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Untitled Article
mode of proceeding . The Ballot , and the Ballot alone , can make it common . Freed at first from external domination , the servility of men ' s minds would wear out . And we should be in the way for obtaining , in the largest and noblest sense of the words , an enlightened and irresistible public opinion .
And what is the alternative to this simple expedient , according to the plan of the reviewer ? He perceives the evil—the enormous and intolerable evil—oppression , tyranny , aggravated harshness , corrupting influences , and , to a certain extent , representation made a mockery ; and what does he propose ? There are but two suggestions . The one is the disfranchisement of the freemen , at least wherever bribery is proved against them . This is truly the old English svstem of legislation . There is nothing like
the last remedy of the law . For crimes great or small , invasions of property tempting the eyes , feet , and fingers of poor wretches , there was the simple and final cure , hang , hang , hang I So now , that our institutions and our aristocracy together have corrupted and debased some thousands of the community , put them out of the political world in alike summary manner . Disfranchise ! disfranchise ! leave the corrupting influences which may act in due time upon the rest , and let them be disposed of
also ; so that , at last , the constituency may be evidently as pure as its representation , because identical . The annihilation oi the franchise should be regarded , in a free country , with feelings similar to those excited by the annihilation of life itself . Every neutralizing or reformatory process ought to be fully tried before there is even the lowest whisper of disfranchisement . Like hanging , it should be the end , and not the beginning of our penal
code ; and , if admitted at all , only admitted , because some measure was absolutely necessary , and all others were unavailing . So much for the one suggestion . And what does the reader think the other is ? Why , it is simply , ' the expediency of giving the new system a fair trial . * That new system which the writer himself has shown to have left the old evils of influence , and added
new ones ; that new system , which was never framed to apply to this part of the electoral machine , but which leaves the question of secret or open voting wholly untouched ; that new system , which cannot have the fair trial he asks , unless the Ballot be adopted ; because there will be a power constantl y dragging it back towards the corruption of the old system . Moreover , on what point can we better give it a fair trial than on this very
question ? There is no surer test to which the system itself can be subjected - We will take his advice , and observe the working of the system , and mark how the Reformed Parliament deals with the Church , and the law , and the great monopolies ; but there is no experimentum crucia like that of the way in which it shall deal with the Ballot . The first and best thing which the representatives of the people can do , i ? to secure to the people
Untitled Article
The Edinburgh Review and the Ballot . 88
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/11/
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