File:The magazine of American history with notes and queries (1877) (14761827766).jpg

Identifier: magazineofamericv11stev (find matches)
Title: The magazine of American history with notes and queries
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Stevens, John Austin, 1827-1910. ed. cn DeCosta, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1831-1904. ed. cn Johnston, Henry Phelps, 1842-1923, ed. cn Lamb, Martha J. (Martha Joanna), 1829-1893. ed. cn Pond, Nathan Gillett, 1832-1894 ed Abbatt, William, 1851-1935, comp
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Publisher: New York : A.S. Barnes
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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at American readers of the nineteenth centurymay think that little merit is due to the men who proclaimed them. Theywere not so plain a century ago. A large part of mankind then believedthat all the powers of government were not vested in the people; that amajority of the people had not the right to abolish them ; that the free-dom of the press was dangerous, and ought to be restrained ; that standingarmies were necessary; and that the exercise of religion ought to be regu-lated by, and in subjection to, the civil authority. That Mason and hisassociates rose above these old prejudices of the past, and announced thetrue principles which ought to govern society, constitutes their claim tobe regarded as benefactors of humanity. The one principle of the Declaration which is the exception to its fulladoption by the men of to-day, is the restriction of the electoral franchise.The leaders of the time meant to establish a republic, not a democracy; THE VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 387
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GUNSTON HALL. Home of George Mason. and believed that the right of suffrage ought to be confined to those havinga permanent interest in the community. This principle had been first pro-claimed by the Virginia Cromwellians of the old English Commonwealthperiod, and for a century it had been the law of the colony that those onlyshould be allowed to vote who, by their estates, real or personal, had in-terest enough to tye them to the endeavour of the publique good. Theyhad tried universal suffrage, and it produced tumults at elections ; so thatthe Declaration of Rights restricted the franchise to freeholders. Whichwere right, these men of the Revolution or the political philosophers of to-day ? Let the statesmen of the future, taught by experience, determine. The Constitution adopted was fundamentally republican. The govern-ment of Virginia was to consist of a Governor chosen annually by a Senate 388 THE VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE and House of Delegates, elected by freeholders;

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