CHAPTER III. THE DUTY OF THE CITIZEN IN REGARD TO THE EXERCISE OF THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE. Ir is the duty of the citizen to exercise the elective franchise with integrity and discretion. This franchise is exercised with integrity, when the citizen discharges the duty of voting according to his honest convictions;-it is exercised with discretion, when these convictions are the result of a mature judgment and an enlightened conscience. But the subject admits and requires further illustration; and, in illustrating it, my remarks will apply specially to the election of members of our national and state legislatures; but, with very slight modifications, they will apply to all elections whatever. The elective franchise is rightly regarded as a public trust reposed in the citizen, requiring for its suitable discharge, certain qualifications of sex, age, knowledge, and character, and sometimes complexion. Generally, too, some estate has been required as a qualification. All wise constitutions of government, ancient and modern, have withheld the elective franchise from woman, by reason of the manifest inconsistency between her physical constitution and peculiar sphere of duty, and the exercise of any political privilege, or the administration of any political trust.* Most of the constitutions of the United States certainly, probably all of them, have refused to permit even the male sex to assume the elective trust, until the age of twenty-one years, in consequence of want of knowledge, experience, selfcontrol, and general maturity of mind. This trust, moreover, is almost universally denied to Africans and their descendants. It is one of the great subjects of controversy in our day, whether any estate shall be required as a qualification for voting, - whether the electors shall be few (200,000), as in France; * See Charge to the Grand Jury of Suffolk County, Mass., December, 1835. By Honorable P. O. Thatcher. p. 26. or many comparatively, as in England and some of our States; or whether the white males universally above twenty-one years of age shall be intrusted with this franchise. It is not my purpose, as it is not my province, to enter into this question; and it has been adverted to only for the sake of illustrating the nature of the trust involved in the possession and exercise of the elective franchise. It is, moreover, with us, a trust of much dignity and importance, inasmuch as the people are sovereign in this country, and the safe and healthy action of our political system depends entirely on the purity of purpose and principle with which elections are conducted. Our system cannot long survive, when the elective franchise shall have generally ceased to be exercised with integrity and discretion. To this end, it is manifest, that this, like any other trust, ought not to be exercised in furtherance of private and selfish objects. It is conferred to be used for the public good, and in exercising it the elector must be guided by a wish faithfully to conform to the original design. He must be governed, in giving his vote, by his own views of public affairs, carefully formed and honestly entertained, and by his opinion of the character of the candidate and of his claims to public confidence. His vote, then, must not be influenced by mere party names and distinctions; by blind eagerness to push a friend or relation into public notice; by the desire of paying court to distinguished men with the hope of thus facilitating his own election at some future time; or by private resentment against any of the candidates; - all these views and motives, and many more, which are accustomed to have weight at elections, are private, selfish, degrading, in a transaction in which the public interest ought to be regarded, to the exclusion of every private and individual aim and interest. The two questions involving the greatest practical difficulty, in the mind of a conscientious elector, are these ;- how far may a man rightfully act with a party in times of public excitement; and how far, and in what ways, he may attempt to influence the votes of other electors. In political transactions generally, and most of all in elections, men must of necessity act in concert; and it is their duty to cooperate with one another in pursuit of what they are convinced is the general good. But there are limits to this duty, as well as to every other. No good man can coöperate with, or lend his influence to, a party which is pursuing an unjustifiable end. This is very plain; but parties do not so often pursue unjustifiable ends, as good ends by unjustifiable means. This is the besetting sin of party, and the point on which every man needs to be put distinctly on his guard. A good man must not be drawn in, to aid in accomplishing even a good end by means morally unjustifiable. If there is a doubt, he may, nay, he ought, to give it in favor of the party with which he is accustomed to act; but no excitement, no entreaties or reproaches of his associates, and no ostensible good in prospect, should ever prevail upon him to sanction palpable wrong by his participation. There is the more need of caution and firmness here, because men are frequently found to unite with a party in doing acts, of which they would blush to be guilty when acting without the countenance and encouragement of the many. But that cannot be right in a multitude, which is