The proportions which these four groups bear to one another cannot be determined, but certain facts may be brought out which will throw light on the great question: How many of the people favored the adoption of the Constitution?
The first fact to be noted in this examination is that a considerable proportion of the adult white male population was debarred from participating in the elections of delegates to the ratifying state conventions by the prevailing property qualifications on the suffrage. The determination of these suffrage qualifications was left to the state legislatures; and in general they adopted the property restrictions already imposed on voters for members of the lower branch of the state legislatures.
In New Hampshire the duly qualified voters for members of the lower house were authorized to vote for members of the convention, and those Tories and sympathizers with Great Britain who were excluded by law were also admitted for this special election.[[582]] In Massachusetts the voters were those “qualified by law to vote in the election of representatives.”[[583]] In Connecticut, those “qualified by law to vote in town meetings” were enfranchised.[[584]] In New Jersey, those who were “entitled to vote for representatives in general assembly;”[[585]] and in Delaware, those “qualified by law to vote for Representatives to the General Assembly”[[586]] were empowered to vote for delegates to their respective conventions. In Pennsylvania, voters for members of the assembly selected the delegates to the convention.[[587]] In Maryland, voters for members of the lower house;[[588]] in Virginia, those possessing the “qualifications now established by law;”[[589]] in North Carolina, those entitled to vote for members of the House of Commons;[[590]] in South Carolina, those voting for members of the lower house; and in Georgia, those voting for members of the legislature (one branch) were admitted to participation in the election of delegates to their respective state conventions.[[591]]
In New York alone was the straight principle of manhood suffrage adopted in the election of delegates to the ratifying convention. Libby seems inclined to hold that this exception was made by the landed aristocracy in the state legislature because it was opposed to the Constitution and wished to use its semi-servile tenants in the elections; but this problem has not yet been worked out, and any final conclusion as to the “politics” of this move is at present mere guesswork.[[592]]
It is impossible to say just what proportion of the adult males twenty-one years of age was disfranchised by these qualifications. When it is remembered that only about 3 per cent of the population dwelt in towns of over 8000 inhabitants in 1790, and that freeholds were widely distributed, especially in New England, it will become apparent that nothing like the same proportion was disfranchised as would be to-day under similar qualifications. Dr. Jameson estimates that probably one-fifth of the adult males were shut out in Massachusetts,[[593]] and it would probably be safe to say that nowhere were more than one-third of the adult males disfranchised by the property qualifications.
Far more were disfranchised through apathy and lack of understanding of the significance of politics. It is a noteworthy fact that only a small proportion of the population entitled to vote took the trouble to go to the polls until the hot political contests of the Jeffersonian era. Where voting was viva voce at the town hall or the county seat, the journey to the polls and the delays at elections were very troublesome. At an election in Connecticut in 1775, only 3477 voters took part, out of a population of nearly 200,000, of whom 40,797 were males over twenty years of age. How many were disfranchised by the property qualifications and how many stayed away through indifference cannot be shown.[[594]]
Dr. Jameson, by most ingenious calculations, reaches the conclusion that in Massachusetts about 55,000 men in round numbers or about 16 or 17 per cent of the population were entitled to vote under the law. Assuming that 16 per cent were entitled to vote, he inquires into the number who actually exercised the franchise in the years from 1780 to 1790 in elections for governor; and his inquiry yields some remarkable results. To give his conclusions in his own words: “Something like three per cent [of the population, or about one-fifth or one-sixth of those entitled to vote] took part in the first election in the autumn of 1780. During the next six years the figures remain at about two per cent only. In 1784, only 7631 votes were cast in the whole state; in the spring of 1786 only a little over eight thousand. Then came Shays’ Rebellion and the political excitement of that winter brings up the votes in the spring election of ‘87 to a figure nearly three times as high as in ’86, and amounting to something between five and six per cent of the population. The political discussions of the next two winters respecting the new federal government keep the figure up to five per cent. Then it drops to something between three and four and there it remains until 1794.”[[595]]
For the purposes of a fine analysis of the economic forces in the ratifying process, it would be of the highest value to have the vote on delegates to the state conventions in each town and county throughout the whole country; but unfortunately no such figures are compiled and much of the original materials upon which the statistical tables could be based have doubtless disappeared.[[596]] Even such tables would be unsatisfactory because in several instances there were no contests and the issue of adoption or rejection of the Constitution was not squarely put before the voters.
In a few instances, however, the number of voters participating in the election of delegates to the state conventions has come down to us. In Boston, for example, where the fight was rather warm, and some 2700 men were entitled to vote, only 760 electors turned out to pass upon the momentous issue of the national Constitution—about half as many as voted in the next gubernatorial election.[[597]]
The treatises on the Constitution do not give any figures on the popular vote for delegates to the state convention in New York, but the following partial list taken from contemporary papers shows that in some of the counties the vote ran to almost 10 per cent of the population, while in others the percentage of the electorate participating (even under the universal manhood suffrage provision) was about that in Massachusetts, namely, 5 per cent. It will be noted also that the distribution of representation in the convention was grossly unequal and decidedly unfavorable to the Anti-Federalists. The classification into Federalist and Anti-Federalist is based upon the election returns as reported in the contemporary press, not on the vote in the state ratifying convention.