y
one, black or white, who would condescend to accept it. He was
opposed, he said, to a precipitate and unexpected prostration of all
qualifications, and looked with dread upon the great increase of
voters in New York City, believing that such an increase would render
elections a curse rather than a blessing. But he maintained that the
events of the past forty years had discredited the speculative fears
of Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison; that venality in voting, in spite
of property qualifications, already existed in grossest forms in
parliamentary elections in England, and that property had been as safe
in those American communities which had given universal suffrage as in
the few which retained a freehold qualification. Then, with great
earnestness, his eye resting upon the distinguished Chancellor, he
declared that whenever the principles of order and good government
should yield to principles of anarchy and violence, all constitutional
provisions would be idle and unavailing.

It was a captivating speech. There was little rhetoric and less
feeling. Van Buren took good care to show his thorough knowledge of
the subject, and, without the use of exclamations or interrogations,
he pointed out the unwisdom of following the constitution-makers of
1777, and the danger of accepting the dogma of universal suffrage. The
impression we get from the declaration of some of those who heard it,
is that Van Buren surpassed himself in this effort. He seems to have
made a large majority of the convention happy because he said just
what they wanted to know, and said it in just the way they wanted to
hear it. It must be admitted, too, that the evils which he prophesied,
if universal suffrage were given to New York City, have been too
unhappily verified. With the defeat of Spencer's proposition, the
suffrage question quickly settled itself along the lines of the
committee's report.

The judiciary article excited less debate but more feeling. Delegates
brooded over the well known fact that judges had become political
partisans, opposed to increasing their number to meet the growing
demands of business, and anxious to retain the extraordinary power
given them under the Constitution of 1777. Whenever a suggestion was
made to retain these judges, therefore, it provoked bitter opposition
and denunciation. A few men in the convention had very fierce
opinions, seasoned with a kind of wit, and of these, the restless
energy of Erastus Root so