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1819 May 27
Defence of | | Ballot
Conclusion
Queries to Antiballotist
2
1. Efficacy[?]
2. Bribery. 3. Terrorism
For the ultimate consideration of all such persons, if any such there are I would beg leave to submitt the following queries, with a request that /to/ each of them, a precise answer may be found and delivered.
1. Is it or is it not your wish that bribery by moneys worth given or personal service in other shape rendered to Electors should be prevented?
2. When the value set upon the situation is such as to render it worth a mans while to employ money in the purchase of individual votes for the obtaining of it, know you of any other way /course/ so effectual as that of making it impossible for a man, in the event of his giving money for a vote whether the vote was given according to his wish?
3. Is it or is it not your wish, that the votes given at each Election should respectively be given by each /the several/ Electors according to his /their/ wish, governed /guided/ by his opinion concerning the appropriate aptitude of each Candidate in all parts taken together meaning by appropriate aptitude his fitness for the discharge of the trust by means of his being endowed[?]
If you hear a man say it is a matter of indifference to me whether the ballot is emploied or no, do you not mean to say that it is a matter of indifference to you whether in what proportion the votes are free and genuine, and in what proportion, forced or bought, and in both cases spurious.
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Title: [1819 June 5 Defence of | | Ballot]Description: 1819 June 5 Defence of | | Ballot against B 2 To say /If what is above is true, to say/ I am indifferent about the Ballot – is as much as to say it is a matter of indifference to me whether votes are genuine or spurious – in what proportion they are in the one case or the other. It is as much as to say What I am anxious about /for/ is that I may self may have as many votes as possible at my command, and no one of all those who give them should have at his command the vote he gives. The man who says thus – the man who thinks thus – is he a reformist? is he a lover of freedom in any sense
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Title: [1819 May 30 Defence of Ballot]Description: 1819 May 30 Defence of Ballot Ballot note 1. Bribery 3 But when suffrage is effectually secret, he is not so bound: he is free to earn it or not earn it, as he pleases: in case of his not voting for the Candidate, whom the desire and hope is that he should vote for, let him have given ever so many promises he is not the less free. For let there have been ever so many of them, and each of them, in ever so high a degree solemn and intense, though he should have broken them, all of them in the lump, there exists not any human being besides himself, to whom it can be known that he has done so. In this case, a cause /an instrument /artifice// of seduction has operated upon and perverted /turned aside from the /right/ path of rectitude of right conduct/ the man’s understanding: for it has had the effect of producing in his mind the persuasion, that by this act of beneficence towards an individual, the existence appropriate aptitude on the part of the Candidate in question with reference to the high trust in question has in an adequate degree been proved. But the will has not the less remained free of that sort of influence which is exercised by will on will, and by which in so far as it has been productive of its intended effect freedom is destroyed, not a particle has had place
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Title: [1818 July 31 Defence of Ballot &c]Description: 1818 July 31 Defence of Ballot &c Disfranchisement 2. Transference to populous towns 2 On this /that/ occasion, ballot, by which alone freedom can be secured to all votes being supposed to be out of the question, universal suffrage may in the situation in question be as far as from being desirable, as from being probably obtainable. Supposing it ever obtained, it seems scarcely possible to say, unless the qualification required and thence the number of persons entitled to vote were previously determined whether /how far/ it would be productive of good. Suppose the number of votes the direction of which would be determined by sinister influence – suppose this number considerably greater than the number of those by whom sinister influence would be effectively resisted, its tendency as to the main[?] point[?] would assuredly /unquestionably/ be beneficial, in the contrary case, the matter in respect of purity and legitimacy would not be minded, it would remain in[?] the same condition as at present. The only case in /supposition on/ which any beneficial change would be the effect of it is this – that in consequence of it the {Electors who to the effective will /desire/ of giving /to/ their votes in a direction conformable to the universal interest added the faculty of forming a right judgment respecting that direction} number of the Electors qualified in all points {of appropriate aptitude} for voting in conformity to the universal interest would exceed /exceeded/ /outnumbered/ the number of those who were all so qualified: This they might do, although if any portion less than the majority were determined either by sinister influence or by unsound judgment; if by /in so far as the undesirable part who had for its cause/ unsound judgment alone, the error would not be /evil might still be/ irreparable /incurable/ /removable/: not /scarcely/ so in so /scarcely so/ far as it had sinister influence for its cause. Suppose no qualification required – in other words suppose universal suffrage the principle by which the right of voting has been determined, it seems difficult to be assured that the majority of the votes would not be determined by sinister influence. To the dominion of the Magistrates as such the votes of all Electors who at the time were either in a state of actual pauperism
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