CHAP. Composition of the elec torate Many disqualifications removed justly be invoked by the dissatisfied elements. Normally, the electorate is the actual, legal, working sovereign; but, in the last analysis, the government belongs to the people, not to the electorate. In the operation of a political system hardly any question can arise of more importance than the composition of the electorate. Not all of the people can be included. What classes shall be excluded, on what grounds, and by what authority? It was a tenet of the French political philosophy of the eighteenth century that every citizen has a natural and inherent right to take part in the choice of representatives for political purposes. The framers of French constitutions, however, have never undertaken to apply this principle literally, and nowadays it is commonly agreed among political scientists that the suffrage is not a right, but rather a privilege; which means that the scope of the electorate is a question of practical expediency only. Certain classes are obviously unfit to be included: children, persons of unsound mind, criminals, uncivilized or semi-civilized inhabitants. Beyond this there is room for the widest differences of opinion; and every student of modern history knows how sharp have been the controversies that have raged over the question. Many tests for voting have been employed, based upon residence, age, sex, race or color, citizenship, property-holding, tax-payment, education, religious belief, occupational or legal status. The trend of modern political development has been, however, pronouncedly in the direction of fewer tests, a more liberal suffrage, and therefore a larger electorate. Qualifications based on race, color, religion, and occupation practically disappeared long ago. Property-holding and tax-paying requirements have of late been generally repealed. Educational qualifications persist in several of our American states, but are hardly known elsewhere. The voting age has been fixed almost everywhere at twenty-one; and within the past ten or fifteen years the disqualification of women as such has been partially or wholly removed in many lands. Under fresh impetus supplied by the Great War, the world seems to be fast approaching the point where it can be said that, by and large, all adult men and women who are in good standing as citizens are voters. The question of who shall be permitted to vote is, however, only The so-called Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island in 1841-42 affords an interesting illustration of the use of this right. See W. F. Willoughby, Government of Modern States, 280-284. VI voting one of the many problems connected with the electorate. Shall CHAP. each member of the electorate have but one vote? Or shall some members have two or more votes! "Plural voting" still prevails Plural in Great Britain, under greater restrictions than formerly and in two or three lesser states. But elsewhere the rule of "one person one vote" is followed. Again, shall voting be purely voluntary, Compulsory or shall it be made compulsory? In Spain, Belgium, New Zealand, voting Tasmania, certain Swiss cantons, and four or five Latin American states electors are required, under penalty, to present themselves at the polls unless they can give a valid excuse. Notwithstanding, however, the habitual failure of large numbers of electors in all lands to avail themselves of their privileges, the plan of compulsory voting has not found general favor. electoral Still other questions relating to electoral procedure readily sug- Other gest themselves. How shall the possession or non-possession of questions electoral qualifications on the part of individual claimants be determined? It would be theoretically possible to have each elector establish his right whenever he tenders his vote. But this would involve intolerable confusion and delay, and hence states regularly employ some kind of registration system which enables the electoral lists to be prepared with due deliberation in advance and to be kept up to date by periodic revisions. Another urgent question pertains to the physical arrangements under which the votes of the electors shall be cast. There was a time when the voters simply presented themselves before the proper authorities and announced their votes orally and publicly. This system obviously offered limitless opportunity for bribery and intimidation; and although it persisted in Prussia and some other places until the political reconstruction following the World War, most states during the second half of the nineteenth century adopted some form of written vote. For a time the ballot was, however, only theoretically secret; for the ballot papers were furnished by the candidates. or their friends; they were usually of such size, color, shape, or texture that, even when folded, they could be distinguished by the officials and bystanders; and they were circulated some days in advance of the election, and in many cases were marked before the voter went to the polls at all. The Australian ballot system, which came into general use in the United States and elsewhere in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, largely remedied these defects. Under it the government furnishes the ballot papers; CHAP. VI these papers are uniform in all respects; they are given the voter only when he appears at the polls; and they must be marked in the secrecy of a voting booth.1 REFERENCES J. W. Garner, Introduction to Political Science (New York, 1910), Chaps. XIV-XVII. W. F. Willoughby, Government of Modern States (New York, 1919), Chaps. XII-XVI. C. G. and B. M. Haines, Principles and Problems of Government (New York, 1921), 