HKB
SUMMARY OF THE QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS IN THE UNITED STATES.
All the states agree in granting the right of voting at the age of twenty-one. In all of them it is necessary to have resided for a certain time in the district where the vote is given. This period varies from three months to two years.
As to the qualification; in the state of Massachusetts it is necessary to have an income of three pounds sterling or a capital of sixty pounds.
In Rhode Island a man must possess landed property to the amount of 133 dollars.
In Connecticut he must have a property which gives an income of seventeen dollars. A year of service in the militia also gives the elective privilege.
In New Jersey, an elector must have a property of fifty pounds a year.
In South Carolina and Maryland, the elector must possess fifty acres of land.
In Tennessee, he must possess some property.
In the states of Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, the only necessary qualification for voting is that of paying the taxes; and in most of the states, to serve in the militia is equivalent to the payment of taxes.
In Maine and New Hampshire any man can vote who is not on the pauper list.
Lastly, in the states of Missouri, Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, and Vermont, the conditions of voting have no reference to the property of the elector.
I believe there is no other state beside that of North Carolina in which different conditions are applied to the voting for the senate and the electing the house of representatives. The electors of the former, in this case, should possess in property fifty acres of land; to vote for the latter, nothing more is required than to pay taxes.
APPENDIX I.--Page 92.
The small number of custom-house officers employed in the United States compared with the extent of the coast renders smuggling very easy; notwithstanding which it is less practised than elsewhere, because everybody endeavors to suppress it. In America there is no police for the prevention of fires, and such accidents are more frequent than in Europe, but in general they are more speedily extinguished, because the surrounding population is prompt in lending assistance.
APPENDIX K--Page 94.
It is incorrect to assert that centralization was produced by the French revolution: the revolution brought it to perfection, but did not create it. The mania for centralization and government regulations dates from the time when jurists began to take a share in the government, in the time of Philippe-le-Bel; ever since which period they have been on the increase. In the year 1775, M. de Malesherbes, speaking in the name of the Cour des Aides, said to Louis XIV. (see "Mèmoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Droit Public de la France eft matiere d'lmpots," p. 654, printed at Brussels in 1779):