wrong in an individual. The moral standard is unchangeable; it applies to the doings of a multitude, as well as to the conduct of an individual. Again, how far and in what ways may an elector (or a candidate) endeavour to influence the votes of other electors? Assuredly he may do this by imparting information, and by all the ways known to fair argument and honorable persuasion. These are means strictly moral, suitable in themselves, and honorable alike to him who employs them, and to him who yields to their influence. Consequently, all means of whatever kind opposite to, or inconsistent with these, are immoral and dishonorable to all who participate in them. One or two examples will set this point in a clear light, and show the importance of the principle which I am illustrating. A celebrated writer says, "It will be found in the main, that a power over a man's support, is a power over his will." Again he says, "The legislature (Congress) with a discretionary power over the salary and emoluments of the chief magistrate (meaning the President of the United States) could render him as obsequious to their will, as they might think proper to make him." And further he says, "If it were necessary to confirm so plain a truth by facts, examples would not be wanting, even in this country, of the intimidation or seduction of the executive by the terrors or allurements of the pecuniary arrangements of the legislative body."* Mr. Jefferson states, moreover, that the control of the legislature of Virginia over the "subsistence in office" of the governor, had caused "the direction of him, during the whole time of their session, to become habitual and familiar." t If these things are true of the executives of the States and of the United States, men of the most elevated standing in society, as these celebrated authors assert, how much more emphatically true must they be of immense numbers to whom our constitutions have intrusted the exercise of the elective franchise. This conclusion applies particularly to nearly all the employed classes of persons in all branches of business, and through all the ramifications of society. They depend for their livelihood, for the conveniences and comforts of life, perhaps for their daily bread, on the good-will of their employers. How imperative, then, is the moral duty resting on employers of every grade and kind, to abstain from invading the rights of those who may be employed by them, in regard to the free exercise of the elective franchise. Tested by the consequences, this duty is imperative in proportion to the mischief which could not fail to result from the opposite course of conduct becoming general. And how flagrant an abuse of their situation as employers and patrons, to interfere with this birthright of the freeman, in any of the forms which intimidation so well knows how to assume and put in practice, such as the forfeiture of the patron's favor, menaces to tenants of expulsion from their farms, dismissal of workmen from manufacturing establishments, and threatening to withdraw his custom from tradesmen and artisans, in case their suffrages are given contrary to his wishes. While the employer maintains his own independence in giving his vote according to his judgment and conscience, let him respect the independence of other men as free, if not as wealthy and as well informed, as himself. * Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, No. LXXIII. When tried by the preceding principles, it cannot be necessary to do more than advert to several practices, which in cases of contested elections, are too common both in England and in this country, to insure their unqualified reprobation in the mind of every good man. The practices to which I refer, are calculated to corrupt and poison the political institutions of a country at their ultimate sources. Among the devices resorted to, in order to strengthen the interest of candidates and promote their success, are festive entertainments and supplies of spirituous liquors furnished at their expense to all who choose to partake of them; reciprocal abuse and vilification of the candidates, and of all others who take a conspicuous part in elections; menaces of violence and even actual violence at the polls; imposing on the opposite party by the artifices and stratagems so well known to practised partisans ; prostituting the dignity and influence of official station to the success of party arrangements and combinations; invoking the whole host of sectional, national, and personal prejudices, to give fresh virulence to party warfare; the organization of affiliated societies, (clubs and unions,) under party names, pervading every nook and corner of the country, and, by profligate emissaries, instituting an inquisition in every neighbourhood and family; and, lastly, the bringing the elective franchise, by the undisguised sale and purchase of votes, into public market in the broad light of day. CHAPTER IV. THE DUTY OF THE CITIZENS TO CULTIVATE A PATRIOTIC SPIRIT AND THE PATRIOTIC VIRTUES. THE duty of the citizens to cultivate a patriotic spirit and the patriotic virtues comes next to be stated and illustrated. In the first stages of society, before the passions were curbed by education and discipline, before agriculture was advanced, commerce and manufactures introduced, the arts and sciences invented, or the true religion made known, the great body of the |