and as a general rule, those who can afford to make the necessary outlay of time and money will have the greatest quantity of the commodity. Thus, people of two hundred a year will be found on the average to possess more extensive knowledge than people of fifty pounds a year, and the possessors of two thousand more than those of two hundred. Numerous exceptions to this rule will present themselves; but it is sufficient that it prevails on the whole, and affords the best criterion which we can obtain. If it holds on the whole, it will be practically useful. "In order then to combine the two requisites of identity of interests with those of the nation at large, and adequate knowledge, the electoral body must be in the first place numerous, and in the second place possessed individually of a certain amount of property. No precise general principles can be laid down on either of these points,-either as to the number or as to the property required. The determination of both, in every particular instance, must greatly depend on the peculiar condition of the people, in regard to knowledge, agriculture, commerce, and wealth. Something would depend on established habits, and something on other municipal regulations." We dare not say that in the United States we have untied the knot which has so much puzzled foreign philosophy-but we have at least cut it. The day is past for arguing the question of universal suffrage on this side the Atlantic. The franchise is "as broad and general as the casing air." All the powers of legislation cannot suffice to wrench it from the meanest citizen. But legislation has its task for all that, and that task is to prepare the general mind for its office, and to teach the use of the implement it has with so little caution confided. Where every man is to decide upon political questions, every man must be taught political truths. A wider and more comprehensive system of education is all that can secure this country from false theories of government, and wretched delusions with regard to the extent of popular power. The influx of foreign ignorance and vice must be checked before it sweeps up to the polls, carrying away all the barriers which the constitution of the country and the right influence of native opinion have placed there to save them from desecration. Science has yet much to do for the universal mind of this great nation, not only to elevate its destinies but to preserve it from contami nation. The author of the essay goes, however, in one point of view, a step farther towards universal suffrage than any practical legislator has yet ventured to do. He asserts the right of women to participate in the elective franchise at least, he would extend it to single women and widows having independent possessions. The following is the sum of his argument: "The limitation of the elective franchise by sex, is a more difficult subject, and surrounded with a host of prejudices; but it surely ought to be decided by the same principles as any other restriction, and not by blind prepossessions and tyrannical prescription. The legitimate object of all government-namely, the happiness of the community-comprehends alike male and female, as alike susceptible of pain and pleasure; and the principle, that power will be uniformly exercised for the good of the parties subject to it only when it is under their control, or the control of persons who have an identity of interests with themselves, is equally applicable in the case of both sexes. The exclusion of the female sex from the electoral privilege can therefore be consistently contended for only by showing two things; first, that their interests are so closely allied with those of the male sex, and allied in such a manner as to render the two nearly identical; secondly, that the female sex are incompetent, from want of intelligence, to make a choice for their own good, and that on this account it would be to the advantage of the community, on the whole, to leave the selection of representatives to the stronger part of the human race, the disadvantages arising from any want of perfect identity of interests being more than compensated by the advantages of that superior discernment which the male sex would bring to the task. Let us examine, for a moment, the force of these allegations. The interests of the female sex are so far from being identified with those of the male sex, that the latter half of the human species have almost universally used their power to oppress the former. By the present regulations of society, men wield over women, to a certain extent, irresponsible power; and one of the fundamental maxims on which representative government is founded is, that irresponsible power will be abused. The case before us presents no exception: the power of man over woman is constantly misemployed; and it may be doubted whether the relation of the sexes to each other will ever be placed on a just and proper footing, until they both have their share of control over the enactments of the legislature. If none of these regulations applied specifically to women as women, and to men as men, and to the circumstances arising from their peculiar connection with each other, their interests might, perhaps, be considered as identified; but in the actual relative position in which, by nature, the sexes stand, and must always remain, as two parties marked by peculiar and indelible differences, separate interests cannot fail to grow up between them, and numerous laws must be directed to the regulation of their respective rights and duties. If the enactment of these laws concerning two parties who have distinct interests is solely under the control of one party, we know the consequence. "There is no truth, then, in the argument, that the interests of the female sex in the regulations of the state are identified with those of the male; and even if the allegation were true, it would furnish no reason for excluding women from the elective franchise, unless it could be shown, that, from their general want of intelligence, they are incapable of making a good choice, or that (it may be added) they labour under some other disqualification. If it were alleged, that, inasmuch as all persons who inhabit houses at the rent of ten pounds a year have an identity of interests in political affairs, one half may be excluded from the elective franchise without infringing the true principles of representation, it would be quite as sound an inference, as that women ought to be excluded because their interests are the same as those of men. There must be not only proof of an identity of interests, but also a specific ground of exclusion from the privilege to be exercised. "The specific ground urged in the case of women, is incompetency from ignorance-the same ground which is urged in the case of the VOL. XX.-No. 39. 