Suffrage

“God’s commonwealth was not founded on universal suffrage. That he rejected the Jacobinical principle is plain from the history of the Gibeonites. They were exempted by covenant with Joshua from the doom of extinction, and retained a title to homes for many generations upon the soil of Palestine, and as we see from 2 Sam. xxi. 6, they were very carefully protected in certain rights by the government. They were not domestic slaves, neither were they fully enfranchised citizens. From the higher franchises of that rank they were shut out by a hereditary disqualification, and this was done by God’s express enactment. (Josh. ix. 27.) Individual descendants of the Gibeonites, however law-abiding and gifted with natural capacity, did not enjoy ‘la carriere ouverte aux talents’ equally with the young Israelites, which the Jacobin theory demands indiscriminately as the inalienable right to all. And to make matters worse, the Scripture declares that this disqualification descended by imputation from the guilt of the first generation’s paganism and fraud upon Joshua.” Originally they avoided extinction by swearing fealty to Joshua and were gradually assimilated into society by the Israelites. It is very clear though, when reading the passage that Dabney cites, that the Gibeonites were still considered Gibeonites, and consequently were not considered the social or political equals of the Israelites. The Gibeonites would not permanently own property in the Israelite countryside (Lev. 25) or serve as a civil magistrate (Deut. 1:13-16, 17:15). Sadly, most Christians today are so Biblically illiterate that they probably have never heard of the Gibeonites. -Robert Dabney, Presbyterian Quarterly, vol. 2. Constitution Pub. Co., 1888. p. 227