blies, and consequently popular elections, can alone generate the courage and zeal which form so large a portion of its power.

With these effects it is apparent that secret suffrage is absolutely incompatible. They cannot exist together. Assemblies to elect, or assemblies during elections, make all suffrages known. The publicity and boldness in which voters give their suffrage are of the very essence of popular elections, and greatly contribute to their animating effect. The advocates of ballot tell us, indeed, that it would destroy canvass and tumult. But after the destruction of canvass, elections would no longer teach humility to the great, nor self-esteem to the humble. Were the causes of tamult destroyed, elections would no longer be nurseries of political zeal, and instruments for rousing national spirit. The friends of liberty ought rather to view the turbulence of the people with indulgence and pardon, powerfully tending to exercise and invigorate their public spirit. It is not to be extinguished, but to be rendered safe by countervailing institutions of an opposite tendency in other parts of the constitutional

system.

The original fallacy, which is the source of all erroneous reasoning in favour of ballot, is the assumption that the value of popular elections chiefly depends on the exercise of a deliberate judgment by the electors. The whole anxiety of its advocates is to remove the causes which might disturb a considerate choice. In order to obtain such a choice, which is not the great purpose of popular elections, the speculators would deprive them of the power to excite and diffuse public spirit,-the great and inestimable service which a due proportion of such elections renders to a free State. In order to make the forms of democracy universal, their plan would universally extinguish its spirit. In a commonwealth where Universal Suffrage was already established, ballot might perhaps be admissible as an expedient for tempering such an extreme democracy. Even there, it might be objected to, as one of those remedies for licentiousness which are likely to endanger liberty by destroying all democratic spirit. It would be one of those dexterous frauds by which the people are often weaned from the exertion of their privileges.

On the frequency of elections we have left ourselves no room to dwell at present. They may be too frequent for exciting universal attention and national sympathy. Whatever is very frequent becomes familiar. It is viewed with little interest, and done with no spirit. We subjoin the following argument against annual election from an unpublished work of Mr Bentham which we have the good fortune to possess,-not for the

puerile purpose of charging him with inconsistency, but because it contains unanswerable reasoning conveyed in clear and precise language.

Next to the having no periodical elections, is the having them as frequent as possible. Why? Because, the oftener they come round, the less the danger is of a change. As the mischiefs of changing so often as you might change are so palpable, and as you see no more reason for changing one time than another, you even take things as they are, and enter into a sort of implicit engagement with yourself not to change at all.

This is no speculative conjecture: it is but a key to facts offered by experience. In Engiand, wherever regular succession is not the object, annual elections prove in effect appointments for life, subject only to a periodical power of a motion which is rarely exercised: while longer terms produce frequent changes, and still more frequent struggles. ‡ (Remarks on the Judicial Establishments in France, chap. 5. title 3.)'

Rotation, or temporary exclusion, after a certain period, are contrivances easily evaded; and they undistinguishingly exclude the wise and the foolish, the honest and the corrupt. Talent and virtue are too rare for such plans. To reject the benefit of experience, must always be unwise. It is vain to answer, that if, by annual elections, the same members were to have seats for life, it would be a proof that the people approved their public conduct. There would be much oftener an acquiescence from the evil of frequent contest, than a continued preference of political merit. We may add, that in Parliamentary elections, some change of members, more risk of change, and considerable contest, are in themselves advantageous to public liberty.

We must reserve for a future occasion such thoughts as have occurred to us on those plans of Constitutional Reform which might gradually unite the most reasonable Friends of Freedom, and of which we should not be without hope, that some part might one day be adopted under the conduct of a firm as well as liberal Government, and when almost all reformers shall have openly renounced those extravagant opinions which supply the champions of abuse with the most effective weapons.

We close with a few words on a subject to which Mr Bentham has frequently adverted-the example of the United States of America. The system which we oppose is established in

* Examples: Lord Mayor of London: Sheriffs of London.

+ Examples: Chamberlain of London: Chairman of the Justices of the Peace for Middlesex: President of the Royal Society-(to which may be added, the Common Council of London.)

Examples: Member of Parliament.

that Republic,-and it is said to be attended with no mischie Vous effects.

To this we answer, that, in America, Universal Suffrage is not the rule, but the exception. In twelve out of the nineteen States which compose that immense Confederacy, the disgraceful institution of Slavery deprives great multitudes not only of political franchises, but of the indefeasible rights of all mankind. The numbers of representatives of the Slave States in Congress is proportioned to their population, whether slaves or freemen; a provision arising, indeed, from the most abominable of all human institutions, but recognising the just principle, that property is one of the elements of every wise representation. In many, the white complexion is a necessary qualification for suffrage; and the disfranchised are separated from the privileged order by a physical boundary, which no individual can ever pass. In countries of slavery, where to be free is to be noble, the universal distribution of privilege among the ruling caste, is a natural consequence of the aristocratical pride with which each man regards the dignity of the whole order, especially when they are all distinguished from their slaves by the same conspicuous and indelible marks. Yet, in Virginia, which has long been the ruling State of the Confederacy, even the citizens. of the governing class cannot vote without the possession of a freehold estate. A real or personal estate is required in New England, the ancient seat of the character and spirit of America; the parent of those seamen, who, with a courage and skill worthy of our common forefathers, have met the followers of Nelson in war; the nursery of the intelligent and moral, as well as hardy and laborious race, who now annually colonize the vast regions of the West.

