manufacturing as well
as commercial state. We have already numerous and
prosperous factories of one kind or another, and one
master capitalist with his one hundred apprentices, and
journeymen, and agents, and dependents, will bear down at
the polls, an equal number of farmers of small estates in
his vicinity, who cannot safely unite for their common
defence. Large manufacturing and mechanical
establishments, can act in an instant with the unity and
efficacy of disciplined troops. It is against such
combinations, among others, that I think we ought to give
to the freeholders, or those who have interest in land,
one branch of the legislature for their asylum and their
comfort. Universal suffrage once granted, is granted
forever, and never can be recalled.
[p15]
There is no retrograde step in the rear of democracy.
However mischievous the precedent may be in its
consequences, or however fatal in its effects, universal
suffrage never can be recalled or checked, but by the
strength of the bayonet. We stand, therefore, this
moment, on the brink of fate, on the very edge of the
precipice. If we let go our present hold on the senate,
we commit our proudest hopes and our most precious
interests to the waves.
[p16]
It ought further to be observed, that the senate is a
court of justice in the last resort. It is the last
depository of public and private rights; of civil and
criminal justice. This gives the subject an awful
consideration, and wonderfully increases the importance
of securing that house from the inroads of universal
suffrage. Our country freeholders are exclusively our
jurors in the administration of justice, and there is
equal reason that none but those who have an interest in
the soil, should have any concern in the composition of
that court. As long as the senate is safe, justice is
safe, property is safe, and our liberties are safe. But
when the wisdom, the integrity, and the independence of
that court is lost, we may be certain that the freedom
and happiness of this state, are fled forever.
[p17]
I hope, sir, we shall not carry desolation through all
the departments of the fabric erected by our fathers. I
hope we shall not put forward to the world a new
constitution, as will meet with the scorn of the wise,
and the tears of the patriot. . . .
[p20]
Of the twenty four states which compose this union,
twelve states require only a certain time of residence as
a qualification to vote for all their elective
officers— eight require in addition to residence the
payment of taxes or the performance of militia
duty—four states only require a freehold
qualification, viz. New-York, North-Carolina, Virginia,
and Rhode-Island. The distinction which the amendment of
the gentleman from Albany proposes to continue, exists
only in the constitution of this state, and in that of
North-Carolina.
[p21]
In some of the states, the possession of a freehold,
constitutes one of several qualifications, either of
which gives the right of suffrage; but in four only, is
the exclusive right of voting for any department of the
government confined to landholders.
[p22]
The progressive extension of the right of suffrage by the
reformations which have taken place in several of the
state constitutions, adds to the force of the authority.
By the original constitution of Maryland, (made in 1776,)
a considerable property qualification was necessary to
constitute an elector. By successive alterations in the
years 1802, and 1810, the right has been extended to all
the white citizens who have a permanent residence in the
state. A similar alteration has been made in the
constitution of South-Carolina; and by the recent
reformations in the constitutions of Connecticut and
Massachusetts, property qualifications in the electors
have been abolished; the right is extended in the former
almost to universal suffrage, and in the latter to all
the citizens who pay taxes. It is not in the smaller
states only, that these liberal principles respecting
suffrage, have been adopted. The constitution of
Pennsylvania, adopted in the year 1790, extends the right
of suffrage to all the citizens who pay taxes, and to
their sons between the age of twenty-one and twenty-two
years.
[p23]
That constitution was formed by men, distinguished for
patriotism and talents. At the head of them, we find the
name of Judge [James] Wilson, a distinguished statesman,
and one of the founders of the constitution of the United
States.
[p24]
The constitution of Pennsylvania was formed on the broad
principle of suffrage, which that distinguished man lays
down in his writings. "That every citizen whose
circumstances do not render him necessarily dependant on
the will of another, should possess a vote in electing
those, by whose conduct his property, his reputation, his
liberty, and his life may be almost materially
affected." This is the correct rule, and it has been
adopted into the constitution of every state which has
been formed since the government of the United States was
organized. So universal an admission of the great
principle of general suffrage, by the Conventions of
discreet and sober minded men, who have been engaged in
forming or amending the different constitutions, produces
a strong conviction that the principle is safe and
salutary.