27 poorer classes of the community. It cannot, however, be urged with the same justice. Though the female sex may be allowed, in all existing societies, to be on the whole inferior in intelligence to the men, yet the higher classes of females are superior in this respect to the lower classes of the males. Women, for instance, possessing five hundred a year, are generally superior in information to men of fifty pounds a year, although, perhaps, not equal to men of five hundred. If this is a true statement, the obvious expedient is, not to exclude women, but to place their pecuniary qualification higher. Even the necessity of such a higher qualification may be doubted, inasmuch as in that peculiar intelligence which is requisite for a judicious choice of persons to fill public offices, females are in some respects greater proficients than men of the same station. Female tact, in the discrimination of at least certain qualities of character, is universally admitted; and it can scarcely be questioned, that such coadjutors would be highly useful in the selection of representatives, were their minds fully brought to bear on the merits of the candidates by their having a voice in the decision. With regard to any other disqualification under which the female sex may labour, if any exists, it has not hitherto been brought into discussion. The inconsistency of the exercise of a valuable political privilege with female delicacy, will scarcely be alleged. Were a proper method of taking votes adopted, and such other appropriate measures employed as will be hereafter suggested when treating on the subject, to disencumber elections of what at present renders them scenes of rudeness and riot, the exercise of the elective franchise would be compatible with the most scrupulous refinement of feelings and habits." Without saying one single word about the right insisted upon above, we wholly question the expediency of offering to any portion of the female sex the smallest inducement to forget the private offices and domestic duties of life, or to become parties to political strife. The vexations of an incessant canvass are sufficiently tormenting, meeting them as we do at every turn in the pathway of active life, without introducing them into the one safe retreat, from which the refinement of modern times has seen fit to exclude them. Women are unsexed by mingling in the hot and virulent pursuits of men. Their tender natures more easily take a taint, as the sharpest vinegar is made from the sweetest wine. There is a fine meaning under the allegory which represents the Amazons as unable to wield a manly weapon until they had mutilated their choicest and most distinguishing beauty. Let it not be said that this is fanciful and over-refined. The sphere which woman fills, is one into which she has settled by universal consent, after many weary centuries of slavery, indignity, and neglect. That licentious era, during which distinguished females participated in the intrigues of a corrupt and witty court, scarce retained the shadow of a domestic virtue to purify its annals. It degraded the dignity of the sex as much as it sophisticated their manners and undermined their morals. We cannot, moreover, appreciate the argument which would bring female influence into the turmoil Agmen agens equitum, et florentes aëre catervas," find glory or the grave in a dashing charge. Penelope or Cornelia, in the sanctuary of their homes, are better models for modern imitation than heroines or intrigantes,-Marfisa or De Chevreuse. The influence of an American woman is in the vicinity of her household gods,-the domus et placens uxor are as appropriately united in reality as they are in poetry. The argument presented by our author, that there is not a sufficient identity of interest between the sexes to ensure to the weaker those rights which the stronger secure to themselves, were the objection well founded, should suggest a better remedy than that of a distribution of the franchise, the direct effect of which would be, to create a new and frightful party distinction, and to bury all the harmonies of society in hopeless ruin. Party names now are evanescent, scarce cicatrizing, as they touch, the surface of life; but once establish them, upon the grand radical difference of sex, and a wound reaches the heart which no surgery can mitigate. The vocabulary of passion has no term, as the sciolism of politics would have no cure for it. Poets have imagined a fernale republic, but it has always risen by the sword, and men did task-work in it. The dreams of romance itself have never shadowed out of the relations of the sexes, a co-ordinate or partnership rule, much less " a kingdom divided against itself," by such anomalous differences as their opposition would produce. Fiction and truth alike revolt at such rebellion against nature. We lose our patience when practical men forsake the labour which lies under their very ploughshare to tamper with dangerous problems and to peril the hopes of mankind upon riddles. We have no quarrel with the hybrids of ancient timesthe Philistine Dagon, or the Phoenician Dercete; they had a meaning under their incongruous forms. The mythology of the pagan world is a monument of the immortality of mind. Its dark and corrupt old fables, like the toad's head, have gems in them. Neither would we have laughed, though Horace and the Pisos might, at the monster of the painter, with its union of fish, flesh and fowl, its fantastic plumage, its medley of bor rowed limbs, collatis undique membris, and all the absurdities of its brute-humanity. It might serve, as its description did, to point a moral; it might be a sport of the painter's imagination, or a trial of his skill. We can forgive the whole race of female centaurs, from Hylonome to Mrs. Thornton, and the whole progeny of huntresses, from Dictynna to Di Vernon. But we loath political androgyny, with all its preachers and proselytes. The former are, for the most part, deceived or designing men, the latter bold, bad women-Spartans on the forehead, and Sybarites at the heart. We can divine no readier method for the destruction of the female character, and the total uprooting of the best and softest qualities of that sex, than to make it a party to the engrossing and degrading struggles of an election; and so general has been this opinion, that few women have claimed to participate in political power, save those who had previously forfeited all claim to purity and honour. While such persons were the sole advocates of the miscalled " rights of women," we had nothing to say. Their life confuted their doctrines. The space devoted to the topic here, is a tribute to the respectability of the new advocate of a modern fallacy. A philosopher like Mr. Foster should have avoided the heresies of Mary Wollstoncraft. We are sensible that we have not done full justice to the essay before us, but we have employed it as seemed to ourselves most profitable-to illustrate certain familiar topics rather than to present an elaborate system of doctrines. Having used it desultorily, we shall take our leave of it abruptly, with two or three words of historical reminiscence. Previously to the 49th year of Henry III., the lords, spiritual and temporal, as well as all tenants in capite, attended, or had the right to attend, parliament en masse. The precept in that year, commanding the sheriff to return two knights for the body of their county, and two burgesses for every city and borough contained in it, was at the foundation of the present constitution of parliament. Even then, what with the neglect of the sheriffs, what with the supineness of the electors, many boroughs omitted to perform their duty, and finally lost their right, by prescription. On the other hand, places once prosperous have, through every stage of their subsequent decay, adhered to their original privilege. Hence that anomalous system by which important cities, formerly insignificant, remain, or until recently remained, unrepresented, while hamlets in the last stage of declension send two members to parliament.' The 1 The system of town representation, on this very principle, still prevails in Connecticut. The old towns send each two representatives to the legislature without reference to their population. A new town, |