Workings of Universal Suffrage (1842)

BY CHARLES LYELL (1845)

AS politicians, no people are so prone to give way to groundless fears and despondency respecting the prospects of affairs in America as the English, partly because they know little of the condition of society there, and partly from their own well-founded conviction, that a near approach to universal suffrage at home would lead to anarchy and insecurity of property. To divide the land equally among all, to make an "equitable adjustment" of the national debt, or, in other words, to repudiate, are propositions gravely discussed at Chartist meetings, and even embodied in numerously signed petitions to parliament. The majority even of the democratic party in the U. S. would probably assent to the opinion, that in England, where there is so much actual want, where one tenth of the population, or 1,500,000 persons, receive parochial relief, where education has made such slow progress among the poor, and where there is no outlet in the Far West, no safety-valve for the escape of the redundant inhabitants, it would be most dangerous to entrust every adult male with the right of voting. Yet in America they think the experiment a safe one, or even contend that it has succeeded. But not a few of the opposite party, however inexpedient and useless they may think it to agitate the question, agree with the majority of European politicians in considering that it has lowered and deteriorated the character of the electoral body.

It is undeniable that the rapidity with which the native population has multiplied throughout the Union, and still more the influx of aliens into every State, has had a tendency to cause the whole country to resemble a new colony, rather than an old and long-established nation. Not only many new Territories and States, but even some of the old ones, such as New York and Pennsylvania, contain so much unoccupied land that they are full of adventurers and speculators from other parts of America, and of new-comers from Europe, speaking different languages, often cherishing foreign prejudices, and disturbing the equilibrium of native parties, founded on broad and distinct views of home policy. I have already remarked, that, on the southern frontier of the State of New York . . . I saw the native forest yielding as fast to the axe of the new settler, as if we had penetrated to the Far West, or the back woods of Canada. When we turn to her northern confines, we learn from the Reports of the Geological Surveyors employed by government in 1837, and subsequent years, that in Essex County and elsewhere they had recourse to Indian guides in a pathless wilderness, encountered panthers and moose-deer, found the beaver still lingering in some streams, saw lakes before undescribed, and measured the height of mountains for the first time. During my short sojourn in the metropolis of that State, I witnessed, among other illustrations of the heterogeneous composition of its people, a grand Repeal demonstration, an endless procession of Irish parading the streets, with portraits of O’Connell emblazoned on their banners, and various mottoes, implying that their thoughts were occupied with party questions of British, not of American politics. A large number of these aliens have, contrary to old usage, been of late years invested with electoral rights; and candidates for places in the magistracy, or the legislature, are degraded by paying court to their sympathies and ignorant prejudices. This temptation is too strong to be resisted; for, small as may be their numbers when compared with the native voters, they often turn the scale in an election where the great constitutional parties are very nearly balanced.

In addition to some of these evils, Pennsylvania labours under the disadvantage of being jointly occupied by two races, those of British, and those of German extraction. The latter are spoken of by the Anglo-Americans as the Bœotians of the land. They appeared to me industrious and saving, very averse to speculation, but certainly wanting in that habit of identifying themselves with the acts of their government, which can alone give to the electors under a representative system a due sense of responsibility. Some of them talked of their public works as of commercial projects which had failed; and when I remarked that, unlike the English, whose debts were incurred by carrying on wars, they were at least reaping some advantage from their expenditure, they assured me I was mistaken — that such cheap and rapid means of locomotion were positively injurious, by facilitating migrations to the West, and preventing a country with a "sparse" population from filling up. For this reason, their lands had not risen in value as they ought to have done. They protested that they had always been opposed to railways and canals; and that for every useful line adopted, there was sure to be another unnecessary canal or railway made, in consequence of "log-rolling" in their legislature. The representatives, they say, of each section of the country, would only consent to vote money, if they could obtain a promise that an equal sum should be laid out in their own district, and to this end some new and uncalled-for scheme had to be invented. This kind of jobbing they compare to log-rolling in the back settlements, where the thinly-scattered inhabitants assemble and run up a log-cabin in a single day for the new-comer, receiving, in their turn, some corresponding service, whenever the union of numbers is required.

From all I could learn, I felt inclined to believe, that as soon as these Germans were convinced that they really owed the money they would pay it. There are, however, a multitude of European immigrants who have recently been admitted to take part in the elections by shortening the term of years required for naturalization. It is also notorious that, owing to the neglect of registration, many aliens vote fraudulently, and others several times over at the same poll, in various disguises.

To those English politicians who are not accustomed to look with favouring eyes on democratic institutions in general, the task of reforming such abuses appears hopeless. By what eloquence, they ask, can we persuade an ignorant multitude to abdicate power, if we have once taken the false step of conferring sovereignty upon them? At every election they must become more and more demoralized. It is proverbially difficult for troth to reach the ears of kings, and what matters it whether the sovereign consist of one or of many individuals? The flattery of demagogues is not less gross and servile than that of courtiers in the palaces of princes. The candidates for popular favour, when appealing to the passions of the vulgar, their vanity, pride, and national jealousy, never administer their honied drugs in homœopathic doses. By what arts or powers of oratory can we hope to persuade the least educated portion of the community, when they have once obtained by their numbers a preponderating influence, that they ought to be disfranchised? — that the more wealthy citizens, who have leisure for study and reflection, will shrink from the ordeal of contested elections, if they must defer to vulgar prejudices, and coarser feelings; — in a word, that some must be content to break stones on the road and dig canals, instead of choosing lawgivers, and instructing them how to vote?

Charles Lyell, (London, 1845), I, 227–232.