United States or Dominican Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In fact, property qualifications for voting and office-holding were not necessary to the political ascendency of property owners in a community where the great majority of the citizens were or could become members of the property-owning class.
The pretence has satisfied the rumsellers who sold, the rum-drinkers who drank, and the radicals who have boasted of the law, for all have got out of it what results were desired: appetite was catered to, vanity was satisfied, and graft engendered for the benefit of the office-holding class. "I'm not going to predict what I think will be the result of this enforcement not now.
The body of farmers, laborers, and trading people will favor annexation, ultimately, should the policy of non-intercourse be adhered to on our part, and they will outnumber the office-holding class, and thus the union of the two countries will be secured. It is apparent also that a policy of free intercourse would postpone annexation for a long time, if not indefinitely.
They discovered in the fiscal and administrative organization the presence of discrimination against the average man. The National Bank was an example of special economic privileges. The office-holding clique was an example of special political privileges. Jackson and his followers declared war on these sacrilegious anomalies in the temple of democracy.
It helped to build up a group of professional politicians who became in their turn an office-holding clique the only difference being that one man in his political life held, not one, but many offices. Yet the Jacksonian Democrat undoubtedly believed, when he introduced the system into the Federal civil service, that he was carrying out a desirable reform along strictly democratic lines.
Massachusetts and other New England colonies were far ahead of their time in giving shape to the principle that a public official was the servant of those who elected him, but to such men as Randolph and West and the whole office-holding world of this period, such an idea was unthinkable.
Such a man was too. dangerous to be acceptable to Jay Gould and the "interests," to Black-Horse Cavalry, and to gangs of all kinds who made a living, directly or indirectly, by office-holding.
Certainly nobody expects our politicians to become philosophers. When they do they hide the fact. And when philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers. But the truth is that we overestimate enormously the importance of nominations, campaigns, and office-holding.
Under the laws then in force the suffrage was greatly restricted, while the high property qualifications required for office-holding had the effect in many cases of placing the control of legislation in the hands of the wealthier part of the community. But undemocratic as the system was, it was not sufficiently undemocratic to suit the framers of the Constitution.
When the Federal Constitution was adopted the property qualifications for voting and office-holding in force in the various states were not disturbed. The Constitution did not recognize the principle of universal suffrage.
Word Of The Day