Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/61

§ 578. The most strenuous advocate; for universal suffrage has never yet contended, that the right should be absolutely universal. No one has ever been sufficiently visionary to hold, that all persons, of every age, degree, and character, should be entitled lo vote in all elections of all public officers. Idiots, infants, minors, and persons insane or utterly imbecile, have been, without scruple, denied the right, as not having the sound judgment and discretion fit for its exercise. In many countries, persons guilty of crimes have also been denied the right, as a personal punishment, or as a security to society. In most countries, females, whether married or single, have been purposely excluded from voting, as interfering with sound policy, and the harmony of social life. In the few cases, in which they have been permitted to vote, experience has not justified the conclusion, that it has been attended with any correspondent advantages, either to the public, or to themselves. And yet it would be extremely difficult, upon any mere theoretical reasoning, to establish any satisfactory principle,

---

"That the true reason of requiring any qualification with regard to property in voters is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own. If these persons had votes, they would be tempted to dispose of them under some undue influence or other. This would give a great, an artful, or a wealthy man a larger share in elections, than is consistent with general liberty. If it were probable, that every man would give his vote freely and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote in electing those delegates, to whose charge is committed the disposal of his property, his liberty, and his life. But since that can hardly be expected in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby some, who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting, in order to set other individuals, whose will may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other." Similar reasoning might be employed to justify other exclusions, besides those founded upon a want of property.