gh thirty years of
agitation. Then Dorr's Rebellion, almost culminating in bloodshed,
brought about a reform in 1843 which introduced a slight tax-paying
qualification as an alternative to the freehold. Virginia and North
Carolina were still unconvinced. The former refused to abandon ownership
of land as the test for political rights until 1850 and the latter until
1856. Although religious discriminations and property qualifications for
office holders were sometimes retained after the establishment of
manhood suffrage, they were usually abolished along with the monopoly of
government enjoyed by property owners and taxpayers.

[Illustration: THOMAS DORR AROUSING HIS FOLLOWERS]

At the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the white
male industrial workers and the mechanics of the Northern cities, at
least, could lay aside the petition for the ballot and enjoy with the
free farmer a voice in the government of their common country.
"Universal democracy," sighed Carlyle, who was widely read in the United
States, "whatever we may think of it has declared itself the inevitable
fact of the days in which we live; and he who has any chance to instruct
or lead in these days must begin by admitting that ... Where no
government is wanted, save that of the parish constable, as in America
with its boundless soil, every man being able to find work and
recompense for himself, democracy may subsist; not elsewhere." Amid the
grave misgivings of the first generation of statesmen, America was
committed to the great adventure, in the populous towns of the East as
well as in the forests and fields of the West.

THE NEW DEMOCRACY ENTERS THE ARENA

The spirit of the new order soon had a pronounced effect on the
machinery of government and the practice of politics. The enfranchised
electors were not long in demanding for themselves a larger share in
administration.

=The Spoils System and Rotation in Office.=--First of all they wanted
office for themselves, regardless of their fitness. They therefore
extended the system of rewarding party workers with government
positions--a system early established in several states, notably New
York and Pennsylvania. Closely connected with it was the practice of
fixing short terms for officers and making frequent changes in
personnel. "Long continuance in office," explained a champion of this
idea in Pennsylvania in 1837, "unfits a man for the discharge of its
duties, by rendering him ar