Everything
is provided for as it arrives. This mode will, on the one hand, prevent
the _unfixing old interests at once_: a thing which is apt to breed a
black and sullen discontent in those who are at once dispossessed of all
their influence and consideration. This gradual course, on the other
side, will prevent men long under depression from being intoxicated with
a large draught of new power, which they always abuse with a licentious
insolence. But, wishing, as I do, the change to be gradual and cautious,
I would, in my first steps, lean rather to the side of enlargement than
restriction.
It is one excellence of our Constitution, that all our rights of
provincial election regard rather property than person. It is another,
that the rights which approach more nearly to the personal are most of
them corporate, and suppose a restrained and strict education of seven
years in some useful occupation. In both cases the practice may have
slid from the principle. The standard of qualification in both cases may
be so low, or not so judiciously chosen, as in some degree to frustrate
the end.
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