The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-30 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 34, 1860.

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Ala

THE LATE LORD MACA ULAY ON THE

BALLOT.

In 1839, Lord (then Mr.) Macaulay returned from
India, and in May of that year was elected mem-
ber for Edinburgh. On the 18th of June, Mr. Grote,
member for London, moved for leave to bring in a
bill to provide that the votes at elections for mem-
bers of Parliament be taken by ballot. In the de-
bate that followed, Mr. Macaulay made his first
speech after his reappearance in the House of Com-
mons. Having defended the Ministry for making
the ballot an open question, he proceeded—.
I shall vote for the motion of the hon. member
_ _ _

for the city of London; and I wish to explain
in doing so, I merely understand myself to be re-
cording a declaration in favour of the principle of
secret voting. I desire to be understood as reserv-
ing to myself the right of withholding my support
from any bill which, on examining its details, shall
not appear to me to provide a machinery that will
secure secresy and prevent fraud and intimidation ;
and I must reserve to myself the right of consider-
ing how far I can, with propriety, give my support
to any bill which shall not be either accompanied
or preceded by some measure for improving the
mode of revising the registration. I should think
it most disingenuous to give a popular vote, sad-
dled with conditions which I thought either im-
possible or exceedingly difficult of fulfilment. Such
is not my opinion with regard to those which I have
mentioned. I entertain no doubt that it is possible
to provide a machinery which will protect the in-
terests both of the Voter and the country, by in-
suring all the secresy of which the transactions
of humane life will admit. I have little doubt
that it is possible to devise a tribunal whose de-
cisions before the election shall command as much
public confidence as the decisions of the committees
of this house after election. Subject to these two
conditions, I give my support to this motion for
establishing the vote by ballot. But I cannot say
that I do so on all the grounds on which many of the
supporters of the ballot rest their case. I by no
means consider, as many of them appear to do, that
it is a question respecting which all the arguments
urged are upon one side, and that there can be no
set-off to the great advantages that may result from
the adoption of secret voting. So embarrassing
appear to me the difficulties that beset the subject,
that I am not surprised that many wise and virtu-
ous men should have arrived at a conclusion differ-
ing from my own. In this, as in every other ques-
tion that tests the prudence and experience of men,
we must expect to find a balance of good and evil.
And, first, I will admit that secresy would with-
draw the voter from the influence of some good as
well as some bad motives. I admit that it would
take away the salutary effect of public opinion, as
well as the pernicious influence of intimidation
But I am compelled to take refuge in the ballot—
and select that which, to the best of my judgment,
is the least of two evils. I am not sure that I quite
agree with the hon. member for the City of London
in thinking that it would be an entire preservative
against bribery ; on that point, I confess, I am in-
clined to dissent from the hon. member. In small
constituent bodies, I think that bribery, under a
system of secret voting, would continue to exist,
though, at the same time, without any material
aggravation. But I support the ballot chiefly on
this ground--I consider it as the specific, the only
remedy for the monstrous evils of intimidation.
There wagla time when—like the noble lord who
seconded the motion of the hon. member for Lon-
don—l was inclined to think this evil, like many
others which had yielded to the force of public
opinion and the progress of intelligence, would die
a natural death. That hope I have been compelled
to relinquish ; I believe the evil to be a growing evil;
I am satisfied that it has considerably increased within
the last seven years, and I believe it has increased
within the last three years. I cannot disguise from
myself that the growth of this evil is in some measure
to be imputed to the Reform Bill ; and, in saying
this, I impute to the Reform Bill only that imper-
fection which is common to it and every other great
measure. The reformation of the church has pro-
duced classes of social and moral evil unknown in
the times of the Plantagenets. The revolution has
produced descriptions of abuse unknown in the times
of the Stuarts; and I believe that the Reform Bill,
though on the whole it has conferred great blessings
on the country, has, like the great changes which I
have mentioned, produced some new evils, and ag-
gravated others of old standing. It has swept away
many abuses; but it seems to me to have given new
life and more malignant energy to those which it
spared. It has stopped up many of the channels of
corrupt influence; but within those which it did not
stop the stream not only runs on, but runs deeper,
stronger, foullor than ever. If it does not destroy,
it at least restricts within narrow limits the ancient
practice of nomination; but by doing so I believe it
has given a new impulse to the spirit of intimidation,
and that, too, at the very moment when it conferred
the franchise on thousands of electors who were
placed precisely in that situation in which they were
most liable to the influence of terror. I cannot close
my eyes to the evidence of these evils, accumulated
from all quarters; if any credit can be given to the
outcries which have been raised in every quarter of
the kingdom—not by one party only, but by Tories,
Whigs, an 3 Radicals—from England, Scotland, and
Ireland—l must believe that there are now sitting
in this house gentlemen who owe their seats to votes
extorted by fear. And I say that if there be any
gentleman in this house who owes his seat to such
practices, it would be infinitely better he sat here
for Old Sarum; for, sitting for that borough, he
would be no representative of the people; nor is he
now; but at Old Sarum there could be no threats,
no ejectments, no struggle in the. breast of the
elector between regard for his public duty and re-
gardte
pui.nttte.oreaty
elector,Tliere the
wh
whether he
or reduce his family
of freedom.
