The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-01-08 00:00:00

ficacio us.

On a. subject, of which we have had no experience
whatever, of course, it becomes us to apply to history.
The Roman republic affords an example much in point.
Ballot was introduced there in decisions of all kinds, by
the leges tabellarice, enacted from B. C. 139 to B. C.
123. It continued until the republic was enslaved by
Caesar eighty-five years afterwards. Every one knows,
that this was the golden age of bribery in Rome. Even
criminal prosecutions, as well as political questions, were
carried by bribes ; and in fact, this term of years very
nearly embraces the whole period during which the
Roman people were in process of demoralization, and
which is held to commence about ten years only before
the first of the Ballot laws. The mode was this. A can-
didate lodged in the hands of a third party a certain sum
of money : to be paid if he gained his election : to be
returned to him if he lost it. So habitual was this prac-
tice, that there were a sort of professional class of men
appointed, thus to act as intermediate parties, and they
were termed sequestors. Thus bribery was not only not
prevented, but it was extended and systematised far be-
yond all former precedent. So much for the purifying
effect of ballot—if, indeed, the evidence of history be
preferable to the small talk of radical speculation. Mr.
Ewart, at least, ought to know this, and to know that it
is a formidable objection to his beloved Ballot. It was
the ineffectual and noxious resource of a declining peo-
ple. Let us beware, how we enter into the same pre-
dicament.

But there are other weighty considerations tobe urged
as positive objections to the Ballot, independently of the
refutation of the arguments in its favour.

1. Suppose it could effectually release the vote of the
tenant from the controul of the landlord : what would be
the consequence? Hitherto, gratitude for political sup-
port already received, and the desire to gain it again,
has been a strong and obvious motive to landlords for cul-
tivating the affections of their tenants, perhaps at some
pecuniary sacrifice. But by the Ballot, if it were an ef-
fectual screen, you would deprive the landlord of the
means of acknowledigng kindness received: and, in any
case, you would enable him, if so disposed, to evade
this acknowledgment. The political connection of
landtord and tenant is, we fearlessly assert, one of re-
ciprocal good will in ninety-nine cases out of a hun-
dred. .Destroying this connection, you destroy a bond
of union, and thus far convert that kindly relation into
one of mere profit and loss—the landlord striving to raise
his rents to the uttermost, the tenant feeling himself ab-
solved from all obligation to gratitude.

2. But again ; what is the avowed object of the Bal-
lot ? Entirely to free the elector, in his individual ca-
pacity, from all controul whatever, except such as his
own conscience may suggest ; altogether to remove from
him all sense of shame, and the influence of public opi-
nion. He may volunteer a pledge, in order to curry
favour with a wealthy individual—and then he may fal-
sify it: there is no degree of villainy which he may not
commit, and he is vvholly released from the fear of pu-
nishment. That is, he has now the privilege once
claimed by kings, certainly with more semblance of
reason : that of exercising a power over the affairs of
men wholly irresponsible to men. Is this to be endured ?
Do we know what human nature is in ourselves, and can
we believe that the nature of ten- pound householders
t is so essentially different from that of other men, that
they, and they alone, can be safely trusted with that
irresponsible power, which is the bane and curse of
all, but of none so much as those who hold it ? Even
despots, however, though they claimed absolutism, could
not hope for secrecy : they were open to the influence of
shame. But absolute power with perfect secrecy, would
indeed be a more monstrous combination than the world
has yet seen. Therefore, supposing the object attain-
able, it is not desirable.

The ground on which the disfranchising schedules were
supported, was, that the franchise was a trust, not a pro-
perty.—But the argument of the balloters is, that the
franchise is a property, not a trust. Under the system of
ballot, says the Morning Chronicle (one of its ablest
advocates,) of Jan. 2, the vote is " the unapproachable
property" of the elector. A sudden and complete in-
version truly, of the Reforming doctrine! If the vote of
'the ten-pounder be a property, he may sell it : if it be a
property, what is to become of the majority of the nation,
who hold houses under £10? Have they no right to
know how the vote is exercised ? Is not the privilege
conferred for their sakes as much as for the sake of those
who exercise it, and is it not kept from their hands
simply on the ground, real or supposed, that others will
use it for them to their more effectual benefit ? We come
then to this conclusion. The demand for Ballot, if raised
by the ten-pounders generally, which we are happy to
say it is not, would be aflagitious stratagem to gain abso-
lute power, and a base conspiracy against the rights of
the labouring classes. Ballot without universal suffrage
would be a monstrous iniquity : and ballot with universal
suffrage, how few are bold enough to propose !
4. But the representative too, Mr. Stanley has shown
in his speech, has a right to know who approves and who
disapproves of his conduct. He is on his trial before his
constituents: may he not challenge the jurors ? Under
the ballot, he could not know what machinations were
practised against him : and he would have a right to de-
mand an equal immunity, in the establishment of vote
by ballot within the houses of parliament, as well as
without them.

5. And this, it is evident, would be completely de-
structive of the spirit of our institutions, with which
publicity is everywhere.interwoven ; destroy their pub-
licity, and you destroy their honesty ; for honesty
cannot exist without the sense of shame: and the sense
of shame cannot exist where there is no opportunity for
its exercise and all such opportunity it is the manifest
aim of the ballot to preclude.