Sydney, II.
The New York Journal, (Number 2321)
Saturday, June 14, 1788.
For the Daily Patriotic Register.
To the Citizens of the State of New York.
(Concluded from yesterday's paper.)
As to the value of the freeholds, there has been great diversity of opinions, for notwithstanding all agreed that the rights and liberties of a country were ever in danger from the rich and poor, and their safety in the middle sort or yeomanry of the country, still the difficulty occurred in establishing the mean.
While the convention, in 1776, was setting at Harlem, the outlines of a constitution were handed about, to try, it was supposed, the temper of the members, in which it was proposed to have a governor, lieutenant governor, senate, and assembly; the qualification of the governor, lieutenant governor, and senate, to be that each should possess real estate to the value of 10,000 pounds, and to be elected by freeholders possessing freeholds to the value of 1,000 pounds. Although this was not attended with bad effects, yet the qualifications of the electors gave rise to various arguments, and, among others, that as taxation and representation ought to go together, so the right of electing shall be in proportion to the value of each man's estate. To exemplify this, a man of £100 estate had one vote; a man of £1000 should have ten, and a man of ten thousand pounds a hundred, and so on in the same ratio. [pg 308] Others on the contrary supposed that there ought to be no other criterion than the age of twenty-one, a citizen born and resident in this country; out of the two extremes was produced the present system of election and qualification, both admitted to be as secure and consistent rights as any that have been contrived.
It is apprehended, from the duplicity in the wording of 1st art., 4th sec., that seemingly to leave in the power of the respective legislatures to regulate the elections, and still, that Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations; and the undesigned wording of the sixth article, that the constitution and laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof shall be the law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding, will render the whole system ineffectual, if not nugatory, and a new system as destructive to the liberties of the citizens as that of the ratio of voices to the ratio of property introduced. Besides being liable to have the whole State erected into one district, and consequently may give rise to the inconveniences I mentioned before.
vii, sec. 6; viii, sec. 6; ix, sec. 6; x, section 6; xi, sec. 6; xii, sec. 2, 6; xvi, sec. 6; xiii, xxxv, xli.