[p25]
It is said by those who contend that the right of voting
for senators should be confined to the landholders, that
the framers of our constitution were wise and practical
men, and that they deemed this distinction essential to
the security of the landed property; and that we have not
encountered any evils from it during the forty years
experience which we have had. To this I answer, that if
the restriction of the right of suffrage has produced no
positive evil, it cannot be shown to have produced any
good results.
[p26]
The qualifications for assembly voters, under the
existing constitution, are as liberal as any which will
probably be adopted by this Convention. Is it pretended
that the assembly, during the forty-three years
experience which we have enjoyed under our constitution,
has been, in any respect, inferior to the senate? Has the
senate, although elected exclusively by freeholders, been
composed of men of more talents, or greater probity, than
the assembly? Have the rights of property, generally, or
of the landed interest in particular, been more
vigilantly watched, and more carefully protected by the
senate than by the assembly? I might appeal to the
journals of the two houses, and to the recollections and
information of the members of the committee on this
subject; but it is unnecessary, as I understand the
gentlemen who support the amendment, distinctly admit,
that hitherto the assembly has been as safe a depository
of the rights of the landed interest, as the senate. But
it is supposed that the framers of our constitution must
have had wise and cogent reasons for making such a
distinction between the electors of the different
branches of the government. May we not, however, without
the least derogation from the wisdom and good intentions
of the framers of our constitution, ascribe the provision
in question to circumstances which then influenced them,
but which no longer ought to have weight?
[p27]
When our constitution was framed, the domain of the state
was in the hands of a few. The proprietors of the great
manors were almost the only men of great influence; and
the landed property was deemed worthy of almost exclusive
consideration. Before the revolution, freeholders only
were allowed to exercise the right of suffrage. The
notions of our ancestors, in regard to real property,
were all derived from England. The feudal tenures were
universally adopted. The law of primogeniture, by which
estates descended to the eldest son, and the rule of
descent by which the male branches inherited the paternal
estate, to the exclusion of the female, entails, and many
other provisions of feudal origin were in force. The
tendency of this system, it is well understood, was to
keep the lands of the state in few hands. But since that
period, by the operation of wiser laws, and by the
prevalence of juster principles, an entire revolution has
taken place in regard to real property. Our laws for
regulating descents, and for converting entailed estates
into fee-simple, have gradually increased the number of
landholders: Our territory has been rapidly divided and
subdivided: And although the landed interest is no longer
controlled by the influence of a few great proprietors,
its aggregate importance is vastly increased, and almost
the whole community have become interested in its
protection. In New-England, the inhabitants, from the
earliest period, have enjoyed the system which we are
progressively attaining to. There, the property of the
soil has always been in the hands of the many. The
great bulk of the population are farmers and freeholders,
yet no provision is incorporated in their constitutions,
excluding those who are not freeholders from a full
participation in the right of suffrage. May we not trace
the notions of the framers of our constitution,
respecting the exclusive privilege of the freeholders, to
the same source from whence they derived all their ideas
of real property?
[p28]
In England, from the earliest times, the superiority of
the landed interest was maintained. To go no farther back
than the Norman invasion, we find the domain of England
parcelled out in great manors among the followers of the
Conqueror. They and their descendants, for many years,
were the only legislative and judiciary power in the
kingdom. Their baronies gave them the right of
legislation. It was a privilege annexed to the land which
their vassals cultivated. Their vassals, in process of
time, became freeholders, and formed the juries in the
manor courts.
[p29]
It was a long time before any other interests than that
of the landholders was attended to. For some hundred
years, the great cities and boroughs were not considered
worthy of being represented in the great councils of the
kingdom. And although numerous great interests have since
arisen, the house of peers and the knights of the shire,
are still supposed to represent the landed interest
exclusively. It was not surprising that the framers of
our constitution, though they in the main aimed to
establish our government on republican principles, should
have adopted some of the notions which they inherited,
with their domains, from their ancestors. The force of
habit and prejudice which induced those illustrious men
to incorporate in the constitution absurd provisions,
will manifestly appear by adverting to a single instance
of the application of the rule established by them, to
determine the right of voting for senators and governor.
