Many poor white men gained voting rights, also known as suffrage, for the first time in the 1830s. These changes in American democracy did not take place without conflict. Voting rights in Rhode Island only changed after poor Rhode Islanders raised a militia and threatened violence. Below is the proposal of many of the men who seven years later took up arms to fight for voting rights.

…We have arrived at the conclusion that government was designed for the protection and perpetuation of rights—not derived from itself, but natural and inherent—in such a way as to promote the greatest good of the whole; and that the question now before us is, not what right of suffrage the government ought to grant as a gift, but with what restrictions, required by this greatest good, suffrage may be claimed as a right by the people of this State. Is it consistent with this general good that the present landed qualifications should be any longer continued…?

…we should show that the present restriction is, in its operation, inconsistent with republican principles, then we shall secure the aid of all those who consistently hold those principles, in having this restriction removed…

…whatever course a true patriot might feel himself to adopt in one of the corrupt monarchies of the old world, no such reason can e given for a postponement of political rights in our own country. No privileged orders have ever existed in it, to create a vast inequality which prevails elsewhere between the many and the few. A freedom was brought with the by our ancestors, and has ever subsisted among us…The true American doctrine is, that the majority have not only a right to govern, but that they are sufficiently intelligent and honest to govern; and that, if there be any doubt about this sufficiency, we ought immediately to set to work and build more schools. Men in Europe, who are opposed to any further improvement in government, may talk about the necessity of “barring out the people,” and of “defending themselves against the people.” But this will not do here…

…the condition of things has changed—the towns have changed; new interests have sprung up, and useful citizens, who own no land, but who contribute by their occupations, and by the payment of taxes to the extend of their means, their proportionate measure to the public welfare. Yet these men have no voice in the government which they contribute to support; being excluded upon the false notion that landed property is the only kind that is decisive of a man’s intelligence and honesty. Look at the hardship of the case of a mechanic, for instance. He has received a common education; he has served as a journeyman, and is now about to commence business for himself with some small earnings of his own; his savings are only sufficient to procure the implements of his trade. After faily starting in life on his own account, he becomes anxious to provide for himself a home. He marries; he hires a tenement; in the course of time he acquires more money, which his interest demands should be invested in the stock of his trade. He is fully able to purchase one hundred and thirty four dollars worth of land; but it is, in most cases, against his interest to do so, until he can purchase a great deal more. In the mean time, he is debarred from the polls; and if he asks why, the answer must be that the non freeholders are too ignorant and dishonest to be trusted in so important a matter as voting. This we believe is a fair statement of the case of hundreds of mechanics in this State…

But this restriction is not merely burdensome upon traders and mechanics. How fare the younger sons of farmers? True, a sort of virtue is transmitted from the land-owner, but it reaches no farther than the first-born son… the real question is why either of the sons, or any other person should be exempted from the general law of qualification, whatever it may be. No good reason has been, nor can be, given…

The majority of lawyers, clergymen, and physicians, as a body, certainly are not landholders, and yet we freely intrust our property, our consciences, and our lives, to men who, the law says, are too ignorant and corrupt to vote for a constable!…

The existing restriction on suffrage is, then, we think, clearly in opposition to the real intention of our ancestors, and to the spirit of democracy which they established… If it were unjust for our forefathers to be taxes without representation, it is equally unjust for our their descendants to be so taxed by their brethren, as long as they have not vote in determining either the quantity or appropriation…

An Address to the People of Rhode Island, from the Convention assembled at Providence, on the 22^nd day of February, and again on the 12^th day of March, 1834, to Promote the Establishment of a State Constitution (Providence: 1834), 32-34, 38-40, 44-45.

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