A radical change incurs a risk of great evils. Most people are satisfied with things as they are. The extent of the change to be effected by the new law. vation with the following arguments, and in his position he was sustained by a large number of his colleagues. The radical proposal was therefore defeated, but a concession was made to the democratic element by a slight extension of the suffrage. What is the question under consideration? The object of the amendment is to abolish the present modification of the Right of Suffrage, and to substitute in its place, one entirely new to us. When a people undertake to make a change in their political institutions, affecting the foundation of Government, it behoves them to proceed with the utmost caution and circumspection. We should recollect that we are about to introduce an experiment which is to operate upon the affections, prejudices, and longestablished habits of the community, and the consequences cannot be distinctly foreseen or foretold. A numerous population, falling not much short of a million, cannot at once throw off their old usages and customs, and accommodate themselves to an entirely new order of things, radically different from that under which they have lived in peace and tranquillity, without incurring the risk of many and great evils. This Government has existed for more than fifty years, and under it, the people have enjoyed happiness and contentment. There are, it is true, occasional clamors arising from local causes and prejudices, and not from any real defects in the form of Government; and I hope this amendment will not be adopted to allay such complaints. In that part of the State in which I reside I have not heard of any serious complaint touching the Right of Suffrage. The people there, in this respect, at least, are satisfied; why then adopt this new qualification of the Right of Suffrage, which in my poor opinion, would put to hazard the best interests of the country, and even endanger the liberties of the people? We are called upon to substitute for the Freehold Suffrage, that which, if it be not Universal Suffrage, falls but little short of it. It is proposed that those who are twenty-one years of age, who bear arms, and have resided twelve months in the county in which they propose to vote, should have this right, and the adoption of the principle amounts in effect, to what I call Universal Suffrage. I was told by one gentleman, (to the correctness of whose statistics I do not, however, feel myself bound to subscribe), that the adoption of this measure would add to the number of voters in the State more than 60,000, the present number being somewhat more than 40,000. Thus, the power of the Government is to be transferred from the hands of the 40,000, who have the deepest interest at stake, to the 60,000, who have comparatively but little interest. evidence of permanent in the community. It is no idle chimera of the brain, that the possession of land The possession furnishes the strongest evidence of permanent, common interest of land with, and attachment to, the community. Much has been already the best said by gentlemen on both sides, demonstrating the powerful influence of local attachment upon the conduct of man, and I cannot interest be made to comprehend how that passion could be more effectually brought into action, than by a consciousness of the fact, that he is the owner of the spot which he can emphatically call his home. It is upon this foundation I wish to place the Right of Suffrage. This is the best general standard which can be resorted to for the purpose of determining whether the persons to be invested with the Right of Suffrage are such persons as could be, consistently with the safety and well-being of the community, entrusted with the exercise of that right. 35. The Doctrine of Rotation in Office Among the first principles of Jacksonian democracy was the doctrine that all public officers should be elected for short terms and their reëligibility carefully restricted, so that "an office-holding aristocracy" could not be created. In the Pennsylvania constitutional convention of 1837, Mr. Earle summed up the arguments in favor of a short tenure of office. What is the reason that we place any limitation at all upon the term of office? I would ask for reasons why we should ever turn a good man out of office? Is it because the officer has accumulated wealth, and has arrived at a period of life, when retirement and G Long tenure unfits the officer for his duties. Almost every one is Office holders, if rcëligible, create political machines. repose have become necessary? Not at all. The reason is, that long continuance in office unfits a man for the discharge of its duties, by rendering him arbitrary and aristocratic, and tends to beget, first life office, and then hereditary office, which leads to the destruction of free government. This is the reason why the principle of rotation in office has been adopted by republicans; and the moment it is abandoned, life office must follow. It might be urged though, as I think, without much forcethat the office of Governor and of President ought to be left without limitation, because, in cases of great public emergency, it might be expedient and necessary to continue in office, some incumbent, beyond the limited term, on account of his peculiar fitness for the crisis. But in a small county clerkship, which could be just as well filled by any one of five hundred men in the country, as the incumbent himself, it is preposterous to say that the public necessities require the retention of an officer. It is absurd