to vote, while in others a suffrage qualification is suggested. But by the time the Revolution arrived the doctrine of manhood suffrage had practically disappeared from the colonies; and the practice of putting in office only the most prominent and best equipped was universal and apparently universally accepted. The success of the Revolution in no way affected the suffrage. It had not been a democratic movement nor intended as such. At first it was designed to merely curtail without actually terminating British interference in American affairs; later as the estrangement increased it was determined to entirely get rid of British rule. But the Revolution was in spirit a conservative movement, whereby it was not intended to interfere with existing colonial laws relating to suffrage nor to alter the political or social structure of society nor to materially change aught in government beyond terminating the British connection. In this respect it materially differed from the French Revolution which developed into an attempt to completely reorganize the social and political fabrics. The American revolutionists were well satisfied with their local laws and customs, and the separation from Great Britain once accomplished, the conservative policy adopted at the beginning of the struggle still continued till the generation which had carried through the Revolution had finally passed away. The Declaration of Independence has nothing to say about the right of suffrage. Although composed by Jefferson, who was influenced by the sentimentalities of the French theorists of the time it contains only two brief statements which can possibly be quoted as favoring the principle of manhood suffrage. One is “that all men are created equal.” This statement could not have been intended to be understood without qualification because it is notoriously false. Men are not created equal either in size, health, affections, virtues, social station, capacity, prospects in life, opportunities, nor in anything else. In his own country thousands were then held in bondage, some by Jefferson himself, and a considerable part of the colonial population were without political rights. He could not therefore have even meant that all men were entitled to be considered as politically equal unless he intended merely to express a private opinion of his own. Public opinion as expressed in the laws and customs of the time was exactly to the contrary. The other statement of the Declaration that governments “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” is equally absurd, if applied to individuals. It may be that a government is a usurper if it exists in defiance of society at large, but it may properly dispense with the consent of an unlimited number of the individuals whom it governs. It cannot be supposed that Jefferson and his associates intended to imply that none of the governmental powers on the earth including those of the colonies themselves were just; yet none