The concept ofuniversal suffrage, also known asgeneral suffrage orcommon suffrage, consists of theright to vote of all except a small number of adult citizens (or subjects).
From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of thefreedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become acitizen. I insisted that there was no safety for him or for anybody else inAmerica outside the American government; that to guard, protect, and maintain hisliberty the freedman should have the ballot; that theliberties of the American people were dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box; that without these noclass of people could live and flourish in this country; and this was now the word for the hour with me, and the word to which the people of the North willingly listened when I spoke. Hence, regarding as I did the elective franchise as the one great power by which allcivil rights are obtained, enjoyed, and maintained underour form of government, and the one without which freedom to any class is delusive if not impossible, I set myself to work with whatever force and energy I possessed to secure this power for the recently-emancipated millions.
To grant suffrage to theblack man in this country is not innovation, but restoration. It is a return to the ancient principles and practices ofthe fathers.
It is contradictory to say that the same person can be at the same time ruler and ruled. … The greatability of those who are in control in themodern world lies in making the people believe that they are governing themselves; and the people are the more inclined to believe this as they are flattered by it, as they are in any case incapable of sufficient reflection to see its impossibility. It was to create this illusion that “universal suffrage” was invented: thelaw is supposed to be made by the opinion of the majority, but what is overlooked is that this opinion is something that can very easily be guided and modified; it is always possible, by means of suitable suggestions, to arouse in it currents moving in this or that direction as desired. We cannot recall who it was that first spoke of “manufacturing opinion,” but this expression is very apt.
René Guénon,The Crisis of the Modern World (1927) p. 93
Un jour viendra où il n'y aura plus d'autres champs de bataille que les marchés s'ouvrant au commerce et les esprits s'ouvrant aux idées. Un jour viendra où les boulets et les bombes seront remplacés par les votes, par le suffrage universel des peuples, par le vénérable arbitrage d'un grand sénat souverain qui sera à l'Europe ce que le parlement est à l'Angleterre, ce que la diète est à l'Allemagne, ce que l'assemblée législative est à la France!
A day will come when there will be no battlefields, butmarkets opening tocommerce andminds opening toideas. A day will come when thebullets andbombs are replaced byvotes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable arbitration of a great supremesenate which will be toEurope whatParliament is toEngland, the Diet toGermany, and the Legislative Assembly toFrance.
I do not mean to suggest thatscientific differences should be settled by universal suffrage, but I do conceive that solid proofs must be met by something more than empty and unsupported assertions.
The capitalisticbourgeoisie of the nineteenth century (mainly if we consider the upper-middle classes) stood for an election system which excluded the lower classes even from indirect influence in the government. The middle-class "democrat" frequently dreads the manual laborer, who often sided with thearistocrat, and he usually hates the peasant politically, partly on account of the ingrained loathing of the agrarian elements against the city, partly on account of the conservative-patriarchal structure and tendencies of the farming population. The "democrats" for a long time have been reluctant to grant universal suffrage in view of such alarming manifestations as the peasant-aristocratic rising in the Vendée against the bourgeois revolution in Paris, the rebellion of the Scottish Highlanders against the mammonistic House of Hanover, the formation of Catholic parties in Central Europe largely recruited from priests and peasants. Only in the twentieth century, through constant pressure from the socialists, has the demand for income brackets and educational standards in connection with suffrage been dropped.
We have seen that the "democrats" are not very dogmatic about their ideas and that they revise their principles according to circumstances. They found special pleasure in withdrawing in certain European countries the right to vote from the military forces, the secular clergy, and the religious orders. Naturally the ochlocratic and egalitarian principle also demands female suffrage, but certain leftist groups had their doubts and scruples about the application of their dogmas. This is mainly true of the Latin countries where women, with the exception of a small, but extremely rabid minority, profess strong conservative and religious views, and therefore the principle of universal suffrage was quietly dropped in countries like republican France, Spain, and Portugal.
If the lesser mind could measure the greater as afoot-rule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved.
