Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Dorr, Thomas Wilson (1805-1854) [An address to the people of Rhode Island...]

High-resolution images are available to schools and libraries via subscription to American History, 1493-1943. Check to see if your school or library already has a subscription. Or click here for more information. You may also order a pdf of the image from us here.

Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC04162 Author/Creator: Dorr, Thomas Wilson (1805-1854) Place Written: Providence, Rhode Island Type: Pamphlet signed Date: 1834 Pagination: 60 p. ; 21.8 x 13.6 cm. Order a Copy

Title continues: "from the Convention assembled at Providence, on the 22d day of February, and again on the 12th day of March, 1834, to promote the establishment of a State Constitution." First and only edition, printed by Cranston & Hammond, with manuscript corrections in Dorr's hand. Inscribed to by Dorr to Reverend C. W. Upham.

References: American Imprints 22848.

Fellow Citizens,
We desire...to disclaim, in the outset, any design or desire of offering the slightest disrespect to the memory, or the character of our predecessors, who first established that scheme of government, into which we are now anxious to carry the work of reformation. If any pride of ancestry may be indulged in this country, the people of Rhode Island may honorably exult in those noble forefathers, who abandoned their native home, and again, their adopted land, and encountered the dangers of a savage wilderness, for the sake of that great experiment of Religious Liberty, in the blessings of which we all participate....
Nor is the business, fellow-citizens, in which we are engaged, a mere narrow party-affair, got up to promote the sordid views of personal aggrandizement. The aspect of our assembly, composed, as it is, of men of all the political divisions in the State, affords sufficient evidence to the contrary....
We begin by inquiring whether it be consistent with the spirit of the Declaration of American Independence, and becoming the character of Rhode Island Republicans, any longer to acknowledge the charter of a British King as a Constitution of civil government?...
The Charter is farther essentially defective in having affixed a certain Representation to each town for all time to come; thus making no provision for the changes that might happen.... The town of Jamestown, for instance, sends one Representative to every 18 freemen...and the city of Providence but one Representative to every 275 freemen.... An inequality of representation like this is too unjust to be much longer tolerated.... This inequality of representation has had the effect of placing the majority of the qualified voters in this State, under the control of the minority....
Strange as it is, the State of Rhode Island, so far famed for Religious liberty, seems to have become insensible to the claims of Political liberty. It is the only State in this great Republican Confederacy in which the People have not limited the power of their Legislature by a written Constitution; the only State in the Union in which the People suffer a fair and equal representation of their interests to be defeated by a rotten borough system....
We contend then That a participation in the choice of those who make and administer laws is a Natural Right; which cannot be abridged nor suspended any farther than the greatest good of the greatest number imperative requires....
It is...objected to the doctrine of a natural right of suffrage, that Minors and Females are excluded from political privileges.... The restriction upon minors does not conflict in the least with any natural right; it acknowledges their rights, and only decides the period at which they shall commence and be exercised....
With regard to the exclusion of women from the exercise of political power, we are far enough from denying to them the possession of natural rights. It is well known that they formerly exercised the elective franchise in one of the States of this Union--New Jersey; and now that they have ceased to do so, the suspension of their rights rests, not upon any decree of mere force, but upon a just consideration of the best good of society, including that of the sex itself. Their own assent, it should be added, confirms this arrangement of their natural protectors; and being fully aware that the dignity and purity of their sex, character and example would be soon impaired in the conflicts of party strife, they have wisely consented to forego the nominal exercise of political power, and to rule mankind by the only absolute authority which is consistent with their greatest happiness....
Are those citizens who by an extension of suffrage would be admitted to vote, such a class of persons as are unfitted by their character to participate in the political privileges which they claim? We wish this question to be fairly met. Enough has been said in vague and general terms, about "unwholesome citizens," "persons not to be safely trusted," "without property and vicious"--about "protecting the sound part of the community against those who have nothing at stake in society".... Let those who use this language come out and say, if they will venture the assertion, that the body of traders and mechanics, and professional men, and sons of landholders, are the base and corrupt persons who are aimed at in these sweeping denunciations.

Dorr, Thomas Wilson, 1805-1854
Cranston & Hammond, fl. 1834

Citation Guidelines for Online Resources