The Sun.
London, England, 1837-03-08 00:00:00

further condition, simply as payment for the single and i
separate vote. If bribery be continued at all under the Ballot,
it must at least be done in a roundabout and uncertain manner
—by promising a certain present to every voter who may apply
for it, since friends will riot be distinguishable from opponents,
in the event of such or such a candidate being elected. Now, Sir,
I confidently maintain that such collective bribery, in a consti_
tirency of tolerable magnitude, is not within the range of pos-
sibility : and even in a constituency of limited extent, it is a
practice fraught with danger and difficulty—presenting much
less temptation to the voter who receives, and a great increase
of hazard to the candidate who pays. It is not too much
to say, Sir, that the Ballot would at least restrain bribery
within the narrowest limits, if it did not abolish the practice
altogether. And where does the fault lie, Sir, if some rem-
nants of bribery should still re.nain alive, even under a
secret suffrage ? Not in the inefficiency of the Ballot, but
in the preposterous smallness of some of your constituencies.
When gentlemen tell me that the Ballot will still leave a
door open for bribery in the smaller constituencies, what
does thstr argument prove ? It proves nothing at all against
.1
the Ballot ; but it proves most forcibly, most conclusively,
against constituencies of narrow extent. If you should find,
after adopting the Ballot, that bribery still lingers among
these narrow bodies, ycu can easily make your precautions
complete by enlarging them. And I venture to promise that
amongst a large constituency voting Ballot, the effective em-
ployment of bribery will be nothing short of an impossibility.
I know it is contended, Sir, by imposing authorities, that
the voter holds his franchise as a trust, and that for the due
exercise of that trust he roust be held responsible to the
public. Publicity of the suffrage, therefore, we arc told, is
indispensably necessary as a means for making him respon-
sible. When Gentlemen speak of a due exercise of the
franchise, I know not what else they can mean except the ex-
pression of a voter's sincere and conscientious opinion—the
giving itig vote freely and indifferently, sine spe vel pretio.
To make him responsible to the public, therefore, for the due
exercise of his franchise, is, to make him responsible for
voting in conformity with his own conscientious opinion, and
not otherwise—it is to provide that be shall be perfectly se-
cure and unharmed if he gives a conscientious vote, and
shall incur the evil, whatever it be, consequent on respon-
sibility, only in the event of giving an insincere vote. Im-
punity to the innocent voter—loss or sacrifice to the guilty
voter and to him only—these are the two ends which publicity
of suffrage must ensure, if it is to make the voter responsible
for a due exercise of his franchise.—( Hear.) Now, Sir, let
me ask, does publicity of suffrage ensure these ends, both of
them, or either of them ? Does it procure impunity to the in-
nocent voter? Does it entail evil on the guilty voter, and
on him only ? It does neither one nor the other: it is alto-
gether impotent for the purpose of making the voter responsi-
ble for a due exercise of his franchise. Its real effect is to
counteract the purpose of responsibility, and to create a facti-
tious inducement against honest voting. It strews thorns in
the path of the eonscientious elector, and drives the man of
feeble virtue into dishonesty against his will. Sir, I have shown
you that publicity of suffrage does not in point of fact serve
to make the voter responsible for a due exercise of his fran-
chise. But Igo further, and I say that you cannot get any
such responsibility, and you do not want it. The elective fran-
chise includes at once a right and a-duty—the right to express
an opinion, coupled with the duty of expressing it sincerely
and without reward. You may punish the voter for receiv-
ing or covenanting to receive any reward ; but you cannot
carry responsibility any further ; you cannot make the elector
responsible for voting ill. For where is the standard of voting
ill ? Among Tories, to vote ill is to vote for a Whig or a
Radical : among Whigs or Radicals, the reverse.
" Ask, where's the north ? At York, 'tis on the Tweed ;
In Scotland, at the Oreades ; and there
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where."

The standard of good or bad voting is an elector's own bosom ;
a right vote, to any run of any polities, is that which each of
them thinks right—that which each delivers from his own un-
constrained free-will and sincere persuasion. Voting, Sir, is
the business of the people directly and personally, not of
agents delegated by the people. Each individual elector
forms one component unit amongst the mighty mass required
to deliver his own genuine opinion, in order that you may ar-
rive at a correct total. How does this consist with the pre-
tended necessity for responsibility ? Why am Ito be respon-
sible to my neighbour any more than he is to be responsible to
me ? Am I bound to vote against my own conscience, because
I may happen to differ with the majority of the public around
me ? To acknowledge such a principle would be to annihilate
the minority altogether, and to absorb them into the majority.
