THE LESSON

OF

POPULAR GOVERNMENT

IT

CHAPTER I

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE

T sounds like a truism to say that within little more than a century a force has made its appearance in the world which was never before known, and which, having already changed the whole face of human society, points to still greater changes in the future. Allusion is made, however, in the present case, not to either steam or electricity, to the locomotive engine or the telegraph or the telephone not to a physical, but a moral force; that is, the carrying on of governments, if only in theory, in accordance with the expressed wish of the great mass of the people. The phrase 'little more than a century' is strictly correct, because the modern system of representation, based upon the votes of a whole people, is certainly not older than our Federal Constitution. There may have been governments, as in the old Teutonic tribes, where all the people had a direct voice in making the laws. There have, of course, been governments, as in Venice and England before this century, carried on by selected members of certain classes. But none of these answer the conditions of what is now known as government by universal suffrage. Athens is supposed to be the typical democracy of antiquity. Yet at a time

when Athens had more than half a million of inhabitants, the demos or active people, the assembly of citizens, was never over twenty thousand, and there were seldom more than six thousand present at the public assembly, a sort of exaggerated town meeting.1 In Rome, what was meant by the plebs or people seems to have been the richer classes of citizens, and the struggle for power was between them and the patricians. The mass of small tradesmen, workmen, and slaves had little to do with the government beyond their power as a mob.

To show how modern the system really is, it may be worth while to examine the dates of introduction of a widely extended suffrage among the leading nations.

In Great Britain, down to 1832, the representation was about on the same basis as in the reign of Henry VI. The knights of the shire were nominees of the nobles and great landowners; the borough members were returned by the Crown, by noble patrons, or by close corporations of self-elected burgesses, and even the representation of cities, with greater pretensions to independence, was controlled by bribery. By the reform bill of 1832 the first great change was made. About one hundred and fifty nomination members of Parliament were disfranchised and their places filled by members elected from the large towns and counties. In the towns those occupying houses worth $50 a year were given votes, while in the counties tenants at will paying rents of $250 a year, and those holding leases for terms of years at $50 a year, were also given the franchise.

By the reform bill of 1867-68 the franchise was extended in the boroughs to lodgers in tenements worth $50 a year unfurnished, and all occupiers of dwellings which were assessed for poor rates. In counties the qualification was reduced for holders of leases from $50

1 Woolsey, "Political Science," Vol. I., pp. 206, 483.

to $25 a year, and for tenants at will from rents of $250 to those of $50, so that in practice every one could vote who had a fixed home.1 The voters were, in 1886, for the whole of Great Britain, according to Whitaker's Almanac, 6,067,131, an average of 9055 electors to each member. We need not now discuss the effect of these changes, but merely observe how great and how recent they are. It may be remarked incidentally, however, that in 1854 was passed the Corrupt Practices Act, to prevent bribery at elections; that in 1868 the House of Commons surrendered its power of deciding disputed elections, transferring it to the courts; and that in 1872 the Ballot Act was passed, enabling votes to be cast secretly and without intimidation.

In France the first States-General was held under Philip the Fair in 1302. Having a quarrel with the Pope, the king summoned an assembly which was composed of a large number of ecclesiastics, thirty-one princes and nobles, with magistrates and citizens of the principal cities of France. Similar assemblies were held at pretty wide intervals during the next three centuries. When the king sent out a summons the nobles and the clergy sent what deputies they chose, and the inhabitants in the towns and villages chose electors at their discretion, who in turn came together and chose deputies to the States-General. As the king, the royal family, and the great ministers of state were present, it is evident that the power of the peo

1 Qualifications in England are now a freehold or copyhold of £5 yearly value, leasehold of £5 yearly value for sixty years or more, leasehold of £50 yearly value for twenty years or more, in counties or towns which rank as counties The occupier of land or tenements of the yearly value of £10 is qualified to vote in any part of the United Kingdom. The inhabitant occupier of a dwelling-house or of any part of a house occupied as a separate dwelling is qualified, but throughout the United Kingdom both these franchises are dependent upon payment of rate. Lodgers occupying rooms of the yearly value of £10 value are also qualified. - Chambers' Cyclopædia, 1891, article "Franchise."

ple was not great. They could do little but present their grievances, of which the king took such notice as he pleased. The idea of representation was there, but not in its modern form. No States-General met after 1614 till the Revolution, and when Louis XVI., under the pressure of financial necessity, wished to call a similar body in 1789, so little was known of the old procedure that scholars were employed to make a study of it. By the constitution of 1791 voters must be twenty-five years old, be domiciled in a city or canton for a period required by law, pay taxes equal to three days' labor and show a receipt for them, and must not be a servant at wages. The election was double; that is, the voters chose electors and the electors deputies, and the electors of the second degree were limited to those who paid taxes equal to two hundred days' labor. By the constitution of 1814 the pecuniary qualification for an elector was fixed at $60 in taxes and for a deputy $200 in taxes. The number of voters for all France was thereby limited to seventy thousand in a population of twenty-eight millions. By the constitution of 1830 the qualification of voters was reduced to $40 in taxes, while members of the Institute and officers of the army and navy were allowed to vote upon payment of $20 taxes. Even these conditions kept down the number of voters to a very small proportion of the population and there were charges of extensive corruption among these by the use of offices. An attempt at a reform movement, such as had recently been so successful in England, brought on the Revolution of 1848. Then for the first time was established a National Assembly with direct election by the whole people, every Frenchman having a vote, without pecuniary qualification, who had reached the age of twenty-one years, had resided six months in the commune, and was in the enjoyment of civil and political rights. The Emperor Louis Napoleon professed to base his title

upon popular election, and however little of real power the people possessed, the form of universal suffrage was kept up, the plebiscite amounting in 1870 to nearly nine millions of votes in a population of thirty-six millions.

Switzerland down to 1798 was composed of a confederation of aristocratically governed states, as loosely bound together as that of the United States before 1789, and having pretty fully developed most of the evils which in the latter were making themselves felt. To quote the writer who has given perhaps the best analysis of existing Swiss institutions: 1

These aristocracies were particularly obnoxious to the revolutionists of France, and after the latter had sufficiently cured the evils of human society in their own country, they determined to rectify the political affairs of Switzerland according to their views of the rights of man. According to the government then established the central legislature consisted of a Grand Council of Representatives, elected from the cantons according to population. After a brief period of five years this arrangement was modified by Napoleon; while the changes of 1815 and 1830 carried back the central government to the condition of the previous century.

It was only in the constitution of 1848 that the present rule was adopted, by which every Swiss who has completed twenty years of age, and who in addition is not excluded from the rights of a voter by the legislation of the canton in which he is domiciled, has the right to vote in the elections for the National Council and in popular votes.

Germany down to the first French Revolution consisted of a maze of despotisms, some three hundred in number, of greater or less size, in which popular power was unknown. In 1815 the number of potentates was reduced to forty. The Diet consisted merely of representatives of the princes, whose one object was to stifle popular progress in any province where it might break out. Whenever the people of a single state endeavored to obtain free institu

1 "State and Federal Government in Switzerland," by John Martin Vincent, Ph.D., Librarian and Instructor in Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, 1891,