The subject of the qualifications to be required of the executive, the judiciary, and the members of both branches of the legislature, went to the committee of detail in a form which was subsequently modified in a very important particular. It was at first proposed,[122] that landed property, as well as citizenship in the United States, should be embraced in the qualifications. But there were solid objections to this requirement, founded on the circumstances of the country and the nature of a republican constitution. So far as the people of the United States could be said to be divided into classes, the principal divisions related to the three occupations of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures of all kinds, including in the latter all who exercised the mechanic arts. As a general rule, it was supposed at that time to be true, that the commercial and manufacturing classes held very little landed property; and that although they were much less numerous than the agricultural class, yet that they were likely to increase in a far greater ratio than they had hitherto. Practically, therefore, to require a qualification of landed property, would be to give the offices of the general government to the agricultural interest. These considerations led the Convention, by a nearly unanimous vote, to reject the proposition for a landed qualification.[123] Very serious doubts were also entertained, whether, in constructing a republican constitution, it was proper to pay so much deference to distinctions of wealth as would be implied by the adoption of any property qualification for office. There are two methods in which the interests of property may be secured, in the organization of a representative government. It may be required as a qualification, either of the elector or the elected, that the individual shall possess a certain amount of property. But it seems scarcely consistent with the spirit of a republican constitution, that this should be made a qualification for holding office, although it may be quite proper to require some degree of property, or its equivalent evidence of moral fitness, as a qualification for the right of choosing to office. The solid reason for a distinction is, that, in order to have a property qualification for office at all efficient, or even of any perceptible operation, it must be made so large that it will tend to exclude persons of real talent, or even the highest capacity for the public service. Whereas, a property qualification may be applied to the exercise of the elective franchise, by requiring so small an amount that it will practically exclude but few who possess the moral requisites for its intelligent and honest use; and even to this extent the operation of such a rule may be, as it is in some well-governed communities, greatly relieved, by substituting for the positive possession of any amount of property, that species of evidence of moral fitness for the right of voting that is implied by