It would be to frustrate the main object of the electoral
process.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") I repeat, Sir, that
whether you look upon the franchise in its character of a
right, or in its character of a duty—in both points of view
the prime virtue of the elective system consists in collecting
the opinion of electors with fidelity and independence ; and
looking to this end, responsibility in the elector to any ex-
traneous authority is a hindrance, and not a help. I know,
Sir, I shall be told that all this reasoning might be just, if
'every man in the community were a voter ;_ but there are a
vast number of persons who are not allowed to vote at all ;
and they (it is contended) would be deprived of all influence,
and left without any security, if the qualified electors voted
in secret. It is very true, Sir, that there are a large body
among the population who are excluded from the franchise,
and give me leave to ask how this happens ? On what
grounds is their exclusion defended? With what argu-
ments should I be met, if instead of moving for the adop-
tion of the Ballot, I were now introducing a measure for
making the right of suffrage universal? Why, Sir, I should
be told that the great body of the poor were debarred by
indigence and excessive toil from all capacity of forming a
just opinion on public affairs. or of discriminating between
one Member and another. I should be told that a large
proportion of them entertained sentiments hostile to the
principle of property, and thirsted for the forcible equaliza-
tion of possessions. I shouid be reminded, moreover, that
the Reform Act had already enlarged the number of qualified
voters to such an extent, as to make it certain that they
could have no separate and sinister interest of their own, at
variance with that of the entire community; and that these
electors could not choose well for themselves without choosing
well for their unrepresented brethren. Such, Sir, would be
the points stated against me, if I were now advancing the pro-
position of universal suffrage. Ido not at all mean to adopt
them as my arguments. I pronounce no opinion on the sub-
ject, because it is not now under discussion ; but I know that
these are the grounds on which universal suffrage always is re-
sisted, and, I will add, the only grounds upon which, on prin-
ciple, it can be resisted. For if you once admit that the un-
represented classes are capable of that effort of judgment
which is necessary for making a good choice of candidates,
to exclude them from the elective franchise is a mere wanton
insult. Now, Sir, assuming that upon these principles you
are justified in disfranchising the non-electors, I affirm that
all coercive interference on their part with the votes of
electors can produce nothing but unmixed evil. They can-
not alter the choice of the electors for the better—if they
interfere at all they must alter it for the worse. Do you
really believe that the persons who stand without your elec-
toral circle are competent to control or amend the votes
of those within it ? Then in common justice admit them
within it at once ; for on that supposition they arc the superior
party of the two. In short, Sir, by whatever line of argument
you prove to me that the control of the non-electors over rhe
votes of electors is good, by the same line of argument I en-
gage to prove to you that universal suffrage is still better.
You show no cause against the Ballot, but you show much in
favour of universal suffrage. Do not let us commit the flagrant
inconsistency of maintaining that the unrepresented many arc
at once capable and incapable—incapable of giving good votes
themselves, but capable of causing good votes to be given by
others--possessing no judgment of their own, but indispensably
necessary for the purpose of dictating the votes of those who
do possess judgment. Sir, I say that, to withhold the right
of suffrage treat non-electors, and yet to invite them to exer-
cise coercive supervision over the votes of electors, is a pro-
ceeding as absurd and contradictory as it is mischievous. It
the non-electors acted generally on your invitation, you would
have practically the effects of universal suffrage, but brought
about by the most violent and unwarrantable means.—( Hear.)
We have heard much, Sir, lately about the tyranny of the
majority, and most preposterously indeed the expression b4s
been applied. But if there be any case conceivable in
which the intervention of the majority deserves the name of
tyranny, it is the case now before you—where the non-elec-
tors assume to themselves a power of dictation and coercion
over the freedom of individual suffrage. I recognise no
right in any majority to overrule the free expression of indi-
vidual conscience—hic ',turas oheneus esto-,it is the prin-
ciple of such compulsory interference which I am now com-
batting ; let it proceed from what quarter it may, from a
single person or from a multitude, it is nothing better than
tyranny. And those who invoke and legalise the controul
of non-electors over the votes of doctors, build upon a foun-
dation alike unsound and unhallowed ; they appeal from
the righteous independence of individual choice to the col-
lective violence of the majority.—( Hear, hear, hear.) Sir,
I am as anxious as any man to uphold both the social con-
dition and the political guarantees of the unrepresented
classes, and my own opinions (if this were a fit season for
enforcing them) are favourable both to an extension of the
suffrage to all householders, and to a better distribution of
the constituencies. But I fearlessly contend that the un-
represented classes have nothing to lose, and much to gain,
by ensuring that full protection and freedom which secrecy
imparts to the elective franchise, even though they them-
selves aro not allowed to exercise it. It concerns them much
that every qualified voter should be placed in circumstances the
most favourable to an honest and conscientious use of his fran-
chise; it concerns them much that the poorer voters should
not be degraded into a state of subserviency to the richer; it
concerns them still more, that the basis of the franchise should
be kept at least as wide as it is at present, and the number of
qualified voters at leAst as great—for it is upon this that the
coincidence of interest between the voters and the people at
large altogether depends. Now, Sir, it is one of the capital
charges which I advance against the present system of open
voting, that it practically contracts the right of suffrage in a
prodigious degree--that it annihilates the independent will of
a vast proportion of the voters on the register—that out of a
catalogue of eight hundred thousand ostensible voters, you find
not above half that number exercising a real, effective, end un-
trammelled choice. Mischievous enough this is, Sir, in every
respect ; but above all things it is mischievous, as it affects the
comfort and security of the unrepresented classes. If the law-
ful extent of the suffrage as it now stands, is not more than suf-
ficient to assure the non-electors of perfect sympathy and iden-
tity of interest between the voters and the entire community,
what does it become when the franchise is unlawfully contracted
into still narrower limits? Adopt the Ballot, Sir, and you
at least ensure that the extent of suffrage which the law allows
shall be a reality and not a fiction : you impart an independent
power of choice to every voter in the catalogue ; you practi-
cally enlarge the franchise compared with what it is at present,
and you thus strengthen the union of feeling and interest be-
tween the electoral body and the people. Instead of depriving