Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

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Название Democracy and Liberty
Автор произведения William Edward Hartpole Lecky
Жанр Юриспруденция, право
Серия none
Издательство Юриспруденция, право
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781614872207



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required for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.’ The second, which was an amendment of the Constitution introduced after the Civil War, and carried at a time when the Southern States were still deprived of their normal political power, is that no one may be excluded from the suffrage ‘on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.' The suffrage, it is true, is not absolutely universal. Besides the exclusion of women, children, criminals, insane persons, and unnaturalised immigrants, some easy qualifications of residence and registration are usually required; but property qualifications have almost wholly disappeared. The actual possession of property is no longer required for a voter in any American election, with the exception, it is said, of the municipal elections in a single district of Rhode Island.35 A tax qualification existed in 1880 in six States, but it has since then been abolished in four of them.36 Some States, however, still exclude from the right of voting those who are so illiterate that they are not able to read, and paupers who are actually supported by the State. With these slight and partial exceptions manhood suffrage generally prevails.

      The system of popular election has extended through nearly all branches of American life. Perhaps its most mischievous application is to the judicial posts. The independence and dignity, it is true, of the Federal judges are protected by an article of the Constitution. They can only be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. They hold their office during good behaviour; and they possess salaries which, though small if compared with those of English judges, enable them to support their position. The Supreme Court is one of the most valuable portions of the American Constitution, and although even its decisions have not always escaped the suspicion of party motives, it is, on the whole, probably inferior in ability and character to no other judicial body on the globe. But in the States another system has spread which has both lowered and tainted the administration of justice. As recently as 1830 the judges in the different States owed their appointment to the governors, or to the State legislatures, or to a combination of the two. In 1878, in no less than twenty-four States they were elected by a popular vote.37 When it is added that they only hold their office for a few years, that they are capable of re-election, and that their salaries are extremely small, it will not appear extraordinary that the judicial body in most of these States should be destitute of the moral dignity which attaches in England to all its branches. Deliberate personal corruption, which for generations has been unknown among English judges, has been in some cases proved, and in many cases suspected, in America, and the belief that in large classes of cases judges will act as mere partisans on the bench has extended much further. The prevalence of lynch law, which is so strangely discordant with the high civilisation of American life, is largely due to that distrust of justice in many States which is the direct, manifest, acknowledged consequence of the system of popular election.

      No one, indeed, who knows the class of men who are wirepullers in the different American factions will expect their nominees on the bench to be distinguished either for impartiality or integrity. One of the most extraordinary instances of organised crime in modern history is furnished by the Molly Maguires of Pennsylvania, an Irish conspiracy which, with short intervals, maintained a reign of terror between 1863 and 1875 in the anthracite coalfields of that State. The innumerable murders they committed with impunity, and the extraordinary skill and daring of the Irish detective who succeeded in penetrating into their councils and at last bringing them to justice, form a story of most dramatic interest; but one of the most curious facts connected with them is the political influence they appear to have obtained. They controlled township affairs in several districts; they applied to their own purposes large public funds; they had a great influence in the management of counties; they were courted by both political parties; and they only failed by a few hundred votes in placing one of their body on the judicial bench.38 I can here hardly do better than quote the language of Mr. Bryce, who, writing with ample knowledge of the subject, is evidently desirous of minimising as much as possible the importance of the facts which he honestly but reluctantly relates.

      Such is the state of things which flourished a few years ago in full exuberance in the capital