The possession and the exercise of political, and among others of electoral, rights, is one of the chief instruments both of moral and of intellectual training for the popular mind; and all governments must be regarded as extremely imperfect, until every one who is required to obey the laws, has a voice, or the prospect of a voice, in their enactment and administration.
source
[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_Parliamentary_Reform Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform] (1859), p. 22