But were the fact otherwise.-America contains few large, and no very great towns;-the people are dispersed, and agricultural; and, perhaps, a majority of the inhabitants are either land-owners, or have that immediate expectation of becoming proprietors, which produces nearly the same effect on character with the possession of property. Adventurers who, in other countries, disturb society, are there naturally attracted towards the frontier, where they pave the way for industry, and become the pioneers of civilization. There is no part of their people in the situation where democracy is dangerous, or even usually powerful. The dispersion of the inhabitants, their distance from the scene of great affairs, are perhaps likely rather to make the spirit of liberty among them languid, than to rouse it to excess. The majority are in the condition which is elsewhere considered as a pledge of independence, and a qualifica

tion for suffrage. They have no populace; and the greater part of them are either landholders, or just about to be so. Νο part, then, of the preceding argument is inconsistent with the example of America, even were Universal Suffrage established there.

In what manner the present Elective system of America may act, at the remote period when the progress of society shall have conducted that country to the crowded cities and unequal fortunes of Europe, no man will pretend to foresee, except those whose presumptuous folly disables them from forming probable conjectures on such subjects. If, from the unparalleled situation of America, the present usages should quietly prevail for a very long time, they may insensibly adapt themselves to the gradual changes in the national condition, and at length be found capable of subsisting in a state of things to which, if they had been suddenly introduced, they would have proved irreconcileably adverse. In the thinly peopled States of the West, Universal Suffrage itself may be so long exercised without the possibility of danger, as to create a national habit which may be strong enough to render its exercise safe in the midst of an indigent populace. In that long tranquillity it may languish into forms, and these forms may soon follow the spirit. For a period far exceeding our foresight, it cannot affect the confederacy further than the effect which may arise from very popular elections in a few of the larger western towns. The interior order of the country where it is adopted, will be aided by the compression of its former and more compact confederates. It is even possible that the extremely popular system which prevails in some American elections, may, in future times, be found not more than sufficient to counterbalance the growing influence of wealth in the South, and the tendencies towards Toryism which are of late perceptible in New England. The operation of different principles on elections, in various parts of the Continent, may even now be discerned. Some remarkable facts have already appeared. In the state of Pennsylvania, we have a practical proof that ballot is not attended with secrecy. We also know, + that' committees composed of the leaders of the federal and democratic parties, instruct their partisans how they are to vote at every election; and that in this manner the leaders of the democratic party who now predominate in their Caucus ‡ or Com

* Fearon, 138, &c. How could this intelligent writer treat the absence of tumult, in such a city and country, as bearing any resemblance to the like circumstance in Europe?

+ Id. 320.

The following account of this strange term, will show its proba

mittee at Washington, do in effect nominate to all the important offices in North America. Thus, we already see combinations formed, and interests arising on which the future government of the Confederacy may depend more than on the forms of election, or the letter of its present laws. Those who condemn the principle of party, may disapprove these associations as unconstitutional. To us who consider parties as inseparable from liberty, they seem remarkable as examples of those undesigned and unforeseen correctives of inconvenient laws which spring out of the circumstances of society. The election of so great a magistrate as the President, by great numbers of electors, scattered over a vast continent, without the power of concert, or the means of personal knowledge, would naturally produce confusion, if it were not tempered by the confidence of the members of both parties in the judgment of their respective leaders. The permanence of these leaders, slowly raised by a sort of insensible election to the conduct of parties, tends to counteract the evil of that system of periodical removal, which is peculiarly inconvenient in its application to important executive offices. The internal discipline of parties may be found to be a principle of subordination of great value in Republican Institutions. Certain it is, that the affairs of the United States have hitherto been generally administered, in times of great difficulty and under a succession of Presidents, with a forbearance, circumspection, constancy and vigour, not surpassed by those commonwealths who have been most justly renowned for the wisdom of their councils. The only disgrace or danger which we perceive impending over America, arises from the execrable

ble origin, and the long-experienced efficacy of such an expedient for controlling ballot About the year 1738, the father of Samuel Adams, and twenty others who lived in the North or Shipping part of Boston, used to meet, to make a Caucus, and lay their plan for introducing certain persons into places of trust. Each distributed 'the ballots in his own circle, and they generally carried the election. In this manner Mr S. Adams first became representative for Boston.-Caucusing means electioneering.'-I.Gordon, Hist. Am. Revol. p. 216, Note. London, 1788.

It is conjectured, that as this practice originated in the Shipping Part of Boston, 'Caucus' was a corruption of Caulkers Meeting.— For this information we are indebted to Pickering's American Vocabulary, (Boston, 1816); a modest and sensible book, of which the principal fault is, that the author ascribes too much importance to some English writers, who are not objects of much reverence to a near observer. Mr Pickering's volume, however, deserves a place in English libraries.