date

+ 1819 Oct. 10 Parl. Reform Bill.
+ 1819 Oct. 10

Parl. Reform Bill.

§.5

§.8

Art. Secresy

3

Go to Westmoreland! Go to Cumberland! according to his conscience! To vote according to conscience! /learn there how good and joyful it is, brethren to vote according to conscience! how sad a thing to vote against conscience! how wicked a thing to force men to it!/ Good: but how? by voting out of the sight of tyrants? of tyrants on one side, as well as on the other? Oh no, that would be “wild and visionary, absurd, visionary, and senseless”: practice in America is not practice: never could any a man have thought of such a thing, had he been as conversant with men as with books.

When the subject many – when Peoplesmen have condemned secresy of suffrage, it has been for want of thought: when the ruling few – when Tories and Whigs – condemn /have condemned/ secresy of suffrage, it has been from the result of thought: when the others have condemned it, it has been because they knew so well.

Suffrage, open or secret: say which of the two you will have? This question – this is the spear of Ithuriel. At the touch of it, with not less agony than the most outrageous Tory, the Parliamentary Whig writhes.

Say secret suffrage – secresy of suffrage. Do not say ballot. Election may be by ballot, and yet no secresy. Such will of course be the case, wherever the design is that the secresy professed shall not be preserved. Matters are so contrived that there is no secresy, and then you are told there can be none.

When a Whig Candidate solicits a vote, the only answer need be this question. In and out of Parliament, will you do your utmost to procure Election in the secret mode? If he declines or remains silent – Go hypocrite! the most undisguised advocate of despotism is less profligate than you. Such should be his dismissal. – What? Is it to ambition such as yours, that the bread of my family and of so many hundreds of families is to be made a sacrifice? Is this your patriotism? Yes: knowingly and wittingly, you and those you act with, are either among the creators, or among the preservers of all the evil you profess to lament.
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  • Title: [1819 Oct. 10 + Parl. Reform Bill.]
    Description: 1819 Oct. 10 +

    Parl. Reform Bill.

    Reasons

    §.5

    §.8

    Art Secresy

    II. Oppression or Conclusion

    1

    But a man ought (it has been said) every man ought to vote according to his conscience: he ought to do so, regardless of all the consequences to himself.

    An observation this such as a man might be ashamed to report, but for the conclusion that has been drawn from it: drawn from it in the character of an argument against secresy of suffrage.

    A man ought to do so: ergo he will do so: – such is the logic of this argument, if it be any thing to the purpose. Oh if this be good logic, let it not rest here: refuse not, to any part of the habitable globe, the benefit of it. If this be indeed good logic already you are in the golden age. Good as it be, when applied to Kings, you have no need of Parliaments. Good let it be when applied to subjects, you have no need of Kings . Of Kings? no, nor yet of laws. Yet this is the logic, on which in this country of pretended freedom in which what there is of security is the result not so much of the strength of government as of its weakness, all laws, and all other acts of government, ground themselves.

    We ought always to do what is right: therefore we always do so: it is your duty to believe it.

    We, we – but there the logic stops: it does not go on and say you: for then – no need would there be of we.

    Britons when you give your votes, let conscience, conscience alone be your guide. On this occasion, as on all others, the last person any man should care for is himself. – What can be more admirably sentimental? Here we have self sacrifice: that most glorious of sacrifices, which, under the name of devoument Frenchmen of the prevailing sect are at all times so ready if not to practice, at any rate to preach and talk of. In England, a theatre is the only proper place for it: cheeks duly swollen, arms moving in mood and figure, and the stage traversed with a corresponding street.
  • Title: [1819 July 15 To Erskine or Defence]
    Description: 1819 July 15

    To Erskine or Defence of Ballot

    Lett. 5. Erskine Reform

    or

    Lett. 7. Whigs AntiReformists

    2

    Suppose the mode by ballot substituted to the open mode in regard to all the seats. Suppose it efficacious as above Not a shadow of reason /argument/ would be produced against it upon the universally professed principles. But in a number not on the present occasion worth enquiring into, the effect of it would be to shake[?] the existing seats. It would therefore be not only manifestly but universally unendurable: and the firmer the assurance of its innoxiousness and usefulness, the more inexorable /unsurmountable/ would of course be the resistance to it. For the rejection of it some phrase or other would be invented: and if nothing more appropriate could be found, the phrases absurd, visionary and useless /wild and visionary/ with their et cæteras upon et cæteras are always at command.

    I will come therefore at once to such a mode and degree of its application as would make no change in any seats other than those in relation to which the desire of making a change is already professed: professed even by Ministerialists. I mean the applying it exclusively to the seats belonging to the boroughs proposed to be disfranchised.

    Applied according to the existing practice, to the narrow Country Districts, it would to a full certainty extinguish terrorism.

    It would not, to an equal degree of certainty extinguish bribery. For, suppose the bribe not receivable but in the event of the Election falling on the briber, it the interest of the bribe receiver would as effectually secure {the giving} that direction to the vote as effectually in the secret as in the open mode. The greater the number of the votes the greater the probability of treachery and consequent conviction or prosecution at least. But it is only by a very extensive number that even with the help of secresy of suffrage the danger of bribery could be effectually excluded.
  • Title: [1819 June 5 Defence of | | Ballot]
    Description: 1819 June 5

    Defence of | | Ballot against B.

    1

    All the advantages that belong all that can be supposed to belong – to universality, equality and annuality of suffrage are grounded on the supposition, howsoever tacit, of the genuineness, as, when the whole of the population comes to be considered that of the genuineness is on that of the secresy of the voters. If genuineness, if secresy – are really not capable of being secured then Reform – Reform on the Representation – is not capable of being effected, and ought to be given up as hopeless.

    {I can suppose a man insincere if it be he regards secresy as unpreservable before the impossibility which in certain circumstances there is of its not being preserved has been explained to him and read by him, not afterwards.} Suppose a man to say I do not think in my view of the matter secresy of suffrage can be preserved if at /to before/ the time when he says this, the impossibility which under the circumstances in question there is of not being preserved has not been explained to him and read by him, in this case it is in my power to believe him to be sincere: it is not in my power in the opposite case.

    For, once more, my saying to a man It was for A.C. I gave my vote, is not letting him know how I gave my vote: it is only letting him know what I said /say/ as to my giving my vote: and, though the truth be that it is for A.C. that I gave my vote, yet if so it is that the man I am speaking to did not at the time see or otherwise perceive to whom it was /that it was to A.C/ that I gave my vote, no perception does my assertion give him of the fact: it is but my assertion; nothing more.

    To