have not only made no demand for the vote but they have
never been asked to give any evidence of capacity to use it
intelligently.

We turned again to history to see how the men who lived in this
country in 1800 got their votes. At that time 8 per cent. of the
total population were voters in New York as compared with 25 per
cent. now. There was a struggle in all the colonial States to
broaden the suffrage. New York seemed always to have lagged
behind the others and therefore it forms a good example. It was
next to the last State to remove the land qualification and it
was not a leader in the extension of the suffrage to any class.

In 1740 the British Parliament disqualified the Catholics for
naturalization in this country. That enactment had been preceded
in several of the States by their definite disfranchisement. In
1699 they were disfranchised by an Act of the Assembly of New
York. Although the writers on the early franchise say that Jews
were not permitted to vote anywhere in this country in 1701, as
they certainly were not in England, yet occasionally they
apparently did so. In New York that year there was a definite
enactment disfranchising them. In 1737 the Assembly passed
another disfranchising Act. Catholics and Jews were disfranchised
in most States. It is interesting to learn how they became
enfranchised. One would naturally suppose that together or
separately they would make some great demand for political
equality with Protestants but there is no record that they did. I
find that the reason why our country became so liberal to them
was not because there was any demand on their part and not
because there was any special advocacy of their enfranchisement
by statesmen. It was due to the fact that in the Revolution,
Great Britain, having difficulty with the American colonies on
the south side of the St. Lawrence River, did as every
belligerent country does and tried to hold Canada by granting her
favors. In order to make the Canadian colonies secure against
revolution the British Parliament, which had previously
disfranchised the Catholics and the Jews, now extended a vote to
them. The American Constitution makers could not do less than
Great Britain had done, and so in every one of the thirteen
States they were guaranteed pol