During nearly the whole of the nineteenth century our American people played up hill and down dale with a very dangerous political doctrine. I refer to the theory of unrestricted suffrage. Probably a majority of our people actually came to believe that because a man (or a woman) had arrived at the age of twenty-one, that was reason enough for granting him the right to vote. This individual might be illiterate. He might be mentally undeveloped, perhaps an imbecile. If our imaginary voter were deaf, dumb and blind, besides being halt, he could still be carried to the polls and his vote registered and counted. Only recently have any considerable number of our people come to take a practical view of this thing. At last we are beginning to see that this, like any other good principle of life, may be driven to excess. One may work too hard or think too much. Even the most exalted virtues may be overdone. So it is with the principles of democracy. Having succeeded with a large measure of democracy, by the time our government was put into operation, we did not lack those who were prepared to see it carried to fanatical and dangerous extremes. So the spoils system has been long defended as being a necessary attribute of democracy. Politicians discovered that votes might be secured through disclaiming all breeding, culture, and even denouncing efficiency in office. Instead of trying to make of our democratic system a sound and reasonable way of conducting public business, our people fell to advocating certain democratic political and social theories with a sort of religious frenzy. So it was with universal suffrage. A corrupt government at Washington would never have been permitted to enfranchise the Negroes directly after their emancipation had it not been for the wide acceptance among our people of this false theory of the suffrage. If "everybody should vote," then, indeed, how could the freed Negro be denied this "inherent and inalienable right." Of course, as a matter of fact, the vote has always been denied to certain groups and classes. To begin with, the young people under twenty-one years of age, in the eyes of the law, "infants," were disfranchised. These had no "inherent and inalienable" right to vote, because of their immaturity. Until recently women were not allowed to vote on the basis that the franchise would interfere with the performance of domestic duties. Paupers and criminals are also disfranchised.