f Jay and
other patriots of the Revolution, still lingered in his mind, arousing
painful apprehensions of what would happen if the exclusive privileges
of landowners should disappear, and robbing him of that faith in the
people which made Erastus Root the forerunner of the broad suffrage
that obtains to-day. Chancellor Kent backed Spencer's proposition in
an abler speech than that made by the Chief Justice himself. Kent was
an honourable, upright statesman, who, unlike Spencer, had never
wavered in his fealty to that federalism which had been learned at the
feet of John Jay and Alexander Hamilton; but, like Spencer, he had
failed to discover that the people, jealous of their rights and
liberties, could be trusted regardless of property holdings. "By the
report before us," he said, "we propose to annihilate, at one stroke,
all property distinctions, and to bow before the idol of universal
suffrage. That extreme democratic principle has been regarded with
terror by the wise men of every age, because in every European
republic, ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has
terminated disastrously, and been productive of corruption, injustice,
violence, and tyranny. And dare we flatter ourselves that we are a
peculiar people, who can run the career of history exempted from the
passions which have disturbed and corrupted the rest of mankind? If we
are like other races of men, with similar follies and vices, then I
greatly fear that our posterity will have reason to deplore in
sackcloth and ashes the delusion of the day."[219]

[Footnote 219: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
2, p. 34.]

Though Erastus Root and Samuel Young employed all their eloquence and
all their energy against Spencer's proposition, it was Martin Van
Buren's speech which made the deepest impression. It cannot be said
that the latter's remarks defeated the amendment, because the vote of
nineteen to one hundred, showed no one behind the Chief Justice's
proposal save himself and a few Federalists. But Van Buren greatly
strengthened the report of the committee, which gave a vote to every
male citizen twenty-one years old, who had resided six months in the
State and who had within one year paid taxes or a road assessment, or
had been enrolled and served in the militia. Although, said Van Buren,
this report is on the verge of universal suffrage, it did not cheapen
the invaluable right, by conferring it indiscriminately upon ever