This circumstance suggests a very important consideration, on which it well becomes the people of this country to ponder, in reasoning from the example of France to themselves. It is not unusual now to hear the opinion advanced, that the result of universal suffrage in France proves that the apprehensions entertained on this subject, on this side of the Channel, are unfounded; and that, in truth, there is no such effectual barrier against revolution as universal, or, at least, a very low suffrage. America is frequently referred to, also, in confirmation of the same opinion. But under what circumstances has universal suffrage been forced to uphold property in these two countries? Recollect that both are overspread with a host of small proprietors: in France no less than 6,000,000 persons, for the most part in very indigent circumstances, being holders of land; and in America, the whole soil, from its having been so recently reclaimed from the forest, and the law of equal succession, _ab intestato_, being in the hands of the actual cultivators. But can any opinion be formed from this as to what would be the effect of a change in the electoral law, which created 6,000,000 of voters in a country where there are not 300,000 holders of land, and not above an equal number of proprietors in the funds? It is evident that we can never argue from a country which _has been revolutionised_, and where property _has been divided_, to one where neither of these events has taken place. Doubtless the robber will make a fight before he allows his prey to be torn from him; and when there are six millions of persons, for the most part possessed of the fruits of robbery, the rendering these back will not be very easily effected. But if we would see the effect of an extended suffrage, in a country which has not been revolutionised, and where the strong curb-chain of individual interest does not exist to restrain the majority, we have only to look to what the electors of France in 1793 did with the estates of the church and the nobility; to what the American freeholders did in 1837, when they destroyed five-sixths commercial wealth of the country, by raising the cry "Bank, or no Bank:" or what the British ten-pounders have done with the other classes of society, and, eventually, though they did not intend it, with themselves, by their measures of free trade and a restricted currency. Beyond all doubt, _these_ measures would at once be repealed by an extended constituency; but are we sure they would stop there? What security have we they would not apply the sponge to the National Debt, confiscate the church property, and openly, or by a graduated assessment on land, divide the estates of the nobility?