ttwihvoaeut cwdfoouhrali
abandon
which
never
wed vpooenrrrikvhba
to misery. All tyranny. is bad, but the worst is
Under an undisguised oligarchy, the people suffer
his principles,
the. machinery
case to what-
those
up with
i
onlyha,,e the evil
soefnb;einhugtgoivnTheedobtyhetrh ose
ever extent intimidation mixes whom they
the system of popular election, tothaei
tnegxtegnot
the people suffer both the evil of b
.
verned by those whom they have not chosen, and
.
the ethveilmoofrebweiindge t choee rce
basisd no tfo t
hper oe fee
es
ts
ieNt
scyhsot cme
the worse are the mischiefs arising from it. The
tmhorroeu
gh human
whi
which
beingssome agrreeaCtolplyroerptreidetoirntmoamyaecxhirrneesss,
his pleasure, the greater is the quantity of misery
and degradation. The noble lord who seconded
this motion said, and most justl7 too,
that he did
not wish to deprive wealth of, its legitimate influ-
ence. Wealth is power : and power, properly
used—with kindness and justice on its side—
necessarily inspires affection. Wealth, or that
which is so, compared with what is possessed by
the great mass of electors, is closely connected
with intellectual superiority. It enables its Res-
sessor to select and prosecute any study to which
he may be inclined ; to continue it when those
who commence life with him, under less favourable
circumstances, are forced to dredge for their daily
bread ; to enlarge his mind by foreign travel ; to
acquire an intimacy with the history of nations,
and with the arts and sciences. These are advan-
tages to which it is impossible that constituencies
can be blind; nay, going much below those who

form the present body of electors, and descending
to the very lowest of the populace, it never is found
that in their wildest aberrations they choose a
leader destitute of these recommendations. This is
the natural, the indestructible, the legitimate, the
salutary influence of wealth. Whatever is more
than this is corruption ; and if it be thought
necessary, as it appears from the speech of
the hon. member who last spoke, that some
persons in this house do think it necessary, to
maintain the influence of bribery in our
elective system—then I say that, incomparably, the
best and the least objectionable method is that of
open bribery. But against bribery have passed re-
solutions—for bribery boroughs are disfranchised,
for bribery members are unseated, for bribery in-
dictments and informations are preferred, for
bribery the penalties extend both to the elector and
the elected—one man is disqualified, another man
fined. On what principle do we inflict penalties
on the elector ? On what principle but this—that,
from having dealt in pecuniary corruption, the elec-
tor is no longer fit to exercise the right of voting.
But what is the operation of intimidation ? It is
this—" Vote with me, or you give up my custom.
Vote with me, or you give up your farm." Or it is
thus—" Vote with ire, and I will give you £2O for
a pair of boots." Why, surely, it is notorious that
this is one of the constant forms of corruption.
