The individual but reproduces the characteristics developed in community life, and must stand in vital, organic relation to it, or his own development is impossible. Thus this communism is the source even of that which is individual.

In the second place, even in material things, the individual is still dependent upon the community, though in a way not so easily understood. He must live now

through his own exertion, but evidently his method of obtaining a livelihood is completely dependent upon the existing order of things, and that order the community maintains. Moreover in one sense he works less directly for himself now than ever before. In the early stages each one's labor went directly to the support of the small band with which he was identified; that little community was self-supporting; what each produced was complete in kind, and the total product was simple and meagre, often indeed inadequate. Now no small community is self-supporting; only a very large one is so, and no one does all the things necessary to its support; each contributes only one, and perhaps not that, of the many elements that go to make the total. The total product is elaborate and complex, and as compared with former times, very abundant. The individual thus draws his subsistence, not directly from his own labors, but almost entirely from that of others, and if what they do were taken away he would perish. Out of this largeness and complexity of community life come greater variety to individual lives, greater culture, and enormously greater material comforts. The individual can get more for himself than ever before, make more of himself, attain to greater fulness of life in every way. But it is the communistic element that makes for him his opportunity; it is really

all embracing; he is more dependent upon it than ever before; beyond the possibilities which it affords he cannot possibly go.

306. This double relation, this dependence both spiritual and material, of the individual upon the community, makes evident the real meaning of community membership. To enter fully into this complex life, to share fully its blessings, to gather to one's self its full spirit, life membership is essential. The "accident of birth" must always remain the foundation of full citizenship.

307. This discussion should also make plain our public obligation. In the time of the clan, its life and welfare was man's first great care. To perpetuate it, to preserve it from injury or destruction, even by the sacrifice of himself if necessary, was the one great motive that ought to underlie all his action. Patriotism was thus the first great civic virtue, and its development the first great step forward in the moral progress of the race. If our dependence upon community life is greater to-day than ever before, our obligation cannot be less. Patriotism is still the fundamental civic virtue. It was first conceived of as valor, the courage to go forth and battle for the community; it means much more now, as the progress of the race has shown that many other things are necessary for its welfare. The community for us is the state. Its organization and character have made it possible for each of us to become what he is, to acquire what he has. Its welfare should always be our first thought, paramount always to mere personal interests.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FRANCHISE

308. REFERENCES

Schouler, Constitutional Studies, Part III, Chapter IV.— The History of the Suffrage in Michigan, by Mary Joyce Adams. Publications of the Michigan Political Science Association, Vol. III, No. 1.—Ashley, The American Federal State, Chapter XXII.

309. We have already seen that in a democracy each member of the community is entitled to all the rights which the community secures to its members. These rights have already been enumerated, but the question naturally arises, is the franchise one of them? Does citizenship carry with it the right to vote? If we turn back to the various classes of rights already enumerated, we do not find voting definitely mentioned, but under IV in that list of rights what is meant by "advantages"? Would not the suffrage be an "advantage" which the citizen could claim as a right?

The answer to this question is purely a matter of history. All our rights are based upon what is customary, and if voting has been with us a recognized accompaniment of citizenship, then each citizen can claim the right to vote. Otherwise he cannot.

310. The first fact that confronts is that not all citizens of a community could be allowed to take part in elections. Those below a certain age must be excluded, and that age has advanced from fifteen years among our remote ancestors to twenty-one with us.

Then in the past women have been excluded, and with slight exceptions still are. These two classes, women and children, make up nearly four-fifths of the population.

Are the remaining one-fifth, "adult males," all voters? In no country has this ever been true. In early Massachusetts, to go no farther back, not more than one-fourth of these were allowed to take part in government, and although the proportion was enlarged in later colonial history, there were always restrictions, and a considerable portion of the people did not have the right of suffrage. The first restrictions in Massachusetts were religious. Later in all the colonies they took the form of property qualifications, and these continued in all the states until after the adoption of the Constitution. Then the Democratic revival, first led by Jefferson, swept them all away, so that now wealth does not count as a requirement for the suffrage. Before this movement was completed elections had begun in Michigan and we can trace its progress here.

311. Our first election in 1819 was under a law of Congress, as it was for congressional delegate. The voters were defined in that law as every free, white, male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, "who shall have paid a territorial or county tax." Here then unfree, colored, and female citizens are excluded.

In the main requirements of the Constitution of 1835 there was little change. "Every white male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the state six months next preceding any election, shall be entitled to vote."2 But another clause extended the

1This was meant as a property qualification, but the courts held that a poll tax satisfied the requirement.

'Const. 1835, Art. II, I.

franchise to some who were not citizens, to "every white, male inhabitant who may be a resident of this state at the time of signing this constitution."1

In the constitution of 1850, the qualifications were "every white, male citizen," and every white male who was an inhabitant June 24, 1835, and also every white male who was an inhabitant January 1, 1850, and "has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States" or "who has resided in this state two years and six months and declared his intention as aforesaid, and every civilized male Indian," "shall be an elector," providing he was of full age, and had resided in the state three months, and in the township or ward ten days. For an alien to "declare his intention" was not to become a citizen and with the great influx of foreign population, there came to be thousands of voters who were not citizens, and who, to continue to enjoy the privilege, did not need to become such. Manifest evils resulted from this, so that in 1894 an amendment was adopted which practically confines the suffrage to citizens.

On account of the word white in the Constitution of 1850 (as always before), the negro, though a native born citizen, could not vote. This discrimination did not disappear until 1870, when an amendment was adopted by which the word was omitted.

312. This brings us down to the present time and our fundamental law now reads: "In all elections every male inhabitant of this state, being a citizen of the United States, . . . . shall be an elector and entitled to vote; but no one shall be an elector, or entitled to vote at any election unless he shall be above the age

....

1Constitution, 1835, II, I. Ibid., 1850, Art. VII, I.