259-279. J. Q. Dealey, The State and Government (New York, 1921), Chaps. XII-XV, XVIII. L. H. Holt, Introduction to the Study of Government (New York, 1915), W. W. Willoughby and L. Rogers, Introduction to the Problem of Government R. G. Gettell, Introduction to Political Science (Boston, 1910), Chaps. XVI-XX. F. J. Goodnow, Principles of Constitutional Government (New York, 1916), H. Sidgwick, Elements of Politics (2nd ed., London, 1897), Chaps. XX-XXIV. 1Other electoral questions, which space forbids to be taken up here, include: How shall the votes be counted and the results announced! How shall contested elections be decided? What special precautions shall be taken to prevent the purchase of votes and other "corrupt practices''? Shall election be by plurality in single-member districts or on some plan of proportional representation? These matters will be considered, in relation to American practice, at appropriate points below. CHAPTER VII THE POSITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL and its We have seen that an essential attribute of the state is sov- Liberty ereignty, which means a supreme power of control over all indi- limitations viduals and associations of individuals within the state's jurisdiction. This seems to imply a complete antithesis of sovereignty and liberty. If the authority of the state is absolute, how can men be "free"? If, on the other hand, the individual has liberty, what becomes of sovereignty? A moment's consideration will show that the difficulty is more apparent than real. Everything depends on what we mean by liberty. If we mean by it complete absence of restraint, there is no denying that it is irreconcilable with the power, or even the existence, of the state; for the state exists to maintain government, and government means restraint. Hence the anarchist, who professes to believe in a régime of absolute individual freedom, would abolish the state altogether. It is significant, however, that even the anarchist provides in his plans for the voluntary association of individuals in community, or other, groups. What is the object of such combined effort? Primarily the protection of life and property. Against whom is protection needed? Obviously, against such people as covet other men's property and have little regard for other men's lives. Men of this sort are to be restrained from following out their desires or impulses. Starting by denying the right of the state to coerce the individual, the anarchist thus ends by recognizing precisely such a right, even though he refuses to call the coercing group or association a state. social If the anarchist cannot devise a régime of absolute individual Necessary freedom, we may be sure that the thing cannot be done. The fact restraints is, of course, that a society organized on such a plan is impossible: one member of it but only one-might conceivably be absolutely independent of any influence save that which he himself wills, and might be powerful enough to realize all of his desires. His "liberty," however, would of itself put restraints on all other individuals in that society. Obviously, liberty is not absolute, but CHAP. VII No "rights" as The state theoretically, though not absolute relative and limited. The authors of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) had this idea when they defined liberty as "the power to do everything that does not injure another." Herbert Spencer expressed the same thought when he said that "every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." A man living alone on a remote island might have absolute liberty: he could interfere with no one, and no one could interfere with him. But living in a society, he must be prepared to recognize that other men besides himself have rights; he must give up his freedom to prey at will upon his fellows, in order that he shall be shielded from being preyed upon by them; he must see that true freedom for each comes only by restraint upon all, that liberty is inseparable from law. The position of the individual citizen in relation to the state and to government is now easily brought into view. The general enjoyment of liberty requires the existence of a coercive force. This force is the state. All individuals who compose a given state have surrendered to it their separate wills, and as against it they have, legally, no rights whatsoever. So far as is physically possible, the state can control in the minutest detail every act of every person who is subject to its jurisdiction. It can take away the property of every citizen, or of every tenth citizen, without compensation; it can make wearing a beard a capital offense; it can legalize murder or require all citizens to worship a graven image. If it (i.e., the people who compose it) wants to do these things, what power is there anywhere to prevent it from doing them? Having established the ultimate right of the state to do anything that it wills, the next matter to note is the perfectly obvious practically, fact that no people which has advanced far enough to attain statehood has any desire to make actual use of all of the powers which statehood involves. What happens is, rather, that the sum total of powers is broken into segments, and the state undertakes actually to wield only those powers included in one segment; to all intents and purposes, the remainder do not exist. Theoretically, the people composing the state determine the nature of this division and, having done so, create an agent, which we know as the government, to carry the state's exercisable powers into effect. The people of a state, of course, do not always literally make the segregation of powers and create the governmental agent. Certainly |