I will not pretend to draw the exact line or to say
how many of them are doomed; but I believe that South Carolina, with
Georgia and perhaps five or six others, will be extruded from the
Union. But their very extrusion will be a political success, and
will in fact amount to a virtual acknowledgment in the body of the
Union of the truth of that system for which the conservative
Republican party has contended. If the North obtain the power of
settling that question of boundary, the abandonment of those
Southern States will be a success, even though the privilege of
retaining them be the very point for which the North is now in arms.
The first clause of the Constitution declares that all the
legislative powers granted by the Constitution shall be vested in a
Congress, which shall consist of a Senate and of a House of
Representatives. The House of Representatives is to be rechosen
every two years, and shall be elected by the people, such persons in
each State having votes for the national Congress as have votes for
the legislature of their own States. If, therefore, South Carolina
should choose - as she has chosen - to declare that the electors of
her own legislature shall possess a property qualification, the
electors of members of Congress from South Carolina must also have
that qualification. In Massachusetts universal suffrage now
prevails, although it is not long since a low property qualification
prevailed even in Massachusetts. It therefore follows that members
of the House of Representatives in Congress need by no means be all
chosen on the same principle. As a fact, universal suffrage* and
vote by ballot, that is by open voting papers, prevail in the
States, but they do not so prevail by virtue of any enactment of the
Constitution. The laws of the States, however, require that the
voter shall have been a resident in the State for some period, and
generally either deny the right of voting to negroes, or so hamper
that privilege that practically it amounts to the same thing.
* Perhaps the better word would have been manhood suffrage; and even
that word should be taken with certain restrictions. Aliens,
minors, convicts, and men who pay no taxes cannot vote. In some
States none can vote unless they can read and write. In some there
is a property qualification. In all there are special restrictions
against negroes. There is in none an absolutely universal suffrage.
But I keep the name as it best expresses to us in England the system
of franchise which has practically come to prevail in the United
States.
The Senate of the United States is composed of two Senators from
each State. These Senators are chosen for six years, and are
elected in a manner which shows the conservative tendency of the
Constitution with more signification than perhaps any other rule
which it contains.
