opinion on
no general theory of government. I distrust all general theories of
government. I will not positively say, that there is any form of polity
which may not, in some conceivable circumstances, be the best possible.
I believe that there are societies in which every man may safely be
admitted to vote. Gentlemen may cheer, but such is my opinion. I say,
Sir, that there are countries in which the condition of the labouring
classes is such that they may safely be intrusted with the right of
electing Members of the Legislature. If the labourers of England were
in that state in which I, from my soul, wish to see them, if employment
were always plentiful, wages always high, food always cheap, if a large
family were considered not as an encumbrance but as a blessing, the
principal objections to Universal Suffrage would, I think, be removed.
Universal Suffrage exists in the United States, without producing any
very frightful consequences; and I do not believe that the people of
those States, or of any part of the world, are in any good quality
naturally superior to our own countrymen. But, unhappily, the labouring
classes in England, and in all old countries, are occasionally in a
state of great distress. Some of the causes of this distress are, I
fear, beyond the control of the Government. We know what effect distress
produces, even on people more intelligent than the great body of the
labouring classes can possibly be. We know that it makes even wise men
irritable, unreasonable, credulous, eager for immediate relief, heedless
of remote consequences. There is no quackery in medicine, religion, or
politics, which may not impose even on a powerful mind, when that mind
has been disordered by pain or fear. It is therefore no reflection
on the poorer class of Englishmen, who are not, and who cannot in the
nature of things be, highly educated, to say that distress produces on
them its natural effects, those effects which it would produce on the
Americans, or on any other people, that it blinds their judgment, that
it inflames their passions, that it makes them prone to believe those
who flatter them, and to distrust those who would serve them. For the
sake, therefore, of the whole society, for the sake of the labouring
classes themselves, I hold it to be clearly expedient that, in a
country like this, the right of suffrage should depend on a pecuniary
qualification.

But, Sir, every argument which would induce me to oppose Uni