Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

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СКАЧАТЬ which, in less happily situated countries, are required for the purposes of self-defence. Although America has experienced many periods of acute commercial crisis and depression, the general level of her well-being has been unusually high. Property has been from the first very widely diffused. Her lower levels in their standard of comfort more nearly resemble the middle than the lowest class in European countries, and the great masses of unemployed pauperism in the large towns, which form one of the most serious political and social dangers of Europe, have been scarcely known in America until the present generation.

The chief steps by which the Government has moved in the direction of democracy may be briefly mentioned. Although the Constitution in most respects realised the anticipations of its founders, their attempt to place the President outside the play of party spirit, and to make him independent of democratic dictation, signally failed. The Constitution provided that each State was to choose a number of presidential electors equal to its representatives in Congress, and that these men should be entrusted with the task of electing the President. In accordance with its general policy on all matters of election, the Constitution left it to the different States to determine the manner of election and the qualifications of these presidential electors; but it enacted that no member of Congress and no holder of a Federal office should be eligible. In this manner it was hoped that the President might be elected by the independent votes of a small body of worthy citizens who were not deeply plunged in party politics. But, as the spirit of party intensified and the great party organisations attained their maturity, this system wholly failed. Presidential electors are still elected, but they are elected under a distinct pledge that they will vote for a particular candidate. At first they were nearly everywhere chosen on party grounds by the State legislatures. Soon this process appeared insufficiently democratic, and they were chosen by direct manhood suffrage, their sole duty being to nominate the candidate who had been selected by the party machine.

In the senatorial elections the principle of double election has proved somewhat more enduring; but here, too, considerable transformations have taken place. The Senate, as is well known, is composed of two senators from each State, chosen for six years by the State legislatures, the largest and the smallest States being in this respect on a par. For a long time the mode of their election varied greatly. ‘In some States they were chosen vivâ voce; in others, by ballots; in some, by a separate vote of each House; in others, by both Houses meeting and voting as one body.’³² By an Act of 1866 the method of election has been made uniform, the senators being nominated by a vivâ voce vote in each House; and if the result is not attained in this manner, by a vote of the two Houses sitting together. Very naturally and properly, these are party elections; but of late years the senators appear to have been rarely what they were intended to be—the independent choice of the State legislatures. ‘The machines,’ or, in other words, the organisations representing the rival factions in each State, not only return absolutely the members of the State legislature, but also designate the rival candidates for the senatorships; and the members of the State legislature are returned under strict pledges to vote for these designated candidates. This servitude is not as absolute or universal as that under which the presidential elections are made, but it has gone very far to bring the election of senators under the direct control of those knots of wirepullers who rule all the fields of American politics, and direct and manage universal suffrage.³³ In the early stages of its history, when the States were very few, the Senate was a small body, deliberating in secret, and more like a Privy Council or a Cabinet than an Upper Chamber. After the first five years of its existence this system of secrecy was abandoned; with the multiplication of States the number of senators increased; and the Senate has now the chief characteristics of a legislative Chamber, though it possesses certain additional powers which are not possessed by the corresponding bodies in Europe.

      The many restrictions on the suffrage by which the members of the House of Representatives were elected at the time of the Revolution have nearly all passed away, and America has all but reached the point of simple manhood suffrage. Maryland, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, led the way,³⁴ and the example was speedily followed. The management, restriction, and extension of the suffrage being left within the almost complete competence of the several States, form the chief field in which revolutionary change can be easily effected. The Federal Constitution only imposes two restrictions on the competency of the States to deal with this subject. The first is, that the electors for representatives in each State ‘shall have the qualifications required for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.’ The second, which was an amendment of the Constitution introduced after the Civil War, and carried at a time when the Southern States were still deprived of their normal political power, is that no one may be excluded from the suffrage ‘on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.' The suffrage, it is true, is not absolutely universal. Besides the exclusion of women, children, criminals, insane persons, and unnaturalised immigrants, some easy qualifications of residence and registration are usually required; but property qualifications have almost wholly disappeared. The actual possession of property is no longer required for a voter in any American election, with the exception, it is said, of the municipal elections in a single district of Rhode Island.³⁵ A tax qualification existed in 1880 in six States, but it has since then been abolished in four of them.³⁶ Some States, however, still exclude from the right of voting those who are so illiterate that they are not able to read, and paupers who are actually supported by the State. With these slight and partial exceptions manhood suffrage generally prevails.

As far as I can judge, it seems to have been brought about by much the same means in America as in Europe. It has not been in general the result of any spontaneous demand, or of any real belief that it is likely to improve the Constitution; but it has sprung from a competition for power and popularity between rival factions. An extension of the franchise is, naturally, a popular cry, and each party leader is therefore ready to raise it, and anxious that his rival should not monopolise it. It is a policy, too, which requires no constructive ability, and is so simple that it lies well within the competence of the vulgarest and most ignorant demagogue. A party out of office, and doubtful of its future prospects, naturally wishes to change the character of the electorate, and its leaders calculate that new voters will vote, at all events for the first time, for the party which gave them their vote. We are in England perfectly familiar with such modes of conducting public affairs, and it is probably no exaggeration to say that calculations of this kind have been the chief motives of all our recent degradations of the suffrage. In one important respect the Federal system has tended to strengthen in America the democratic movement. Each State naturally wishes to have as much power as possible in the Confederation, and an amendment of the Constitution which was forced through during the temporary eclipse of the Southern States provides that while, as a general rule, representatives in Congress shall be apportioned among the several States according to their populations, the basis of representation in a State shall be reduced in proportion to the number of such citizens who are excluded from the suffrage, ‘except for participation in rebellion and other crime.’

      The system of popular election has extended through nearly all branches of American life. Perhaps its most mischievous application is to the judicial posts. The independence and dignity, it is true, of the Federal judges are protected by an article of the Constitution. They can only be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. They hold their office during good behaviour; and they possess salaries which, though small if compared with those of English judges, enable them to support their position. The Supreme Court is one of the most valuable portions of the American Constitution, and although even its decisions have not always escaped the suspicion of party motives, it is, on the whole, probably inferior in ability and character to no other judicial body on the globe. But in the States another system has spread which has both lowered and tainted the administration of justice. As recently as 1830 the judges in the different States owed their appointment to the governors, or to the State legislatures, or to a combination of the two. In 1878, in no less than twenty-four States they were elected by a popular vote.³⁷ When it is added that they only hold their office for a few years, that they are capable of re-election, and that their salaries are extremely small, it will not appear extraordinary that the judicial body in most of these States should be destitute of the moral dignity which attaches in СКАЧАТЬ