represented as an estate. The whole theory of power is, that it
is an estate; a private right, not a public trust. It is not
without reason, then that the common sense of civilized nations
terms the ages when it prevailed in Western Europe barbarous ages.

It may seem a paradox to class democracy with the barbaric
constitutions, and yet as it is defended by many stanch
democrats, especially European democrats and revolutionists, and
by French and Germans settled in our own country, it is
essentially barbaric and anti-republican. The characteristic
principle of barbarism is, that power is a private or personal
right, and when democrats assert that the elective franchise is a
natural right of man, or that it is held by virtue of the fact
that the elector is a man, they assert the fundamental principle
of barbarism and despotism. This says nothing in favor of
restricted suffrage, or against what is called universal suffrage.
To restrict suffrage to property-holders helps nothing,
theoretically or practically. Property has of itself advantages
enough, without clothing its holders with exclusive political
rights and privileges, and the laboring classes any day are as
trustworthy as the business classes. The wise statesman will
never restrict suffrage, or exclude the poorer and more numerous
classes from all voice in the government of their country.
General suffrage is wise, and if Louis Philippe had had the sense
to adopt it, and thus rally the whole nation to the support of
his government, he would never have had to encounter the
revolution of 1848. The barbarism, the despotism, is not in
universal suffrage, but in defending the elective franchise as a
private or personal right. It is not a private, but a political
right, and, like all political rights, a public trust. Extremes