Tuesday, November 19.
Territory of Louisiana.
On motion of Mr. Rhea, the House went into a Committee of the Whole, on the bill for the government of the Territory of Louisiana. The bill being read by paragraphs, Mr. Fisk moved to strike out the words in the fifth section of the bill, which makes it necessary for persons to be in possession of a freehold to have a right to vote. This motion was opposed by Mr. Randolph, on principle, in a speech of considerable length, in which he advocated the freehold qualification for voters. The motion was opposed also by Mr. Rhea, as unnecessary for the attainment of the mover's object; as he stated the qualification for voters was twofold—one was the possession of a freehold, the other a residence of a year previous to the time of election.
Mr. Poindexter made a motion, which superseded that of the gentleman from Vermont, to strike out all that part of the section which defined the qualification of voters, and insert, "every free white male citizen residing in the said Territory, who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and paid a tax."
This amendment was debated till the usual hour of adjournment, when the committee rose without taking the question, and obtained leave to sit again.
This debate, though protracted to considerable length, embraced a very narrow question, viz: whether it is better to require voters to hold freehold property, or to suffer every man to possess the privilege of voting who has arrived to the age of twenty-one years. As already stated, Mr. Randolph took the first ground, and introduced the practice of Virginia to show that it was attended with the best effects. Mr. Fisk, Mr. Wright, Mr. Smilie, and Mr. Poindexter, took the opposite side of the question. They argued that life and liberty are superior to property—that these are dearer to the poor man than all the property of the rich. Mr. Wright said, that the State of Maryland had tried the property qualification for voting, had found it attended with bad effects, and had now abandoned it. It was formerly required that a voter should be possessed of property to the value of thirty pounds; so that if a man possessed a horse of that value, he was entitled to a vote; but if the horse happened to die before the election, he lost his privilege, which was placing the right in the horse instead of the man. As to freehold qualifications, they were evaded too by deeds made for the occasion, which were afterwards cancelled.
Mr. Randolph, in combating the principle of universal suffrage, said that it was impossible for the gentleman himself, (alluding to Mr. Smilie,) or any piping-hot member from a Jacobin club—for any disciple of Tom Paine or of the Devil—to carry this principle of equality to its full extent; for even they must exclude from its operation minors and females. He also took occasion to pronounce a strong philippic against foreigners having any part in the Government. Mr. Smilie, in his reply, paid a tribute of respect to the memory of Paine, on account of his valuable political writings, which had been considered as highly serviceable in the Revolution, and which would always be esteemed wherever the rights of man are understood, and reminded him of the foreigners who had assisted in fighting our Revolutionary battles. Mr. Randolph justified his allusion to Paine; said he was sorry the gentleman had not recollected his "Age of Reason," as well as his "Rights of Man;" and as to any services which he rendered by his writings, he thought little of them. The heroes engaged in that great cause did not need the assistance of an English staymaker. In reply, Mr. Smilie said, he never interfered with a man's religious opinion; that was a private concern, which lay between God and a man's own conscience; and as to the profession of Paine, that, he apprehended, would never lessen the value of his writings.