them have required a religious test. But the constitution of the United States requires no evidence of property in the repre

tained qualifications, ought to be defined and registered, as absolutely essential to the order and purity of elections. The legal provision on this subject in Massachusetts is valuable. Every citizen must have resided within the state one year, and within the town in which he may claim a right to vote, six months preceding the election. The selectmen of each town, ten days before the first Monday in March, and before the second Monday in November, annually, are to make out a correct list of all qualified voters for officers to be elected at those periods, and ten days before the election to cause their lists to be posted up in two public places in each town. The selectmen are also to meet in session within forty-eight hours next preceding the election, to receive evidence of the qualification of persons claiming to vote, and to correct the lists, and to meet for the like purpose for one hour on the day of election, and before the opening of it. The moderator at town meetings refuses, of course, to receive the votes of persons not on the list. Mass. R. S. pp. 63, 64. The constitution of the state of Florida, of 1839, contains a wholesome provision on this subject, in declaring that the legislature should, at its first session, provide for the registration of all the qualified electors in each county, and thereafter, from time to time, of all who may become such qualified electors, and that every free white male qualified elector, when he offers to vote, must be a citizen, and have had his home, domicil, or permanent abode in the state for two years next preceding, and for the last six months in the county in which he offers to vote. The constitution of the state of Texas, of 1845, is quite latitudinary on the subject, and all white male citizens who have resided in the state one year, and six months in the district, county, city, or town, are entitled to vote. The constitution of Iowa, in 1846, goes much further, and gives the right of suffrage to every citizen who has resided in the state six months, and in the county thirty days. In Virginia, the elector must be either a freeholder or owner of a leasehold estate, or a householder, and have been assessed and paid taxes. In North Carolina, the electors of the senate must be freeholders, as was the case formerly in New York, and the electors of the house of commons must have paid public taxes, and none but freeholders can be members of either house of the legislature. In Georgia, the constitution of 1789 required a property qualification in the members of the legislature, over and above the amount requisite to discharge their debts; but this qualification was dropped in the amended constitution of 1798. In New Hampshire, a state senator must be seized of a freehold estate, in the state, in his own right, of the value of £200, and a state assemblyman must have an estate within his district, of the value of £100, one half thereof to be a freehold. Rhode Island and New Jersey were the only states in the Union that brought down their constitutions from 1776 triumphantly against every assault; but the former of those states changed its constitution in 1842, and the latter in 1844. The progress and impulse of popular opinion is rapidly destroying every constitutional check, every conservative element, intended by the sages who framed the earliest American constitutions, as safeguards against the abuses of popular suffrage. Thus, in Massachusetts, by the constitution of 1780, a defined portion of real or personal property was requisite in an elector, and that qualification was dispensed with by the amended constitution of 1821. By the practice, under the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut, a property qualification was requisite to constitute freemen and voters. This test is still continued in Rhode Island, but is done away with in Connecticut by their constitution of 1818. The New York constitution

sentatives, nor any declaration of religious belief. He is only required to be a citizen of the competent age, and free from

