Another difficulty which attended the adjustment of the right of suffrage grew out of the widely differing qualifications annexed to that right under the State constitutions, and the consequent dissatisfaction that must follow any effort to establish distinct or special qualifications under the national Constitution. In some of the States, the right of voting was confined to "freeholders"; in others,--and by far the greater number,--it was extended beyond the holders of landed property, and included many other classes of the adult male population; while in a few, it embraced every male citizen of full age who was raised at all above the level of the pauper by the smallest evidence of contribution to the public burdens. The consequence, therefore, of adopting any separate system of qualifications for the right of voting under the Constitution of the United States would have been, that, in some of the States, there would be persons capable of voting for the highest State officers, and yet not permitted to vote for any officer of the United States; and that in the other States persons not admitted to the exercise of the right under the State constitution might have enjoyed it in national elections. This embarrassment, however, did not extend to the qualifications which it might be thought necessary to establish for the right of being elected to office under the general government. As the State and the national governments were to be distinct systems, and the officers of each were to exercise very different functions, it was both practicable and expedient for the Constitution of the United States to define the persons who should be eligible to the offices which it created.