to say, that the public service requires an unlimited tenure of offices, which any merchant's clerk could, in three days' time, be prepared to fill, as well as your oldest officers; for the easy and simple duties of which no previous study, and no great learning, or experience, are required and for the discharge of which the officer generally is just about as well fit, on the first day of his service, as on the last. Then, there is no reason to be found, in the nature of the service, which would render an exception from the principle of rotation in office, applicable to these clerks, registers, &c. The only way to secure a quiet and easy application of the principle is to establish a rule making the officer ineligible after a fixed term. Without a rule of this kind, the officers, who are always on the alert and bound together by a common tie of interest, will combine to ensure their re-election. They get up a convention, the delegates to which are selected, and pledged in the dark, and, when they meet, they of course nominate and recommend to the support of the people, those officers whose creatures they are. The people do not know the contrivance, and they are easily en trapped by it. The office-holders are leagued, active, and organised, and have possession of all the avenues to public opinion, and of all the machinery of their party. But by making the rule invariable, we can defeat this party organisation, and prevent an official monopoly and aristocracy. reëlections will end in tenure. In the republic of Geneva, the same men were so often re-elected Frequent to office, that the government degenerated into an aristocracy of life office. The people found it more convenient to continue them a life for life and save the trouble of re-election. The next step was that these life officers, voted that they had power, for the public benefit, to elect their own successors. Of course each parent thought his own children best qualified for the succession, and chose them accordingly; and thus the government became an hereditary aristocracy. favored short Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Jackson - men of great Distinguished minds and most devoted patriotism as all will agree, whatever Americans may be the difference of opinion concerning their policy, have have given their opinions most distinctly in favor of short terms of office. In the Constitution of 1776, which was drawn up by Franklin and tenures. approved by the patriots of the revolution, this principle was established and carried out. The eligibility of the members of the Supreme Executive Council was then limited; and the Constitution gives this reason for it: "By this mode of election and continual rotation, by its powers, more men will be trained to public business; there will in every subsequent year be found in the council a number of persons acquainted with the proceedings of the foregoing years, whereby the business will be more consistently conducted, and the danger of establishing an inconvenient aristocracy will be effectually prevented." Many other officers besides the councillors were also limited and for this reason. General Washington, having been twice elected to the highest office in the gift of a free and grateful people, set the example of retiring at the end of the second term, though there was no limitation fixed by the Constitution, to the eligibility of the President. Mr. Jefferson in his answer to a committee of his fellow citizens and Jackson Jefferson asking him to consent to serve in the office of President for a third term, insists upon the policy and necessity of short terms of office, in a republican Government; confirms the evidence of history as to the tendency of free Governments to degenerate into aristocracy through the influence of life tenures; and declares that, in laying down his charge, he is influenced by a repugnance to doing anything which would tend to impair the vital principle of short terms and frequent elections. General Jackson recommended an alteration of the Constitution, with a view to limit the eligibility of the President to one term. He said that the public interest, generally, suffered more injury, from the long continuance of power in the same hands, than it was benefited by the experience of the individual. An officer, as experience proves, grows worse instead of better, by long continuance in office. The principles which I have referred to, as having been established and supported by the great founders of our free institutions, are the principles of republicanism, and I ask if they are not still the doctrines of Pennsylvania? 36. Restrictions on Special Legislation * The early state legislatures were practically unrestricted in their lawmaking power except by the general terms of the Bill of Rights, and they soon began to abuse their authority by passing special laws granting favors to corporations, discriminating among cities and localities, and exempting private persons from the penalties of general statutes. The sale of this special legislation became one of the most fruitful sources of boss rule and political corruption, and to remedy the intolerable abuses the device was adopted of placing in the state constitution a series of clauses forbidding special legislation in general and particular. The whole question was thoroughly discussed in the Pennsylvania state constitutional convention in 1873, and during the debates the following speech was made against special legislation: Now, sir, nothing will strike the people of this State with as much force as this question of barring special legislation; the |