[p30]
A man who is possessed of a piece of land worth $250 for
his own life, or the life of another person, is a
freeholder, and has the right to vote for governor and
senators. But one who has an estate in ever so valuable a
farm, for 999 years, or any other definite term, however
long, is not a freeholder and cannot vote. The absurdity
of the distinction, at this day, is so glaring as to
require no comment. Yet there are numerous farmers, in
different parts of the state, who are excluded from the
right of suffrage on this absurd distinction between
freehold and leasehold estates. No person will now
pretend that a farmer who holds his land by a thousand
years lease is less attached to the soil, or less likely
to exercise the privilege of freeman discreetly, than a
freeholder. We shall not, I trust, be accused of want of
respect to settled institutions, if we expunge such
glaring absurdities from our constitution. It is
supposed, however, by the honourable member before me
(Chancellor Kent) that landed property will become
insecure under the proposed extension of the right of
suffrage, by the influx of a more dangerous population.
That gentleman has drawn a picture from the existing
state of society in European kingdoms, which would be
indeed appalling, if we could suppose such a state of
society could exist here. But are arguments, drawn from
the state of society in Europe, applicable to our
situation? I think the concessions of my honourable
friend from Albany, who last addressed the committee,
(Mr. Van Vechten) greatly weaken the force of the
arguments of his honour the Chancellor.
[p31]
It is conceded by my honourable friend, that the great
landed estates must be cut up by the operation of our
laws of descent; that we have already seen those laws
effect a great change; and that it is the inevitable
tendency of our rules of descent, to divide up our
territory into farms of moderate size. The real property,
therefore, will be in the hands of the many. But
in England, and other European kingdoms, it is the policy
of the aristocracy to keep the lands in few hands. The
laws of primogeniture, the entailments and family
settlements, all tend to give a confined direction to the
course of descents. Hence we find in Europe, the landed
estates possessed by a few rich men; and the great bulk
of the population poor, and without that attachment to
the government which is found among the owners of the
soil. Hence, also, the poor envy and hate the rich, and
mobs and insurrections sometimes render property
insecure. Did I believe that our population would
degenerate into such a state, I should, with the
advocates for the amendment, hesitate in extending the
right of suffrage; but I confess I have no such fears. I
have heretofore had doubts respecting the safety of
adopting the principles of a suffrage as extensive as
that now contemplated. I have given to the subject the
best reflection of which I am capable; and I have
satisfied myself, that there is no danger in adopting
those liberal principles which are incorporated in almost
all the constitutions of these United States.
[p32]
There are in my judgment, many circumstances which will
forever preserve the people of this state from the vices
and the degradation of European population, beside those
which I have already taken notice of. The provision
already made for the establishment of common schools,
will, in a very few years, extend the benefit of
education to all our citizens. The universal diffusion of
information will forever distinguish our population from
that of Europe. Virtue and intelligence are the true
basis on which every republican government must rest.
When these are lost, freedom will no longer exist. The
diffusion of education is the only sure means of
establishing these pillars of freedom. I rejoice in this
view of the subject, that our common school fund will (if
the report on the legislative department be adopted,) be
consecrated by a constitutional provision; and I feel no
apprehension, for myself, or my posterity, in confiding
the right of suffrage to the great mass of such a
population as I believe ours will always be. The farmers
in this country will always out number all other portions
of our population. Admitting that the increase of our
cities, and especially of our commercial metropolis, will
be as great as it has been hitherto; it is not to be
doubted that the agricultural population will increase in
the same proportion. The city population will never be
able to depress that of the country. New-York has always
contained about a tenth part of the population of the
state, and will probably always bear a similar
proportion. Can she, with such a population, under any
circumstances, render the property of the vast population
of the country insecure? It may be that mobs will
occasionally be collected, and commit depredations in a
great city; but, can the mobs traverse our immense
territory, and invade the farms, and despoil the property
of the landholders? And if such a state of things were
possible, would a senate, elected by freeholders, afford
any security? It is the regular administration of the
laws by an independent judiciary, that renders property
secure against private acts of violence. And there will
always be a vast majority of our citizens interested in
preventing legislative injustice.
