CHAP. VI.] UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. 85 



farmers, mechanics, and laborers that they constituted the people, 

 were the bone and sinew of the country, the real possessors of the 

 national wealth, although in their hands it is subdivided into 

 small shares ; and he told them it was their business to make a 

 constant effort to maintain their rights against the rich capitalists 

 and moneyed corporations, who, by facilities of combining together, 

 could usually make their own class interests prevail against a 

 more numerous body, and one possessed in the aggregate of greater 

 wealth. 



It seems that they were not slow in taking this advice, for 

 many merchants complained to me that the small farmers had 

 too great an ascendency. No feature, indeed, appeared to me 

 more contrasted in the political aspect of America and Great 

 Britain than this, that in the United States the democracy derives 

 its chief support from the landed interest, while the towns take 

 the more conservative side, and are often accused by the landed 

 proprietors of being too aristocratic. Every where the ambition 

 of accumulating riches without limit is so manifest, as to incline 

 me to adopt the opinion expressed to me by several rich Boston 

 friends, that wealth has in this country quite as many charms, 

 and confers as much distinction and influence, as it ought to do. 

 If a rich Englishman came to settle here, he would be disappointed 

 on finding that money gave him no facilities in taking a lead in 

 politics ; but the affluent natives do not pine for influence which 

 they never possessed or expected to derive from their riches. 



The great evil of universal suffrage is the irresistible temptation 

 it affords to a needy set of adventurers to make politics a trade, 

 and to devote all their time to agitation, electioneering, and flat 

 tering the passions of the multitude. The natural aristocracy 

 of a republic consists of the most eminent men in the liberal 

 professions lawyers, divines, and physicians of note, merchants 

 in extensive business, literary and scientific men of celebrity ; and 

 men of all these classes are apt to set too high a value on their 

 time, to be willing to engage in the strife of elections perpetually 

 going on, and in which they expose themselves to much calumny 

 and accusations, which, however unfounded, are professionally 

 injurious to them. The richer citizens, who might be more in- 



