 Conflict over who should have the right to vote has been a part of the history of modern representative government ever since its emergence in England during the 17th century. Because elections are central to such systems of governance and the different groups that make up society have competing political interests, the issue of which segments of the population should have the franchise has long been contested. Property and sex qualifications drastically limited the franchise into the 20th century. Opposition to universal manhood suffrage came from those claiming that men without sufficient property lacked the independence of mind and the stake in the good of the community needed for the responsible exercise of the franchise (Keyssar 2000: 8–10). After industrialization produced a large class of wage-workers, a common argument against universal suffrage was that giving workers the right to vote would result in the establishment of a disastrous socialist or communist regime. Opposition to women’s suffrage came from those who embraced the traditional patriarchal idea that the inherent capacities of women suited them, not for the public world of politics, but for the restricted private domain of family life and the household (Keyssar 2000: 141). 