This question is becoming increasingly contested in the political arena. The government is coming under more and more pressure to lower the voting age to 16. This pressure comes from groups such as The Electoral Commission,The Electoral Reform Society, The Power Inquiry, The Votes at 16 Coalition, as well as the Liberal Democrat Party, The SNP and The Green Party. But what are the reasons behind these calls? Is it really sensible for people as young as 16 to be allowed the vote? This is a debate that must be had, particularly with Gordon Brown finding his party in such a vulnerable position. What if they make the wrong decision because of their education? Should they be able to if they pass a test at 16? thought to deserve no consideration, for being some- what out of the common road. The imputation of Nov- elty is a terrible charge amongst those who judge of men’s heads, as they do of their perukes, by the fashion, and can allow none to be right but the received doc- trines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote any- where at its first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other rea- son but because they are not already common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine. It is trial and examination must give it price, and not any antique fashion; and though it be not yet current by the public stamp, yet it may, for all that, be as old as nature, and is certainly not the less genuine. Your lordship can give great and convincing instances of this, whenever you please to oblige the public with some of those large and comprehensive discoveries you have made of truths hitherto unknown, unless to some few, from whom your lordship has been pleased not wholly to conceal them. This alone were a sufficient reason, were there no other, why I should dedicate this
Essay to your lordship; and its having some little corre- spondence with some parts of that nobler