The word "democracy" is a tricky one, and it is important to bear in mind that it meant different things to different people in the 19th century, Just as it does today. For some mid-Victorians the word democracy was a term of abuse. But for many others, it was worth pursuing, but not to be taken too far. John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham were a famous thinkers and philosophers who held an important attitudes toward democracy. Each one of them call for a different theory toward suffrage and the right to vote.

Bentham's theory calls for "ultra-democracy", he believes that each individual has the right to decide what the public interests are. He insists that the interest of the community is nothing than the sum of the interests of several members who compose it. And to be able to understand any individual's interest, you...