The elective franchise ought only to be intrusted to those, who would exercise it with the most wisdom and independence; and as wisdom and independence certainly, prevail more in the middling ranks, than in the whole mass of the people, the elective franchise should accordingly be principally enjoyed by them … yet the benefits which would flow from a representative body, properly constituted, would be general … the poor, as well as the rich, would equally partake of them.

The poorer classes in general have an understanding sufficiently just, docile, and unprejudiced to elect and to submit to the same legislators whom the middling classes themselves … would single out … [Under a radical enfranchisement of a million voters, the elected nevertheless would still be] identified in heart and spirit with the happiness of the middling classes.

The qualification they have adopted, will have the effect of introducing, not this intelligent and educated portion of the middle ranks alone, but a vast majority very differently endowed … I am sure, that to no portion of the community would this measure be practically more unsatisfactory, than to that valuable part of the middle classes, who would be thus confounded with those so much their inferiors.