That extreme democratic principle has been regarded with terror by the wise men of every age, because in every European republic, ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has terminated disastrously, and been productive of corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny. And dare we flatter ourselves that we are a peculiar people, who can run the career of history exempted from the passions which have disturbed and corrupted the rest of mankind? If we are like other races of men, with similar follies and vices, then I greatly fear that our posterity will have reason to deplore in sackcloth and ashes the delusion of the day."[219] [Footnote 219: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol. 2, p. 34.] Though Erastus Root and Samuel Young employed all their eloquence and all their energy against Spencer's proposition, it was Martin Van Buren's speech which made the deepest impression. It cannot be said that the latter's remarks defeated the amendment, because the vote of nineteen to one hundred, showed no one behind the Chief Justice's proposal save himself and a few Federalists. But Van Buren greatly strengthened the report of the committee, which gave a vote to every male citizen twenty-one years old, who had resided six months in the State and who had within one year paid taxes or a road assessment, or had been enrolled and served in the militia. Although, said Van Buren, this report is on the verge of universal suffrage, it did not cheapen the invaluable right, by conferring it indiscriminately upon every one, black or white, who would condescend to accept it. He was opposed, he said, to a precipitate and unexpected prostration of all qualifications, and looked with dread upon the great increase of voters in New York City, believing that such an increase would render elections a curse rather than a blessing. But he maintained that the events of the past forty years had discredited the speculative fears of Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison; that venality in voting, in spite of property qualifications, already existed in grossest forms in parliamentary elections in England, and that property had been as safe in those American communities which had given universal suffrage as in the few which retained a freehold qualification. Then, with great earnestness, his eye resting upon the distinguished Chancellor, he declared that whenever the principles of order and good government should yield to principles of anarchy and violence, all constitutional provisions would be idle and unavailing.