date

1819 Oct. 11 + Parl. Reform Bill.
1819 Oct. 11 +

Parl. Reform Bill.

Reasons Note?

§.5

§.8

Art. Secresy

Burdet

1

1

Follows here against the necessity /utility/ of the secret mode an argument, of which {my respect for the quarter} /the respect inspired by/ from which it has been understood to come prevents /forbids/ the suppressing /suppression/. It is here exhibited in the fairest and clearest light that a sincere endeavour could find for it

In insisting on the secret mode your object /design/ is that by means /in virtue/ of it, no vote shall ever be given that is not {in the opinion of the voter at least} subservient to the universal interest: as much so at least as if it were disposed of in any other manner: taking as evidence of such subserviency the opinion of the voter himself, that being the only evidence which the nature of the case admitts of.

Suppose then in the majority of the districts the majority of the Electors bribed: bribed, and by means of the bribes, a set of representatives chosen, by whom the community would be ruined /brought /consigned/ to destruction/, in the shape of anarchy on one hand or unbridled despotism on the other. In this there is nothing that might not be effected in the secret mode: for, if it were so ordered that in case /in each instance/ the mischievous Candidate was elected the money or moneys worth should fall into the Electors /Voters/ hands and not otherwise, the bribery might thus take effect in the secret, as easily as in the open mode: and thus the interest of all or the interest of the majority might be sacrificed to the particular interest of this corrupt majority of the whole number of Representatives.

Against evil from this cause, not only would the secret mode be inefficient, but the open mode would have an advantage over it. For of those who under the secret mode would concurr in putting in a share for their sinister profit, there might be those who under the open mode might be deterred from so doing, by shame or other considerations.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1819 Oct. 11 Parl. Reform Bill.]
    Description: 1819 Oct. 11

    Parl. Reform Bill.

    Reasons

    §.5

    §.8

    Art Secresy

    Burdet

    2

    2

    To what is /has been seen/ above, the answer is as follows.

    1. So far as concerns corruption, whether in the shape of bribery or any other, the reliance is not on the secret mode alone: in aid of it come two other arrangements – 1. the {shortness of a man’s term in his seat} largeness of the number of the votes. 2. the shortness of each man’s term in his seat.

    The largeness of the number of votes is secured by the virtual equality given to the quantities of population in the several Districts.

    The larger the number of votes, the greater the quantity of the money necessary to make up a bribe worth receiving: 2. and the greater the improbability that the offence should in every instance escape detection, prosecution, and conviction: for there is no way /mode/ in which if the necessary connection were formed between the success of the Candidate and the receipt of the bribe, evidence could not be made to reach it. Take at once the most promising mode: a wager laid that the bribing Candidate does not succeed: he succeeds accordingly, and the bribed voter, being on the winning side, receives the money staked, receives in a word the bribe.

    2. The shorter each man’s term in the seat, the less the value of the seat to any such evil purpose. For so short a term it could never be worth the while of a majority of the Representatives to give each of them any sum of money worth acceptance, when at the end of the term, in case of detection perpetual infamy would be the consequence.
  • Title: [1819 Oct. 11 Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Oct. 11

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Reasons

    §.4[?]

    §.8

    Art. Secresy.

    Burdet

    5

    6

    Whether it be the word wish or the word interest that is employed, what must be understood as being the object that the votes as such should have the faculty of pursuing according to his own judgment, is – that which is his wish, or that which is his interest independently of any particular interest of the moment which it might be in the power of the Candidate to create in the breast of the votes, by means destructive of his happiness. Get a man into your power, cause him to be assured that unless he consents to have his brains blown out he will be made to expire at the end of four and twenty hours passed in torture, you may make it /it may in this way be made/ his interest to have his brains blown out. Suppose that, according to the case supposed in the abovementioned Statute of George the second, suppose the hustings surrounded with a file of musqueteers determined to put to death every man who shall have given a vote for any other Candidate than one named by the Monarch, you might thus make it the interest of every /all the/ Elector in the kingdom to vote for a compleat set of Candidates named by the Monarch: and this you might do effectually under the system of universal suffrage as under the present.

    This plan, it can not be denied might alike be carried into effect under the secret mode as well as under the open mode. For though it would not in the instance of any one voter, separately taken be known which way he had given his vote, yet the whole numbers on each side would be known: and if thus it were known that they had all of them been rebellious to the commands of his most gracious Majesty they might all of them be put to death.
  • Title: [1819 Sept. 18 Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Sept. 18

    Parl Reform Bill

    Reasons

    §.9. Election Process

    Suffrage secret why

    Analysis

    10

    If he does not yield to it /to the intimidative force/, either the evil apprehended by him is actually made to befall him or it is not. If it is, here then whatever the amount and shape of it here is so much evil that in consequence of the preference given to the open over the secret mode actually takes place: say evil of sufferance, still there may remain and commonly will remain an evil, and that a very serious one, the fear, the apprehension of being made to sustain this same evil of actual sufferance. A tradesman suppose has a hundred customers, whose wishes, as he knows, all concurr in favour of a certain Candidate: the voter gives his vote against that candidate. These same customers may or may not any or all of them give him subsequently to this his vote less of their custom than they did before. But be this as it may, what they would do is al all times more than he can know: here then is a continual stream of anxiety flowing into his breast from all these hundred sources.

    Another thing. So far /If/ as the direction in which the influence operates is not only conformable to the direction which the wish of the voter would take were there no such influence but universally known to be so, the influence as above observed is of no effect, and in this open mode every thing is upon the same footing as if it were in the secret mode. True: but this is what can not in any instance be certainly known to any body. What is the consequence? that, in many instances, the sinister influence to the operation /action/ of which the voter stands by his situation exposed being visible to all eyes, the consequence is that while acting freely /with perfect/, a man is generally supposed /regarded/ supposed /regarded/ by an indefinite number of persons, as acting in conformity to such external influence as having been either bribed or intimidated or both at once.