"Then I deny the matter of fact alleged,' said I. There is my boy Phil, twenty years old, he is just as competent as nine-tenths of the legal voters in the land; and there are thousands of the same age equally competent.'

"Brief admitted it was so, and thought it would be a just and good thing if twenty, or even eighteen, were made the legal age for voting.

I.

"But how are you going to stop there?' said

'There is Lilly, she is only fourteen ; and there is Fred, he is twelve; yet you know, and I know, and everybody that knows them knows, that they are just as able to drop a ballot into the box as I am; as likely to do it out of an honest love for the commonwealth as most persons; and far more capable of doing it with a wise and intelligent judgment than multitudes who cast their votes; and there are tens of thousands of children equally as competent as they are.'

"But,' said Brief, 'not all children are competent; so we have to draw a line and assume the fitness of those on one side, and the unfitness of those on the other.'

66 6

And assume what is not true,' said I. 'Is it not an established principle of justice, that the State shall not interfere with the sacred rights of

persons except for good cause, established in each individual case?'

"But we must have some practical rule in regard to suffrage,' said Brief.

"And you can have no general rule,' said I, 'that will not either include some that are incompetent, and therefore, on your ground, have not the right, or exclude some that are competent, and therefore have the right to vote.

"Don't you see, therefore, that you cannot get along on your ground? The only consistent conclusion is that suffrage is not a sacred right, but one that the State may, for its own ends, that is, for the good of the commonwealth, grant or deny, extend or limit, as it may judge best. It may, without injustice, establish a practical rule, although it should include some that are incompetent to vote, and exclude some that are competent. State machinery, like all other, is liable to fall short of theoretical perfection in its practical working. The ideally perfect can never be actually reached. All the State has to do is to do as well as it can. If it is practically best for the commonwealth to exclude from the exercise of suffrage, women and children, and negroes and foreigners, and one-half of the grown-up native-born white men, too, then

it is right to do it, and the State, the people, if wise, should and will do it. And this is all there is to be said on the question of right in the matter.'"

CHAPTER XIX.

HARD AND DRY, PERHAPS BUT GOING TO THE BOTTOM OF A SUBJECT IMMENSELY IMPORTANT TO BE UNDERSTOOD IN THIS COUNTRY.

"GOVERNMENT, my dear sir," said the Doctor, "is altogether a practical affair. That is best which works best, not that which you may think theoretically the best. But you have a vague notion that a democratic government is something intrinsically more just, and has a better moral right to exist, than a monarchical or aristocratic one. This is a groundless notion."

"But the people have the right of determining their form of government," said Professor Clare.

"True," replied the Doctor, "God has not prescribed any particular form, and we therefore infer that He has left the determination of it to society; and we infer, too, with equal right, that He does not care what the form is, provided it secure the ends for which the State exists, social justice and

the public welfare. So far as the mere form is concerned, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, have each an equal Divine sanction and right to exist; and the people may establish either of them, or any mixture or modification of them."

"The sovereignty, then, resides in the people," said the Professor.

"Yes," answered the Doctor, "necessarily, inherently, indefeasibly, and inalienably. But this sovereignty is not absolute and unbounded. It is limited by the very nature of the objects for which the State exists-the maintenance of the relations of right-the rights of every man as towards his fellows, and of his fellows as towards him: rights, I say, by which I mean whatever may be justly demanded by every man, and from every man in society-whatever is essential to his being and wellbeing as a man which he cannot, or ought not, or will not obtain singly, but only in, with, and through society. Wherever there are rights there is, or there should be, the power to enforce them. This is sovereignty-the sovereignty that resides in the people as a State-a sovereignty for right, but not for wrong. It is a sovereignty limited by duty, the duty of organizing and exercising the powers of the State to secure the best good of the people,