w and thus became interested in the election of judges and lawmakers.

Those who attacked the old system of class rule found a strong moral
support in the Declaration of Independence. Was it not said that all men
are created equal? Whoever runs may read. Was it not declared that
governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed?
That doctrine was applied with effect to George III and seemed
appropriate for use against the privileged classes of Massachusetts or
Virginia. "How do the principles thus proclaimed," asked the
non-freeholders of Richmond, in petitioning for the ballot, "accord with
the existing regulation of the suffrage? A regulation which, instead of
the equality nature ordains, creates an odious distinction between
members of the same community ... and vests in a favored class, not in
consideration of their public services but of their private possessions,
the highest of all privileges."

=Abolition of Property Qualifications.=--By many minor victories rather
than by any spectacular triumphs did the advocates of manhood suffrage
carry the day. Slight gains were made even during the Revolution or
shortly afterward. In Pennsylvania, the mechanics, by taking an active
part in the contest over the Constitution of 1776, were able to force
the qualification down to the payment of a small tax. Vermont came into
the union in 1792 without any property restrictions. In the same year
Delaware gave the vote to all men who paid taxes. Maryland, reckoned one
of the most conservative of states, embarked on the experiment of
manhood suffrage in 1809; and nine years later, Connecticut, equally
conservative, decided that all taxpayers were worthy of the ballot.

Five states, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Rhode Island, and North
Carolina, remained obdurate while these changes were going on around
them; finally they had to yield themselves. The last struggle in
Massachusetts took place in the constitutional convention of 1820. There
Webster, in the prime of his manhood, and John Adams, in the closing
years of his old age, alike protested against such radical innovations
as manhood suffrage. Their protests were futile. The property test was
abolished and a small tax-paying qualification was substituted. New York
surrendered the next year and, after trying some minor restrictions for
five years, went completely over to white manhood suffrage in 1826.
Rhode Island clung to her freehold qualification throu