Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/243

CHAPTER XVI

SUFFRAGE AND SLAVERY

Restrictions on suffrage—Gradual removal of limitations—President Monroe's tour of the country—Awakening of American spirit—Anti-Masonic papers—Beginning of crusade against slavery—Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison—James G. Birney—Endeavor to muzzle antislavery press—Charles Hammond's influence assists Birney—Lovejoy murder—Negro publications.

Important as was the opening-up of the country geographically, still more remarkable were the political and social developments that came as a direct result of the belief in the democratic theory.

While the fathers of the Republic were firm believers in the political ideas which they had proclaimed, no attempt was made by them to put into practice, in the state governments, such theories as that of the equality of all men. It was to the state governments, however, that the Constitution later delegated the right to say what should be the qualifications for electors.

The consequence was that, when the Federal Constitution was adopted, the men who sat as delegates from the states were there more as representatives of the taxpayers than of the people at large. Thus, for example, the Massachusetts Senate consisted of forty men, apportionment among the counties being based on the amount of taxes each county paid.^[1]

Only in Vermont did full manhood suffrage exist, while elsewhere the voter had to be a taxpayer. In the same

1. McMaster, History, v, 376.

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