The basis of our constitution is in opposition to the principle of equal political rights [if it refuses] to all but freeholders any participation in the natural right of self-government... And even among our citizens who participate in the representative privilege, the equality of political rights is entirely prostrated by our constitution... [if it gives] to every citizen of [one county] as much weight in the government as to twenty-two equal citizens in [another]... If these fundamental principles are of no importance in actual government, then no principles are important, and it is as well to rely on the dispositions of an administration, good or evil, as on the provisions of a constitution.
 

– Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Hampden Pleasants [1824]