The doctrine of manhood suffrage was imported to America from France in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and began to infect American politics some twenty years after the Independence, though its final triumph was delayed another score of years. To some of us it seems almost incredible that any honest man could avoid being strongly prejudiced against a political institution which had produced such horrible results as manhood suffrage in France, and it would probably today be but a poor recommendation of any political scheme to an intelligent man that it was adopted by the French Revolutionary Convention of 1792. But a century ago the masses in the United States were not thinkers, and were even more inclined to be carried away by emotional crazes than they are at present; no doubt the success of the American Revolution had turned many heads. It was a time when young gentlemen were much afflicted by morbid sentimentality; when ladies did not fail to faint on proper occasion; when American gentlemen fought duels because of sham sentiment or to sustain a sham honor; when blood-curdling novels were devoured with gusto; when Byron’s all-defying pirate heroes were the rage; when young clerks went about gloomily brooding in turned-down collars and imagining that the whole world consisted of oppressors and the oppressed. To such a romantic and superficial young America the platitudes and empty sentimentalities of the French Radicals made a stronger appeal than the plain common sense talk of the British Tories. Besides all this a large part of the American people at the close of the American Revolution in 1783 were deeply grateful to the French nation for its timely and effective assistance in the war for Independence. Without French aid, it was thought that the revolt might have failed, and of course they did not stop to reflect that Lafayette and Rochambeau were noblemen; that it was a French monarchy and not a republic which had been so helpful to America. And so when a few years later France became a Republic, largely owing, it was thought, to American influence and example, there was great enthusiasm in many American hearts for France and everything French, including the new political theories of the Rights of Man, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Even the Terrorists for a time had their sympathizers here, some of whom probably were unaware of the facts as the newspaper accounts of doings abroad were meagre and distorted. The French partisans here even believed and circulated slanders against the noble and spotless Washington. It is easy to believe interesting lies. Did not our fellow Americans in the South work themselves up in 1860 to a silly belief that they were or were about to be plundered and oppressed by the perfectly harmless rest of us? Did not the English and French make themselves believe and declare in January, 1865, that the Southern States were on the eve of final victory when they were obviously tottering to a final fall? Have not we Americans to the last deluded man of us gone about for the past century believing and swearing that we won a signal triumph in the war of 1812 and refusing to credit our own officers and historians to the contrary? How many Americans failed to go wrong in their sympathies at the beginning of the last Russian revolution? The American radicals therefore probably chose to believe that Marat, Robespierre, Danton and Co., instead of being humbugs, blackguards and miscreants, were wise and honest republicans, whose massacres of harmless prisoners and other similar performances were excusable ebullitions of patriotic zeal. When for instance the news of the defeat of Brunswick by Dumouriez came to America in December, 1792, there were great rejoicings among them. There were dinners, suppers, speeches, cannon firing and processions in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities. The inns and taverns were filled with those whose heads were turned by liquor and enthusiasm; some wearing liberty caps and cockades; all singing, shouting and drinking toasts. On December 27th in New York City the whole day was given up to public rejoicing, including a celebration by the Tammany Society.