[p33]
But the gentleman who introduced the proposition now
before the committee, has predicted dangers of another
kind to the landed interest, if their exclusive right of
electing the senate shall be taken away. He supposes,
that combinations of other interests will be formed to
depress the landholders, by charging them exclusively
with the burthen of taxation.
[p34]
I cannot entertain any apprehension that such a state of
things will ever exist. Under any probable extension of
the right of suffrage, the landed interest will, in my
view of the subject, always maintain a vast preponderance
of numbers and influence. From what combinations of other
interests can danger arise? The mercantile and
manufacturing interests are the only ones which can
obtain a formidable influence. Are the owners of
manufacturing establishments, scattered through the
state, as they always must be, likely to enter into a
confederacy with the merchants of the great cities, for
the purpose of depressing the yeomanry and landholders of
this great state? Has our past experience shewn any
tendency in those two great interests, to unite in any
project, especially for such an one as that which I have
mentioned? We usually find the merchants and
manufacturers acting as rivals to each other: but both
feel a community of interest with the landholders; and it
will ever be the interest of the farmers, as it ever has
been, to foster and protect both the manufacturing and
mercantile interests. The discussions which the tariff
has undergone, both in and out of congress, have
demonstrated the feelings of rivalship which exist
between our manufacturers and our merchants. But who has
ever heard, in this or any other country, of a
combination of those two classes of men, to destroy the
interest of the farmers? No other combination, then, can
be imagined, but that of the poor against the rich. Can
it be anticipated, that those who have no property can
ever so successfully combine their efforts, as to have a
majority in both branches of the legislature, unfriendly
to the security of property?
[p35]
One ground of the argument of gentlemen who support the
amendment is, that the extension of the right of suffrage
will give an undue influence to the rich over the persons
who depend upon them for employment; but if the rich
control the votes of the poor, the result cannot be
unfavourable to the security of property. The supposition
that, at some future day, when the poor shall become
numerous, they may imitate the radicals of England, or
the jacobins of France; that they may rise, in the
majesty of their strength, and usurp the property of the
landholders, is so unlikely to be realized, that we may
dismiss all fear arising from that source. Before that
can happen, wealth must lose all its influence; public
morals must be destroyed; and the nature of our
government changed, and it would be in vain to look to a
senate, chosen by landholders, for security in a case of
such extremity. I cannot but think, that all the dangers
which it is predicted will flow from doing away the
exclusive right of the landholders to elect the senators,
are groundless.
[p36]
I contend, that by the true principle of our government,
property, as such, is not the basis of representation.
Our community is an association of persons—of human
beings—not a partnership founded on property. The
declared object of the people of this state in
associating, was, to "establish such a government as
they deemed best calculated to secure the rights and
liberties of the good people of the state, and most
conducive to their happiness and safety." Property,
it is admitted, is one of the rights to be protected and
secured; and although the protection of life and liberty
is the highest object of attention, it is certainly true,
that the security of property is a most interesting and
important object in every free government. Property is
essential to our temporal happiness; and is necessarily
one of the most interesting subjects of legislation. The
desire of acquiring property is a universal passion. I
readily give to property the important place which has
been assigned to it by the honourable member from Albany
(Chancellor Kent). To property we are indebted for most
of our comforts, and for much of our temporal happiness.
The numerous religious, moral, and benevolent
institutions which are every where established, owe their
existence to wealth; and it is wealth which enables us to
make those great internal improvements which we have
undertaken. Property is only one of the incidental rights
of the person who possesses it; and, as such, it must be
made secure; but it does not follow, that it must
therefore be represented specifically in any branch of
the government.
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