+ 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.