of 1777; required the electors of the senate to be freeholders, and of the assembly to be either freeholders, or to have rented a tenement of the yearly value of forty shillings. The amended constitution of 1821 reduced this qualification down to payment of a tax, or performance of militia duty, or assessment and work on the highways. But the constitution, as again amended in 1826, swept away all these impediments to universal suffrage. In the further Revised Constitution of New York, in 1846, art. 3, sec. 3, 5, the senate is divided into 32 senator districts, and each district to choose one senator. So the members of assembly are to be divided into 128 assembly districts, and each district to choose one member. This appears to be a valuable improvement on the election of members of the legislature. To entitle a person to vote in the election districts, he must have been a citizen for ten days, and an inhabitant of the state one year next preceding the election, and for the last four months a resident of the county where he may offer to vote, and he must vote in the election district of which he shall be a resident at the time, and for thirty days next preceding the election. The constitution further provides, that for the purpose of voting, no person should be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his presence or absence while employed in the service of the United States, nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of the state, or of the United States, or of the high seas, nor while a student in any seminary of learning, nor while kept at any almshouse or other asylum at public expense, or while confined in any public prison. Art. 2, sec. 1, 3. These provisions are very good, if duly and faithfully construed and observed. The constitution further adds, sec. 4, that laws shall be made for ascertaining, by proper proofs, the citizens who shall be entitled to the right of suffrage. There was the same as this last provision in the constitution of 1822, and the legislature, in the year 1840, carried the constitutional provision into effect, according to its spirit and meaning, by the act entitled, "an act to prevent illegal voting in the city of New York, and to promote the convenience of legal voters," 63 sess. c. 78, by dividing the city into election districts, and providing for a registry of the legal voters in each district, to be made in each year, and the registry was made conclusive evidence of the right of persons so registered to vote. This act worked well, and was admirably calculated to prevent illegal voting and frauds in election, by which the right of suffrage in the city has been grossly perverted and abused. But the registry provision was repealed on the 28th February, 1842, (65th sess. c. 56,) and the abuses, impositions, and frauds attending the city elections left to reassume their wonted mischiefs. The constitutional provision of 1846, as it stands, is therefore, a delusive provision, unless wiser counsels prevail in future legislatures. In Maryland, by their constitution of 1776, clectors were to be freeholders, or possessing property to £30; but by legislative amendments in 1801 and 1809, (and amendments are allowed to be made in that state by an ordinary statute, if confirmed by the next succeeding legislature,) all property qualifications were disregarded. The constitution of Virginia, in 1776, required electors to be freeholders; but the constitution of 1830 reduced down the property qualifications to that of being the owner of a leasehold estate, or a householder. In Mississippi, by the constitution of 1817, electors were to have been enrolled in the militia, or paid taxes; but those impediments to universal suffrage were removed by the new constitution of 1833. So the freehold qualification, requisite, in certain cases, by the constitution of Tennessee 21

VOL. I.

any undue bias or dependence, by not holding any office under the United States. (a)

The term for which a representative is to serve, ought not to be so short as to prevent him from obtaining a comprehensive acquaintance with the business to which he is deputed; nor so long as to make him forget the transitory nature of his seat, and his state of dependence on the approbation of his constituents. It ought also to be considered as a fact deeply interesting to the character and utility of representative republics, that very frequent elections have a tendency to render the office less important than it ought to be deemed, and the people inattentive in the exercise of their rights, or else to nourish restlessness, instability, and factions; whilst, on the other hand, long intervals between the elections are apt to make them produce too much

excitement, and consequently to render the periods of *230 their return a time of too much competition and conflict for the public tranquillity. The constitution has certainly not deviated in this respect to the latter extreme, in the establishment of biennial elections. It has probably selected a medium, which, considering the situation and extent of our country, combines as many advantages, and as many inconveniences, as any other term which might have been inserted.

The representatives are directed to be apportioned among the states, according to numbers, which is determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and exclusive of Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. (b) The number of represen

of 1796, is entirely discontinued by the constitution of 1835. All the states and constitutions, formed since 1800, have omitted to require any property qualifications in an elector, except what may be implied in the requisition of having paid a state or county tax; and even that is not in the constitutions more recently formed or amended, except in the Rhode Island constitution of 1843. In some of the states, as in New Hampshire, for instance, a property qualification is still required in the elected, as governor or as members of the two houses of the legislature. Such a rapid course of destruction of the former constitutional checks (and of which further examples are hereafter noticed, see infra, p. 295, note) is matter for grave reflection; and to counteract the dangerous tendency of such combined forces as universal suffrage, frequent elections, all offices for short periods, all officers elective, and an unchecked press; and to prevent them from racking and destroying our political machines, the people must have a larger share than usual of that wisdom which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated. (a) Art. 1, sec. 6.

