The Census and Representation

When the government proposed to take a census in 1753, the landowners of Britain refused to be counted. They claimed that the measure was intrusive, that it would be used by the government to collect taxes or to otherwise interfere with the inherited liberties of an English gentleman, and that it was a pernicious sign of encroaching “continental” despotism. They also believed that as elite property owners, their stake and their power in the country could not be described by numbers. They argued that they were worth more than their numerical strength would suggest, and that a census would have “leveling” tendencies, implying that all people had equal worth.2 In 1753, the concern about the leveling nature of the census was social rather than explicitly electoral: the fear was not about who would be able to vote, but about who ought to be “represented” as leaders of the country.