" Vote with me, and I will give you £2O for a pair
of boots,' is a common and constant form of corrup-
tion ; though less so, perhaps, because less easy, than
" Vote for me, or I will carry my custom to the
boetmaker's in the next street." But the truth is,
that I Ilmost dissent from the very form of expres-
sion which the hon. member for the City of London
has made use of in his very able speech, in reference
td this part of the subject._ I object to making an
antiphrasis between corruption and intimidation.
Intimidation is corruption—corruption stripped of
everything that may seem to lend it a grace—
stripped of all that conciliates—stripped of every
affinity to hospitality and good humour—stripped,
in short, of every colour of any kind of excuse
which can be invented to recommend or adorn it ;
it is corruption presented in a form more loathsome
even than its own end. It is corruption working
by barbarity. Let it be considered, too, that cor-
ruption of this sort is the easiest, because it is the
cheapest of all. People cannot lose by a promise ;
to corrupt by giving, costs 'something—thousands;
to corrupt by threatening, costs nothing but a crime.
They only think superficially who suppoae that cor-
ruption is to be exercised by giving, but is not to be
exercised by taking away and threatening. The man
who practises intimidation is under no necessity of
mortgaging his estate to prepare for an election ;
nay, at the same time that he improves, perhaps,
his lands, and by the very mode of administering
the economy of his family, is he able to effect by
intimidation, the purposes of corruption—and that
to a greater extent, and. with more complete demo-
ralisation, than was ever practised in Grampound
or East Retford. ;But though intimidation be more
easy than corruption to practise towards the poorer
classes of men, the feelings with which those men
view the relation of the two things are very diffe-
rent. It is much more easy and agreeable for a man
to refuse that which he never had, than to submit
to be pillaged of that which he is accustomed to
hove. Many a man who would throw away with
scorn the purse of any one who came to bribe him,
is now obliged to vote against his conscience and his
wishes, for fear of an ejectment. And this form of
corruption, be it remembered, must tell—for it may
be practised with perfect impunity. You can punish
the good-natured corruption which wins men's
minds under the semblance of making them happy;
but you cannot reach, to punish, that ill-natured
kind of corruption which makes them miserable.
You cannot set up a tribunal which shall have a
right to ask the landed gentry throughout the coun-
try such questions as these :—" Why did you part
with such a tenant ? Was it because he did not
pay his rent ? If he did, why don't you renew his
lease P" How would such a question have been
brooked, at the last election for Westminster, as
" What has such and such a tailor done, that you
have turned him away and taken another? Evi-
dently such a system would be iniquitous in the ex-
treme. Property ceases to be property if men can-
not hold without being liable to be called upon to
give a reason why they may have thought fit to
discharge any one of their tradesmen. Still I
feel convinced that something must be done.
This is a growing evil; the number of cases we
hear of becomes more and more frequent every
election ; it is an evil more subtle than any against
which you direct the sharpest censures of the
penal law ; and yet it is not by penal laws that you
can put it down, because it is so mixed up with pro-
perty, that if you strike at it by a penal enactment,
you inflict a blow on the rights of property at the
same time. As therefore, punishment is out of the
question, and as the evil, beyond all dispute,
ought to be abated, we are bound to try the means
of prevention. What means, then, have been sug-
gested ? Absolutely, none except this of the ballot.
Here,edy ; here,then, orr
nowhere, we have the desired re-
mnowhere must we find the means of
reconciling the rights of property with the right of
suffrage. It is not only those who possess property
that have " a right to do what they will with their
own." The estate is the landlord's—the vote is the
tenant's. "So use their own rights," is the lan-
guage of all civil as well as moral law, " as not to
interfere with the rights of others." But, here, it
should be remarked, you cannot give the one right
without infringing on, or destroying the other. On
the other hand, you cannot adopt any measure for
rendering the right of voting openly, inviolable
and sacred, without interfering at the same time
with the holy texture of that system of property
which ought to be equally sacred. If you were
to adopt such a step, you would find that you
had only got an imperfect and inadequate change
of the present system, at the expense of that on
which is founded the national credit, wealth,
prosperity, and liberty. It does, then, in my opi-
nion, become imperative upon us to consider whe-
ther there is not found in the ballot all that is re-
quired ? whether the ballot would not give equal
and perfect protection to the voter ? and whether
the ballot, and the ballot alone would not give to
each class, all that each class ought to have, and
nothing more ? If this would be the effect of the
ballot, which I believe it would be, if here, and here
alone,we can find that resolution ofso many important
political problems, for which wo all are desirous
surely no slight difficulties, or apprehension of diffi-
culties, ought to deter us from the adoption of it.
