isions; which may be reduced to these
three points, 1. The qualifications of the electors. 2. The
qualifications of the elected. 3. The proceedings at elections.

1. AS to the qualifications of the electors. The true reason of
requiring any qualification, with regard to property, in voters, is to
exclude such persons as are in so mean a situation that they are
esteemed to have no will of their own. If these persons had votes,
they would be tempted to dispose of them under some undue influence or
other. This would give a great, an artful, or a wealthy man, a larger
share in elections than is consistent with general liberty. If it were
probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without
influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine
principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor,
should have a vote in electing those delegates, to whose charge is
committed the disposal of his property, his liberty, and his life.
But, since that can hardly be expected in persons of indigent
fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all
popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications;
whereby some, who are suspected to have no will of their own, are
excluded from voting, in order to set other individuals, whose wills
may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each
other.

AND this constitution of suffrages is framed upon a wiser principle
than either of the methods of voting, by centuries, or by tribes,
among the Romans. In the method by centuries, instituted by Servius
Tullius, it was principally property, and not numbers that turned the
scale: in the method by tribes, gradually introduced by the tribunes
of the people, numbers only were regarded and property entirely
overlooked. Hence the laws passed by the former method had usually too
great a tendency to aggrandize the patricians or rich nobles; and
those by the latter had too much of a levelling principle. Our
constitution steers between the two extremes. Only such as are
entirely excluded, as can have no will of their own: there is hardly a
free agent to be found, but what is entitled to a vote in some place
or other in the kingdom. Nor is comparative wealth, or property,
entirely disregarded in elections; for though the richest man has only
one vote at one place, yet if his property be at all diffused, he has
probably a right to vote at more places than one, and therefore h