date

nd [wm 1816] 22 37. That, for
nd [wm 1816]

22

37. That, for the revival and application of the above mentioned salutary and

indispensable counterinfluence, it will be expedient and necessary, to admitt to a

participation in the Election suffrage, all such persons, as, being of the male sex

and mature age, shall at, the time of giving their respective votes, be in possession

of such means of appropriate intellectual aptitude, the

possession of which is capable of being established by an

unquestionable test: which test is, in the instance of each individual,

constituted by the faculty of reading, considered as

applicable to the purpose, of taking, and keeping under view, all such documents, as

may be necessary to enable him to form a well-grounded judgment, concerning the

aptitude, absolute, and comparative of the several persons, among whom, in the

character of proposed Representatives, he will have to choose.

38. That, forasmuch as, by the already extensive, and indefinitely extendible,

diffusion of periodically published and other discourses, on all subjects in general,

and on all political subjects in particular, - whereby, in relation to all such

subjects, true information, and, in case of error, prompt correction of such error,

may, at all times, with the utmost rapidity, be disseminated – all such persons as

are possessed of that same primary and preliminary art, are, in relation to the

several points in question, possessed of means of information far superior to al that

were ever in the possession of those our ancestors, by whose appropriate intellectual

aptitude, as well as probity, in the character of voters, that Constitution was

established, by which notwithstanding those imperfections to which it is hereby

endeavoured to apply a remedy, the condition of this Nation has at all times been,

and even still is, so advantageously distinguished: and that therefore the

sufficiency of this test is, to the great purpose here in view, as unquestionably as

the fact of a man’s being in possession, where he really is in possession, of the art

and faculty by which this same test is afforded, will, at all times, be

uncontrovertible. –
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