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Untitled Article
treated with much pathos on the vice and misery of this ' life of deception . ' So far as any thing beyond the mere act of voting is concerned , we have already disposed of this argument , by observing that the oppressor wants the vote and not the opinion ; that the control of opinion and its expression on other occasions is already given up , generally at least , as that of the vote would be , when once balloting was established . The tenant goes to public meetings ; he there holds up his hand and lifts up his voice in accordance with his feelings ; his friends and neighbours
all know what his opinions are ; it is only when he comes to ( he final and efficient expression of them that the sacrifice is demanded of him , and he becomes an apostate or a martyr . His vote is a public and solemn falsehood . The Ballot transfers the falsehood from the extorted vote to the extorted promise . That is the whole difference . There is a compelled lie in each case ;
but the voting lie goes to deprive individuals of their rights , and the country of representation , and to confirm the power of a rapacious aristocracy : the promissory lie only baffles the iniquitous purpose of the oppressor , which , after being once or twice baffled , would cease to be pursued . And then another monstrous evil would be corrected : the degradation of a compelled vote against conviction is what many are impatient of , and if they cannot
escape the thraldom , they find some relief in patching up a seeming consistency by modifying the expression of their political opinions so as to soften the incongruity . They bend to pick up a reason upon compulsion / They equivocate with their tongues and palter with their own minds . The plague spot is on them , and the corruption eats into their souls . This is the worst species of falseness both for the individual and for society . It poisons the
founts of morality . The non-observance of a promise , exacted in defiance of all right , by the armed ruffian who can blow your brains out , or the powerful ruffian who can deprive you and your family of bread , is not deemed much of a crime by most moralists ; if it be a crime , it is not one which taints the system : but the pain and shame which put a mask upon the mind , tend to the destruction of all principle .
We are next told that the franchise is a public trust , which the state ought to know is honestly discharged . True ; and the state knows that now it is not honestly discharged , and cannot be . By
the reviewer ' s own concessions , the state knows that the trust would be better discharged by secret voting . i What security can the state have that it shall be honestly exercised , if it is to be
used in the dark ? ' The very best ; because the honesty is in the correspondence of the vote with the voter ' s own opinion , which correspondence the openness of the vote endangers , by allowing the interference of those who think differently , "The fear that b y secret votes the whole feelings and opinions of the nonelectors may be set at naught / is rather an extraordinary appre-
Untitled Article
80 The Edinburgh Review and the Ballot .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 80, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/8/
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