[131a-031]

[mainly in copyist’s hand]

1818 Dec r 20

Parl. Reform Bill

Reasons

§ 2 Electors Who

§ 4 Eligible Who

Qualification pecuniary

Electors Who. Eligible Who. Qualification pecuniary.

From Smiths Comparative View 1796. p. 20 Note (y)

Copy this Note

+ The Virginia policy of excluding from the Legislature, and from the right of suffrage, all who are not possessed of freeholds, has been often complained of as an aristocratic trait in their System, ill becoming a state, which boasts so much of the purity of her democratic principles. It has been asked, whether a Citizen possessing a large personal Estate, has not as well-founded a pretension to one and the other right, as another holing a few barren acres of land? Were it not for the circumstance abovementioned, namely, the claim of peculiar preeminence in democratic republicanism, this feature in the Constitution of Virginia would probably have been little noticed, for the objection would otherwise lie as well against the constitutions of several of the other States, where the qualification of a freehold is indispensable. Those of Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, North and South Carolina, require the same qualification, either in the Electors or in the elected. The objection, in the abstract, does not appear as a very serious one. It has been long the policy of several of the States to require this qualification, which is thought to attach an individual more to his Country than the mere possession of personal property, which is of a transient and removable quality. It is true, that in the Southern States, where Negroes constitute one of the principal sources of wealth, the owner of negroes may be supposed to have a sufficient attachment to his Country; but as it will seldom happen, that the owner of negroes will not be, at the same time, the proprietor of some land, the qualification can operate no essential injury. There is, however, in Virginia, a remnant of the old feudal system, as absurd as it is dishonest, and which is altogether incompatible with pretensions to superior purity of republicanism, that is, the exemption of lands from execution for the payment of debts: frequent attempts have been made to abolish this odious appendage of aristocracy; there can be no doubt that they will be repeated, and there is every appearance that the extension of information and a spirit of liberality and justice will soon ensure them success.