If there are such things as virtue and vice, morality and immorality, if such distinctions are not wholly fanciful and arbitrary, no doubt can be felt how the exercise of a control of this kind should be designated. If acting under this control against his conscience is vicious in the poor man, the exercise of it to force him to violate his sense of duty is a thousand times more vicious in the rich, and deserves to be put down by universal execration.

The objection sometimes urged against these sentiments, that it would be highly pernicious to destroy the influence of one class over another,that of the rich over the poor, the powerful over the weak, the intelligent over the ignorant, proceeds, when it is sincere, on a misapprehension of the subject, and confounds two very different operations. Were all direct and intentional exertions of power by one class over another in the election of representatives, except the influence of understanding on understanding, utterly extinguished, as justice requires that they should be, a strong indirect influence would still remain, an influence which would be ever maintained by the richer classes over the poorer, the landlord over the tenant, the employer over the workman. There is an unconquerable, and to a

certain extent (in the present state of society at least) a beneficial proneness in man, to rely on the judgment and authority of those who are elevated above himself in rank or riches. From the irresistible associations of the human mind, a feeling of respect and deference is entertained for a superior in station, which enhances and exalts all his good qualities, gives more grace to his movements, more force to his expressions, more beauty to his thoughts, more wisdom to his opinions, more weight to his judgment, more excellence to his virtues. Even the wisest find it difficult to keep themselves from this illusion; and in society at large it is apt to be so strong, that there are always individuals, who, from mere servility, or blind veneration, will do what they conceive will be agreeable to their superiors, even when not the slightest wish is expressed to direct them.

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Hence the elevated men of society will always maintain an ascendancy, which, without direct exertion of influence, will affect the result of popular elections; and when to this are added the capabilities which they possess, or ought to possess, from their superior intelligence, of impressing their own opinions on other classes, it will be seen, that, if any sort of despotic control were justifiable, it would be superfluous for any good purpose.

The propensity of mankind is, not to make choice of an individual for a desirable office on account of his bare merits, of his mere aptness to discharge its functions, estimated by their own independent understandings; but it is, even in a pernicious degree, to give him their suffrages on account of the opinion entertained of him, and the favour manifested towards him, by those whom they wish to please, and whose judgment they have been accustomed to respect.

The error of confounding the different kinds of influence here adverted to, may be fairly charged on Mr. Canning, when, in his celebrated anti-reform speech at Liverpool, he said, "I hold it to be frantic to suppose, that, from the election of members of parliament, you can altogether exclude by any contrivance, even if it were desirable to do so, the influence of property, rank, talents, family connection, and whatever else, in the radical language of the day, is considered as intimidation or corruption."

The artifice of confounding two things under one name (often unconsciously resorted to) seems indispensable to a bad cause. No one of any

weight in the controversy ever thought of excluding all influence. The advocates of what has been called purity of election maintain two very

simple propositions, which Mr. Canning would have found it difficult to gainsay, on any theory of morals which he might venture upon:-1. That an elector is morally bound to give his vote to that candidate whom he regards as best fitted for the office. 2. That the acts of conferring upon him or promising him any benefit, and inflicting upon him or threatening him with any evil, in order to cause him to vote otherwise, are morally wrong. They therefore necessarily condemn that influence of property, rank, talents, family connections, or of any thing else which is employed in committing such an act of moral turpitude; but any influence which cannot be brought under this description, they leave unassailed and unopposed. What they condemn is power over the will, employed directly and purposely to control a vote, the direction of which is a matter of duty to the individual who has to give it.

CHAPTER V.

ON ELECTIONS.

IT has been the object of this Treatise, to arrange the various parts of the subject in such an order that each should prepare the mind of the reader for that which succeeds it. If the attempt to do this has been at all successful, the consideration of the questions which belong to the present chapter will have been greatly facilitated.

Those parts of the representative system which have already come under examination, have generally attracted more attention, and been regarded as of more consequence, than the part we are now to treat of. They are doubtless of high importance; but it must be obvious to a very cursory glance, that how admirable soever might be our arrangements, in respect to the number, composition, and other circumstances of a representative assembly, and how wisely soever the electoral body might be constituted in relation to the business to be done, yet all the purposes of

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