On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
hension at the end of an article which attempts to show that the Ballot would enslave the electors to seditious mobs . If the nonelectors influence through opinion , their influence would have its fair and full operation : if by fear , the Ballot would baffle them .
as it does powerful individuals . This is a more meagre list of mischiefs than might have been expected . The third question is dismissed very summarily by the reviewer . It' has been answered in discussing the first two . The practical result seems to be that too little benefit is likely to accrue from the Ballot in protecting one class of voters , the
tradesmen in large towns , to counterbalance the mischiefs sure to flow from removing that check of publicity under which all public duties ought to be performed / So men juggle with words . The * check of publicity V a check it is , and a fearful one ; but it checks , in this case , not the wrong but the right employment of a power ; not the offence but the dut A y . < public duty * is analogous to a private duty , when the public itself is the agent . Its responsibility is to itself ; representatives €
are responsible to their constituents ; there the check of publicity' is in its proper sphere ; but the people are the ultimate authority , and their independence should be secured with the same care as the dependence of the delegate or representative .
Experience has shown how imaginary are the evils ascribed to the Ballot . Is the life of every clubbist in St . James ' s a living lie , from the impending vengeance of pugnacious candidates who have been black-balled ? Are the French particularly reserved as to their political opinions ? Are they for ever haunted and struck dumb by the spirit of the electoral urn ? And the Americans , are
they all sunk in the profound , gloomy , and suspicious stillness which so appals the reviewer ? It is sometimes said , that in America Ballot does not ensure secrecy . Very often probabl y not . It is a weapon the possession of which may alone , in ordinary cases , be sufficient to prevent attack . After two or three times using it , there might be an end of unavailing interference * . Such
seems to have been the case in America . The States have adopted it in succession , as they perceived its advantages in those where it had been previously introduced . This would scarcely have happened , had it been practically only a more cumbrous kind of open voting . No State has disused it . And in America , be it remembered , there is no such trouble as we have here in getting
rid of a mischievous or useless institution . They have no everlasting laws and constitutions . Their enactments die out , and are revived or not , as experience has shown their worth . Every fifty years , in the new England States at least , and probably in all , a convention for the especial purpose decrees the revival , or allows the expiration of every portion of their constitution . In Massachusetts . New York , &c . these conventions have been held ,
Untitled Article
The Edinburgh Review and the Ballot . 81
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 81, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/9/
-