Note 7 — JOURNAL.
Reading edition
Unfortunately this precaution does not fulfil its purpose; universal suffrage is a political fallacy: and will be one of the stumbling-blocks in the path of this country's greatness. I do not mean that it will lessen her wealth, or injure her commercial and financial resources; but it will be an insuperable bar to the progress of mental and intellectual cultivation—'tis a plain case of action and reaction. If the mass, i. e. the inferior portion, (for when was the mass not inferior?) elect their own governors, they will of course elect an inferior class of governors, and the government of such men will be an inferior government; that it may be just, honest, and rational, I do not dispute; but that it ever will be enlarged, liberal, and highly enlightened, I do not, and cannot, believe.