State Convention—Republican-Democracy. i 69 
woman’s equal political action is almost as bad as a house would 
be without a mother, wife or sister. 
This right of universal suffrage—of deciding what and who 
shall govern us—carries with it the obligation of intelligently 
and properly exercising it: hence it is the duty of the citizen to 
seek for his children, and the policy of the state to gratuitously 
furnish, education. “ The right of suffrage,” says Playfair, “ has 
for its corollary the duty of instruction.” Jefferson's “bill for 
the more general diffusion of knowledge ” was the formal expres¬ 
sion of this idea, which had already been acted upon for more 
than a century in New England, and to which Old England has 
arrived nearly a century later. 
The duties of personal service to the state as juror, soldier, and 
in filling the many petty offices of township and other munici¬ 
palities, are more common, and perhaps more imperative in our 
republican democracy, and do much to identify the masses of the 
people with the government, which is their creator: hence their 
great skill and readiness in self-government. Ten average Ameri¬ 
cans, on a desert island, could organize a government in two 
hours. 
II. AS TO THE FAMILY, 
It is still more affected by our republican democracy. The 
idea of equal and exact justice to all men led Jefferson to strike 
an early blow at primogeniture and entailed estates. DeTocque- 
/■ 
ville dwells upon this subject at length, and attributes important 
consequences to it. It secures greater equality of conditions 
within the family, both between children and parents, and among 
the children themselves. The relation becomes more one of 
affection and confidence, and less of fear and pride. There is less 
struggle to build up families by the acquirement of large estates, 
and a greater disposition to found public institutions of learning 
and charity. 
A graver question, of more difficult solution, is the effect of our 
democratic ideas upon the institution of marriage. The whole 
common law, concerning the rights and obligations of married 
women, is in conflict with the fundamental idea of American 
liberty. That a woman, because of her marriage, should lose 
her personality, should, lose control of her own property, and 
