ake common cause with the farmers
beyond the mountains.

THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN THE EAST

=The Aristocratic Features of the Old Order.=--The Revolutionary
fathers, in setting up their first state constitutions, although they
often spoke of government as founded on the consent of the governed, did
not think that consistency required giving the vote to all adult males.
On the contrary they looked upon property owners as the only safe
"depositary" of political power. They went back to the colonial
tradition that related taxation and representation. This, they argued,
was not only just but a safeguard against the "excesses of democracy."

In carrying their theory into execution they placed taxpaying or
property qualifications on the right to vote. Broadly speaking, these
limitations fell into three classes. Three states, Pennsylvania (1776),
New Hampshire (1784), and Georgia (1798), gave the ballot to all who
paid taxes, without reference to the value of their property. Three,
Virginia, Delaware, and Rhode Island, clung firmly to the ancient
principles that only freeholders could be intrusted with electoral
rights. Still other states, while closely restricting the suffrage,
accepted the ownership of other things as well as land in fulfillment of
the requirements. In Massachusetts, for instance, the vote was granted
to all men who held land yielding an annual income of three pounds or
possessed other property worth sixty pounds.

The electors thus enfranchised, numerous as they were, owing to the wide
distribution of land, often suffered from a very onerous disability. In
many states they were able to vote only for persons of wealth because
heavy property qualifications were imposed on public officers. In New
Hampshire, the governor had to be worth five hundred pounds, one-half in
land; in Massachusetts, one thousand pounds, all freehold; in Maryland,
five thousand pounds, one thousand of which was freehold; in North
Carolina, one thousand pounds freehold; and in South Carolina, ten
thousand pounds freehold. A state senator in Massachusetts had to be the
owner of a freehold worth three hundred pounds or personal property
worth six hundred pounds; in New Jersey, one thousand pounds' worth of
property; in North Carolina, three hundred acres of land; in South
Carolina, two thousand pounds freehold. For members of the lower house
of the legislature lower qualifications were required.

In most of the states the suffrag