which the people were really equal?"

"Yes, there was. They were political equals. They all had one vote alike,
and the majority was the supreme lawgiver."

"So the books say, but that only makes the actual condition of things
more absolutely unaccountable."

"Why so?"

"Why, because if these people all had an equal voice in the
government--these toiling, starving, freezing, wretched masses of the
poor--why did they not without a moment's delay put an end to the
inequalities from which they suffered?"

"Very likely," she added, as I did not at once reply, "I am only showing
how stupid I am by saying this. Doubtless I am overlooking some important
fact, but did you not say that all the people, at least all the men, had
a voice in the government?"

"Certainly; by the latter part of the nineteenth century manhood suffrage
had become practically universal in America."

"That is to say, the people through their chosen agents made all the
laws. Is that what you mean?"

"Certainly."

"But I remember you had Constitutions of the nation and of the States.
Perhaps they prevented the people from doing quite what they wished."