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that is four, elected in each year. In voting, each elector votes for but three, so that it ordinarily hoppens that the fourth man chosen each year will be of a different opinion politically from the majority of his fellow-directors; will represent in the government of the school district one kind of opinion, while the greater number of his colleagues will represent another.

At the last session of your State Legislature a law was passed which took from the commissioners of counties and sheriffs the selection of jurors for the several courts throughout the Commonwealth. Great complaints were made in this matter, especially in the interior of the State. You had a particular arrangement in the city which has not been disturbed, to wit: the selection of jurors by the judges of the several courts, in order to insure impartiality and fairness and prevent the intrusion of political interests or passions in the selection of your jurors. But in the interior the duty of selecting jurors, which was formerly charged upon the commissioners and the sheriffs of the several counties, was taken away at the last session of the Legislature and confided to two officers in each county, who are to be called jury commissioners. The president

judge in each county has some function or duty in connection with these officers-it is somewhat doubtful what it is; the law was badly drawn-but substantially the power of selection heretofore exercised by the ordinary officers of counties to whom I have referred is now to be confided to these jury commissioners.

How are they to be chosen? As in the case of

inspectors of election, where one candidate alone is voted for, but two are to be chosen. By this means it is to be supposed that there will be fairness in the selection of jurors throughout the State, and the abuse which has heretofore prevailed will be removed from our system-the abuse that in Republican counties Democratic citizens were excluded to an unreasonable extent from the jury-box, and that on the other hand in Democratic counties Republican jurymen were unreasonably excluded. Here again is a limitation upon the elector. He shall vote for but one of these officers, who are to select the men who may sit upon questions which relate to his life, to his property, or to his reputation, and yet by this limitation fuller representation of the people and fairness in trials are secured. I think that a much wiser arrangement might have been made than that. If I had possessed power to mold the law upon this subject I would have simply changed the mode in which county commissioners are chosen. I would have had them selected upon the plan of the cumulative vote (which I will presently explain) or upon the plan of the limited vote. We would have obtained substantially in that way the same result without two additional officers and without certain inconveniences which attend upon the existing law. But the object was laudable and the effect which will be produced by that law will be salutary. Public opinion will take hold of it and uphold it hereafter as a just and wise arrangement, compared with the one it superseded.

Let me illustrate this idea of limited voting which has obtained in our State by a case taken from the

State of New York. Under the constitution of that State every twenty years the question of reforming the State constitution is to be submitted to a vote of the people, and in case they vote in favor of a convention to amend the constitution one is to be called. It happened last year that a convention was to be called, and Governor Fenton proposed to the Legislature that in addition to the selection of delegates from the representative districts of the State (one from each) there should be thirty-two delegates selected at large, and in selecting these thirty-two delegates each elector in the State to vote for but sixteen. His recommendation was adopted by the Legislature, so that the existing constitutional convention of New York (it has not concluded the performance of its duties) is constituted of representatives elected from the representative districts, and of thirty-two delegates from the State at large. Of the latter, sixteen belong to each political party, for such was the inevitable effect of the plan adopted. Many men went into the convention and are now sitting in it who could not have been elected in their several local districts, because the party with which they were associated was in the minority therein. In selecting delegates from the State at large this was possible, and able men were selected on both sides-men of great weight and great wisdom. These cases of limited voting in our own State which I have mentioned and this case in New York will suffice so far as our own country is concerned.

Now, let me carry you to England for a short time to see what has been done there in this same direction. In 1854, under the administration of

Lord Aberdeen, Lord John Russell introduced a reform bill which underwent protracted discussion in the House of Commons. One feature of that bill was that in all constituencies electing three members of Parliament no elector should vote for more than two, the result of which would have been to give to the minority class of electors ordinarily the third member. That bill, however, did not become a law; it fell, and other reform bills introduced since into Parliament have failed. But during the present year a bill was passed through Parliament to amend and reform the representation of the people of England in the House of Commons. That bill having passed the House of Commons and being under consideration in the House of Lords on the 30th of July last, Lord Cairnes moved to amend clause 8 of the bill by adding, "at a contested election for any county or borough represented by three members, no person shall vote for more than two candidates." This was substantially, if not in exact terms, the same as the clause in the Russell reform bill of 1854. After undergoing debate this amendment was adopted in the House of Lords by the following vote: contents, 142; non-contents, 51, or by the large majority of 91 in its favor. The bill being returned with this and other amendments to the House of Commons was again considered in that House. Finally, upon the 8th of August, after prolonged and exhaustive debate, in which men whose names are known throughout the earth participated, upon motion to strike out this amendment made by the House of Lords the vote stood-ayes 204, noes 253, being a majority of 49 in favor of retaining the pro

vision, and it was retained by that vote; and the bill subsequently passing and receiving the approval of the Crown it became and is now the law of Great Britain, (from which country we derive our political descent and many of our principles of free government, including that of representation.) Henceforth, in the election of members of the lower house of Parliament, where a constituency select three members, two shall be given to the majority and one to the minority of the electors, assuming that the latter constitute so large a mass as one third of the whole number. This is the most notable instance of the application of the limited vote to secure the representation of the whole political mass of the community or of a particular constituency charged with the duty and power of selecting representatives for the enactment of laws.

By these instances, selected in our own country and abroad, it is manifest that attention has been largely drawn to this question of amendment in representation-of mitigating the evils and inconveniences which must always arise under an unchecked, unmitigated, unamended majority rule.

THE CUMULATIVE VOTE.

But, gentlemen, I pass from the consideration of this mode of amending representation to the second form which propositions for that purpose have assumed; in other words, I pass to the discussion of the topic which is most interesting at this time for our consideration. I mean the plan of cumulative voting, as it has been named. This was in the first instance proposed, explained, and advocated

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