been laid down in court decisions with regard to the meaning of the federal constitution. The state constitutions change more frequently, are much more loosely drawn, and each new one requires a new body of decisions to establish its meaning.

278. The doctrine of implied powers. The theory by means of which the Constitution of the United States has been expanded is stated in the following decision by Chief Justice John Marshall:

A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. That this idea was entertained by the framers of the American constitution, is not only to be inferred from the nature of the instrument, but from the language. . . . We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. But we think the sound construction of the constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.

PART II

THE ORGANIZATION OF

GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER XVI

THE ELECTORATE

I. THE ELECTORATE

279. The nature of democracy. Sidgwick considers the essential characteristics of democracy and the necessary limits to its extreme application.1

Persons who adopt a democratic ideal sometimes put forward as the principle of democracy a proposition which is indistinguishable from what I have taken as the principle of good government: viz. that all laws and political institutions should be framed with a view to the welfare of the people at large, so that no privileges should be given to any particular individual or class except on grounds of public utility. I conceive, however, that this principle not only might but would be universally conceded by the modern advocates of every form of civilized government: so that to treat it as a characteristic principle of democracy introduces fundamental confusion.

Limiting ourselves then for the present to the consideration of the structure of government, let us ask how, in this department, we are to define the fundamental principle of democracy. There are, I think, two competing definitions; . . . one of these . . . is "that government should rest on the active consent of the citizens"; the other is that any one self-supporting and law-abiding citizen is, on the average, as well qualified as another for the work of government."

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However this may be, we may agree that the principle of democracy requires the constitution of government, and the general line of its action in reference to the common interests of the whole, to have the active consent of at least a majority of the citizens. . . . Hence, strictly taken, the principle excludes any fundamental laws which it requires 1 By permission of The Macmillan Company.

more than a bare majority to alter; if such laws are establisned as in most modern constitutions the application of the principle of democracy must be conceived to be limited in the interest of stability. And it is to be observed that this limitation may conceivably be so stringent as practically to nullify the operation of the principle: i.e. the majority required for changing the laws of the constitutional code may be so large that change is practically precluded.

But further, when we say that a democratic government must be supported by the consent of at least a majority of the citizens, we do not ordinarily mean that this consent should be necessary to the validity of every governmental decision. . . . At any rate we may take it as most commonly admitted that the democratic principle must practically be limited by confining the authoritative decisions of the people at large to certain matters and certain periodically recurring times; and committing the great majority of governmental decisions to bodies or individuals who must have the power of deciding without the active consent of the majority and even against its wish.

The question then arises on what principle, in a democracy, the particular persons should be selected to whom this large part of the work of government which cannot advantageously be undertaken by the people at large is to be intrusted.

280. Development of the electorate. A brief statement of the evolution of popular suffrage follows:

In primitive horde life there was a sort of rude democracy. Though control was practically in the hands of the elders, yet these did not form an hereditary class. Each had attained the honor through merit or the wisdom of age. The same idea holds in the tribal democracy of pastoral life. A nomadic, warring stage of existence is not suited to hereditary aristocratic government. Power goes to the one who best can wield it. In patriarchal agricultural life the situation was somewhat different. Class distinctions based on birth and wealth had developed. Hence arose a leisure class trained in a more generous environment than that of the common man. They were keener and more intelligent, and were dominating in personality. Power naturally belonged to them. Yet after all they were in close touch with the freemen of the community. All were akin and trod the routine of life together; hence the leaders truly represented the ideas and interests of the entire community as well as though they had been elected representatives. But when the era of commerce began, and the population of the community multiplied through the influx of aliens and merchants, the hereditary heads of the community would not adequately represent the differing interests of the

growing city or city state. Hence a demand for representation, not of persons as in modern democracy, but of interests and localities. Such demands and their satisfaction are illustrated by the reform legislation of Solon and of Servius Tullius, who arranged that wealth and occupation should have a share in governmental power. The culmination of this movement in classic times is best known through the struggle of the plebeians against the patricians in Rome, which finally resulted in the bestowal on every citizen of a voice, however slight, in the affairs of government. This voice was expressed by formal vote cast on stated days. When citizens, as such, meet in a formal way, and at a set time, and in a definite place and manner, express their choice by vote for representatives or for governmental measures, they form in effect an electorate, which term may be defined as that body of citizens legally authorized to participate in the exercise of some of the sovereign powers of the state. Feudalism and medievalism minimized the necessity for this democratic device, except in the commercial centers of Italy and Germany, but with the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the rising tide of democracy once again brought the notion of an electorate to the front. Its philosophic expression was in the famous social-contract theory. In religion it voiced itself in the teaching that before God all men are equal and responsible. Its economic equivalent was voiced by Adam Smith in free competition and laissez faire.

281. The Reform Act of 1832. The following extract contains the preamble and one of the most important clauses of the famous act that extended the franchise and reformed the representation in the British House of Commons.

WHEREAS it is expedient to take effectual measures for correcting divers abuses that have long prevailed in the choice of members to serve in the commons house of parliament, to deprive many inconsiderable places of the right of returning members, to grant such privilege to large, populous, and wealthy towns, to increase the number of knights of the shire, to extend the elective franchise to many of His Majesty's subjects who have not heretofore enjoyed the same, and to diminish the expense of elections: Be it therefore enacted.

XIX. That every male person of full age, and not subject to any legal incapacity, who shall be seised at law or in equity of any land or tenements of copyhold or any other tenure whatever except freehold, for his own life, or for the life of another, or for any lives whatsoever, or for any larger estate, of the clear yearly value of not less than 10 over and above all rents and charges payable out of or in

respect of the same, shall be entitled to vote in the election of a knight or knights of the shire to serve in any future parliament.

282. Arguments for woman suffrage. In an address by George W. Curtis, delivered before the New York constitutional convention of 1867, the following arguments for woman suffrage were used:1

I wish to know, sir, and I ask in the name of the political justice and consistency of this State, why it is that half of the adult population, as vitally interested in good government as the other half, who own property, manage estates, and pay taxes, who discharge all the duties of good citizens and are perfectly intelligent and capable, are absolutely deprived of political power, and classed with lunatics and felons.

Or shall I be told that women, if not numerically counted at the polls, do yet exert an immense influence upon politics, and do not really need the ballot? If this argument were seriously urged, I should suffer my eyes to rove through this chamber and they would show the many honorable gentlemen of reputed political influence. May they, therefore, be properly and justly disfranchised? . . .

There is nothing more incompatible with political duties in cooking and taking care of children than there is in digging ditches or making shoes or in any other necessary employment. . . .

When the committee declare that voting is at war with the distribution of functions between the sexes, what do they mean? Are not women as much interested in good government as men? Has the mother less at stake in equal laws honestly administered than the father? . . . Are they lacking in the necessary intelligence? But the moment that you erect a standard of intelligence which is sufficient to exclude women as a sex, that moment most of their amiable fellow citizens in trousers. would be disfranchised.

But if people with a high and holy mission may innocently sit barenecked in hot theaters to be studied through pocket telescopes until midnight by any one who chooses, how can their high and holy mission be harmed by their quietly dropping a ballot in a box?

283. Acquirement and loss of citizenship in the United States. The methods by which American citizenship may be secured are as follows:

Membership in the community is acquired either by birth, by naturalization, or by annexation. In the practice of modern nations, one of two rules is usually followed: by the jus sanguinis, the children of citizens

1 Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers.