s, with the exception of the State of Vermont, where the
male heir inherits a double portion. (Kent's "Commentaries," vol. iv. p.
370.) Mr. Kent, in the same work, vol. iv. p. 1-22, gives a historical
account of American legislation on the subject of entail: by this
we learn that, previous to the Revolution, the colonies followed the
English law of entail. Estates tail were abolished in Virginia in 1776,
on a motion of Mr. Jefferson. They were suppressed in New York in 1786,
and have since been abolished in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Georgia, and Missouri. In Vermont, Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina,
and Louisiana, entail was never introduced. Those States which thought
proper to preserve the English law of entail, modified it in such a
way as to deprive it of its most aristocratic tendencies. "Our general
principles on the subject of government," says Mr. Kent, "tend to favor
the free circulation of property."

It cannot fail to strike the French reader who studies the law
of inheritance, that on these questions the French legislation is
infinitely more democratic even than the American. The American law
makes an equal division of the father's property, but only in the case
of his will not being known; "for every man," says the law, "in the
State of New York (Revised Statutes, vol. iii. Appendix, p. 51), has
entire liberty, power, and authority, to dispose of his property by
will, to leave it entire, or divided in favor of any persons he chooses
as his heirs, provided he do not leave it to a political body or any
corporation." The French law obliges the testator to divide his property
equally, or nearly so, among his heirs. Most of the American republics
still admit of entails, under certain restrictions; but the French law
prohibits entail in all cases. If the social condition of the Americans
is more democratic than that of the French, the laws of the latter are
the most democratic of the two. This may be explained more easily than
at first appears to be the case. In France, democracy is still occupied
in the work of destruction; in America, it reigns quietly over the ruins
it has made.

Appendix H

Summary Of The Qualifications Of Voters In The United States As They
Existed In 1832

All the States agree in granting the right of voting at the age of
twenty-one. In all of them it is necessary to have resided for a certain
time in the district where the vote is given. This period varies from
thre