Qualified franchise

From Teddy Roosevelt's The Federalist City. 1783-1800:

New York was indeed a dreary city when the king’s troops left it after their sojourn of seven years.

[...]

The achievement of liberty had not worked any radical change in the municipal government of the city; and the constitution under which the State entered on its new life of independence was not ultra-democratic, although of course marking a long stride toward democracy. The suffrage was rigidly limited. There were two kinds of franchise: any man owning a freehold worth £20, or paying rent to the value of forty shillings could vote for the members of the Assembly; while only a freeholder whose freehold was worth £100 could vote for senator or governor. Almost all the executive and legislative officers, whether of the State, the county, or the town, were appointed by the Council of Appointment, which consisted of the governor and four senators. The large land-holding families thus still retained very much influence. The destruction of the power of the great Tory families, however, had of course diminished the weight of the rich landowning class as a whole; and in the country the decisive power was in the hands of the small freeholding farmers.

The State was not yet governed by an absolute democracy, because as yet no one save theorists were believers in an absolute democracy, and even manhood suffrage was not advocated by many persons; while the unenfranchised were not actively discontented. The framers of the State constitution were not mere paper-government visionaries; they were shrewd, honest, practical politicians, acquainted with men and affairs.

From Voting Timeline 1776-2000:

1776 - White men with property can vote. Free black men can vote in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. (The Progress Report adds -- in Maryland between 1776-1783 free black men could vote, but between 1783-1810 only those who were freed prior to 1783 were permitted to vote, and after 1810 no black men at all were allowed to vote.)

1789 - Establishment of US democracy. White men with property can vote. Poor people, Women, Native Americans, and enslaved African- Americans cannot vote.

1790 - From 1770 to 1790 each state has individual naturalization laws. In 1790 the US passes its first naturalization law to grant citizenship to white men and some women. The right to vote is tied directly to citizenship status; it is only for whites who have lived in the country for 2 years. In 1798 the law is changed so immigrant whites have to live in the US for 14 years before they can become citizens. This changed to 5 years after 1902.

1820 - The property laws are taken off the books and whites can vote even if they do not own property. But they must pay a poll tax or be able to read and, in some places, they must pass religious tests before they can vote.

From "Casting a Ballot With a Certain Cast of Mind" by DANIEL CASSE:

A new book argues that fewer people should vote.

William F. Buckley Jr. once said that he would rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston phone directory than by the entire faculty of Harvard University. Bryan Caplan must think that Mr. Buckley is a boob. "The Myth of the Rational Voter" brazenly argues, in essence, that the American public is made up of morons whose misjudgments about economic policy will have parlous effects on the state of the nation and its future prosperity.

At a time when "American Idol" draws more voters than most local elections, or when Larry King's questions seem dumber than Paris Hilton's answers, one is reluctant to dismiss Mr. Caplan as just another ivory-tower elitist. At the very least, he relies on a proven formula.

Like a few recent best sellers--"Freakonomics," "The Tipping Point," "The Wisdom of Crowds"--"The Myth of the Rational Voter" unwraps economic theories and applies them to everyday life. Mr. Caplan's thesis, though, lacks any semblance of a compliment: The "unwisdom of crowds" is closer to his point. He believes that the American public is biased against sensible, empirically proved economic policies about which nearly all economists agree. Voters, he says, are not just ignorant in the sense of having insufficient information. They actually hold wrong-headed and damaging beliefs about how the economy works.

[...]

Mr. Caplan thinks the rational-ignorance theorists are not only wrong but in deep denial about the deficiencies of democracy. Citing reams of survey data, he shows that unschooled voters have consistent opinions about free trade (they don't like it), foreigners (they don't like them), wage and price controls (helpful), and the economic condition of the world (things are getting worse). The majority of economists, according to Mr. Caplan, maintain that these opinions have no factual foundation. They are simply a form of bias or ideology.

If Mr. Caplan is right, many popular nostrums about the majesty of American democracy need to be thrown out the window. "Trust the people," for instance, ends up as a disastrous mandate for tariffs, government interference and declining prosperity. Democracy, in Mr. Caplan's view, is not merely the least bad choice; it is a flawed system that delivers socially suboptimal results to its deluded citizens.

When I turned 18 and could vote for the first time, there were two major political parties in South Africa: the National Party which represented the Afrikaners and the United Party which represented the British. Both parties supported apartheid. The anti-apartheid parties, Communist Party and the Liberal Party, had been banned earlier.

There was one other anti-apartheid party which had not been banned, the Progressive Party. It proposed the gradual dismantling of apartheid and a multi-racial (but qualified) franchise. The qualifications needed to vote were based on education and property ownership. This seemed like a good compromise to me at that time and I campaigned for our local Progressive candidate going door to door canvassing for votes. We lost but it was an exhilarating experience to be involved in hands-on politics for the first time in my life.

White South Africans were terrified of a universal franchise because they were outnumbered at that time five to one by blacks. (Nowadays it is ten to one.) The qualified franchise would have empowered the black middle-class and kept the illiterate and uncivilized tribal masses from dominating politics. To me it made a lot of sense at the time but later I met more radical anti-apartheid activists who convinced me that the qualified franchise was unacceptable, bourgeois and counter-revolutionary.

I still think a qualified franchise is a good thing. I don't like aristocrats but I distrust democracy. However I definitely don't like the idea of a franchise based solely on wealth; a plutocratic oligarchy. My choice for enfranchisement qualifications would be: ability to recite at least three Psalms from the Bible and quote the Sermon on the Mount in full; ability to recite at least three soliloquies from Shakespeare's plays and being able to identify at least three arias from Mozart's operas.

Of course my tongue is firmly lodged in my cheek. Democracy sadly is here to stay and no way will we ever have a qualified franchise. What a pity.