(b) Ibid. sec. 2.

tatives cannot exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state is entitled to have at least one representative. The actual enumeration or census of the inhabitants of the United States is to be made every ten years, and the representatives newly apportioned upon the same, under a new ratio, according to the relative increase of the population of the states. (a) The number fixed by the constitution in the first instance, and until a census was taken, was sixty-five members. The apportionment under the fourth census, by the act of congress of 7th March, 1822, was to a ratio of one representative for every forty thousand persons in each state, and it made the whole number of representatives amount to two hundred and thirteen members. Under the fifth census, completed in 1831, and which made the population of the United States amount to twelve millions eight hundred and fifty-six thousand persons, the ratio of representation was enlarged to one representative for every fortyseven thousand and seven hundred persons, making in the whole, two hundred and forty members. (b) The rule of appor

(a) Art. 1, sec. 2.

(b) Act of congress, May 22d, 1832, c. 91. In 1836 the territories of Michigan and Arkansas were admitted as states into the Union. See infra, p. 384. And in 1845 the territories of Iowa and Florida were also admitted as states. See infra, p. 384. And in 1846 the territory of Wisconsin, and in 1845 the republic of Texas. Id. By the 6th census, completed in 1841, the number of persons in the United States was 17,069,453, making an increase over the census of 1830, of 4,202,646 inhabitants, and showing a gain in a ratio exceeding 32 per cent. for the last ten years; and by the act of congress of June 25, 1842, c. 47, the ratio of representation was enlarged to one representative for every 70,680 persons in each state, and one additional representative for each state having a greater fraction than one moiety of the said ratio. This ratio reduced the number of the members of the house of representatives, after the 3d of March, 1843, to 223 members, besides a delegate from the three territories then existing. By this reduction, and with the addition of members from the new states, the house of representatives consisted, on the 1st of January, 1847, of 230 members, and representation by delegates of certain territories had ceased. The act of congress last mentioned also prescribed, that the number of representatives in each state, under the apportionment, should be elected by districts composed of contiguous territory, equal in number to the number of representatives to which the state should be entitled; and that no one district should elect more than one representative. This

By the census completed in 1851, the number of inhabitants in the United States is 23,191,876. By the twenty-fifth section of the act of May 23, 1850, 233 representatives are to be apportioned among the states.

tionment of the representatives among the several states according to numbers, has been attended with great difficulties in the application, because the relative numbers in each state do not, and never will, bear such an exact proportion to the aggregate, that a common divisor for all will leave no fraction in any state. Every decennial apportionment has raised and agitated the embarrassing question. As an absolute, exact, relative equality is impossible, the principle which has ultimately prevailed, is the principle of approximation, by making the apportionment among the several states according to their numbers, as near as may be. This is done by allowing to every state a member for every fraction of its numbers, exceeding a moiety of the ratio, and rejecting all representations of fractions less than a moiety. (a)

The rule of apportionment established by the constitution is exposed to the objection that three fifths of the slaves in the southern states are computed in establishing the apportionment of the representation. But this article was the result of

direction was authorized by the provision in the constitution, (art. 1, sec. 4,) that "the times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators or representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the place of choosing senators." The election of members of congress by districts had been heretofore adopted in some of the states, and not in others. Uniformity on the subject was desirable, and the measure itself was recommended by the wisdom and justice of giving, as far as possible, to the local subdivisions of the people of each state, a due influence in the choice of representatives, so as not to leave the aggregate minority of the people in a state, though approaching perhaps to a majority, to be wholly overpowered by the combined action of the numerical majority, without any voice whatever in the national councils.

(a) See Story's Comm. on the Constitution, vol. ii. pp. 141-171, where the subject is fully examined, and the opinion of Mr. Jefferson on the one side, and Mr. Webster's report in the senate, in April, 1832, on the other, are given at large. These documents contain the substance of the arguments for and against the principle of apportionment as adopted and settled by congress. The same difficulty arose in the legis lature of New York, in 1791, on the apportionment of the state representation, according to the census then recently taken, and the same principle of approximation was adopted; and the author of this note was then one of the members of the House of Assembly who concurred in that rule. (Journal of the Assembly of New York for 1791, p. 26.) But the constitution of New York gave greater facility to such a rule, for it directed the senators in each district to be apportioned according to the number of the qualified electors, as near as may be; and this is the manner in which the amended constitution of 1822 expresses itself on the subject.