But what is the nature of the objections that
are generally urged against it? The objection—
though by no means the only one which has been
raised—which to me appears to present the real
difficulty in the way of carrying through such a
measure, is the moral objection. Many ingenious
and lively things have been said against the ballot ;
but it is my belief that if, in the minds of the people,
the moral objections were once disposed of, nothing
could prevent their carrying on the principle of the
ballot bi a single session. As for the objection itself,
much as I respect the opinions of those who urge it,
I must confess that I do not think it is a sound and
well-considered objection. I believe that many able
and excellent persons sincerely entertain a different
opinion on the matter ; but I do not think that those
persons have fully considered the moral evil which
results from the present system. If it be an immo-
rality, as every one considers it to be, to tell an un-
truth, surely it is, at least, equally immoral so to
use a public trust, which is reposed in us for the
public good, as may enable us to avoid a private
loss. If it be un-English for a man not to dare to
own the vote that he has giver, surely it is more
un-English not to dare to vote as ho thinks right.
When the word " un-English" 'is used, I feel com-
pelled to contrast our idea of that bold and
stnrdy independence which has been our great pride
as a national characteristic, with the situation of a
man who, holding his farm from year to year, is
compelled, by fear of pecuniary loss and ruin to poll
against him whom he wishes to see chaired, and to
vote for the candidate whom, with all his heart, he
would see well ducked. At present we know that
many dishonest votes are given ; but let a system of
secresy be introduced, and we should have honest
votes, although the parties might afterwards deny
that they had given them. Which is the greater evil
of the two ? God forbid that I should say anything
which should seem to extenuate the guilt of falsehood!
but God forbid also, that I should not make some
allowance for the poor as well as for the rich ! God
forbid that I should see more distinctly the mote in
the eye of the £lO householder, than the beam in
the eye of a baronet or a bishop ! If our morality be
anything more than capricious favour or mere pre-
text, we shall have ample opportunities of exercising
it, without waiting till the ballot becomes the law
of the land, or -without even descending below our
our own rank in life, If it be criminal in a man to
utter an untruth for the purpose of guarding a secret
against private curiosity, then I say that we find
many criminals of a far higher station, and of a far
more cultivated intellect, than the butchers and
bakers, about whose veracity we are now so anxious.
I will take a single illustration from the case of
anonymous writers. It is perfectly notorious that
men of high consideration, men of the first distinc-
tian, have written books, and published them with-

out their names, and on being questioned on the
point have denied that they were the authors of the
works they had written ; and yet this denial does
not prevent them from being generally considered
with respect and kindness in society. We have
also seen casuists of great repute defend those par-
ties. One illustrious name I will instance, which
will, no doubt, suggest itself to all that hear me—
the name of a man of first-rate genius, of excellent
principles, and a noble spirit—Sir Walter Scott.
Sir Walter Scott published, without his name, that
eminent and popular series of novels which has en-
deared him to all his countrymen—nay, almost to
all the world—and which I, for one, cannot think
upon without feelings of the deepest admiration and
gratitude. Sir Walter Scott published those series
of novels anonymously, and to all questions put to
him on the subject, persisted in denying the author-
ship of them, till at length he consented to drop the
veil of concealment, and acknowledged them to be
the productions of his pen. Now, I ask—and I ap-
peal to many who were personally acquainted with
that great man—l would ask, dfd this concealment
and subsequent avowal of his name reflect any shame
on the character of Sir Walter Scott ? Did any one of
the large and splendid circle of his friends and ad-
mirers consider that Sir Walter Scott had disho-
noured himself by this proceeding ? All that I de-
mand is this—and in our moral dealings we should
consult the feelings and impressions of other classes,
as well as of that to which we have the happiness
to belong—that we should weigh with one weight,
and deal with one measure, to all alike—that we
should afford the same protection to the feelings of
the poor man from the tyrannical interference of his
superiors, as wo allow a gentleman to use to protect
himself from the curiosity of other men. If I were
asked by a secret voter what he should say, if ques-
tioned on the subject of his vote, I s advise
him to tell the truth and take the consequences,
just as I now should advise him to give his vote ac-
cording to his conscience, under the existing forms
and take the consequence. We have no right to ex-
pect sacrifices and moral courage of this kind from
everybody ; but I believe there are still a great num-
ber of " village Hampdens," who give their votes
openly, do avow them, and take the consequences,
despite the unjustifiable and inquisitorial interfer-
ence of their richer neighbours. On the other hand,
it is those who, under existing circumstances, give
dishonest votes, who, under the ballot, would ven-
ture upon a denial of their votes ; and of the two
alternatives—of the two chances of evil—l think
the latter is to be preferred. In short, if the voters
cannot at onoe keep faith with their country, and
with their corrupters, I am one who wish that we
should have a system by which their faith may be
preserved to their country, and broken to their cor-
rupters. The subject, sir, in short resolves itself
into this simple question—whether the great settle-
ment of the elective system achieved by the Reform
Bill is, indeed, to be final? Upon this question I
have always understood, with the lion. member for
London, that tho ballot was a reserved question ;
and I never conceived that any person, by support-
ing the Reform Bill, was thereby compromised en
the subject of the ballot. Now, with regard to that
much discussed point, the finality of the Reform
Bill, I know my own sentiments, and those I
wiii express. I have always regarded that great
measure with reverence—but with a rational, not
' a superstitious reverence. On all the principles
on which I supported that measure, I conceive
that I am bound, on good cause being shown to
amend it. But the question, whetter it ought to be
amended, or not, is one which, in my mind, should
be discussed and decided on no other principle than
that of public good. And in this view of the ease,
I do say that there appear to me to be strong argu-
ments against frequent and violent changes in our
constitutional system. The revolution in 1832,—
for revolution it was, and a most fearfully and
sanguinary revolution it would have been in any
other nation than this, or at any other period—
that revolution was effected without civil disorder,
and without the effusion of blood; but unquestion-
ably, the passing of the bill was attended with much

excitement and danger. That excitement and that
danger lam not desirous to renew. I would bear
with many inconveniences rather than open a similar
scene ; nay, I would bear with many grievances
rather than expose the country to the risks, the ex-
citements which must accompany a complete recon-
struction of our whole representative system. But,
sir, if we wish the Reform Bill to be a final mea-
sure, we must see that it be real and effectual ; that
it shall not be, either wholly or in part, a delusion ;
we must take care that we do not create franchises,
and then suffer them to be converted into a species
of villain service, baser and more degrading to moral
feeling than anything which existed in the four-
teenth century, by virtue of the most arbitrary and
tyrannical law of that dark period in our history.
Sir, it was not for this, that, in the year 1831, the
whole country rose up, as one man—that threat
and petty interference were disregarded, bribes re-
jected, corruption manfully resisted and overborne
—it was not for this, that the Church, the Peerage,
and the Court, on that memorable occasion, yielded
submission to the irresistible array of a determined
and united people. The object of that mighty
movement was not to arrest and pluck up abuses
merely to allow them to renew that growth and
flourish again under new forms and de-
eominations ; it was not to disfranchise Old
Sarum in order to establish a new and a
worse Old Sarum, under another name, in its
stead ; to disqualify Gatton, in order to raise up the
corrupt influence of many Gattons, in our sub-divi-
sions of counties. Sir, lam convinced that the
time is not far remote when this great nation, with
a voice as imperial as that with which she de-
manded the Reform Bill, will demand that the Re-
form Bill be practically carried out in its noblest
principles, and be made a truth. And when that
just demand shall be conceded, as it surely will be ;
when the franchise of every elector shall be a fran-
chise indeed ; I am firmly convinced that the
achievement of this national object, instead of pre-
paring the way for reckless change, spoliation, and
commotion, will strengthen the law, secure the just
rights of property, draw closer together the legiti-
mate ties between one order and another, and
cement the affections of all parties in the State to
the law, the Parliament, and the Throne.