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VICISSITUDES OF ELECTORAL CAPACITY.

lings rent. It is however real, for it maintains a distinction between properties as to electoral rights, which is not founded upon any real difference between the nature of the properties, and the capacity of their possessors. The system has become much more vicious as regards electoral rights in boroughs. Here the external signs by which the law pretends to recognize capacity, are become, in many instances, utterly false. The importance of particular towns, and the material or intellectual development of their inhabitants, was originally the cause of their investiture with electoral rights. The capacity was there; the right followed. Now the principle has disappeared; there are some boroughs destitute of importance, the inhabitants of which possess neither wealth nor independence; capacity is no longer there, but nevertheless the right continues still. It might be supposed that the name of the borough, its site, or its walls, are the signs of an electoral capacity which ought to reside there for ever,-that the privilege appertained to the stones. On the other hand there are other towns, which in the fourteenth century would not have failed to obtain their electoral rights, because in effect the capacities of their citizens would have been recognized, that do not yet possess them.

Thus a principle, equitable at first, has ceased to be so, because attempts have been made to arrest the progress of its effects; or rather the principle itself has perished, and a great part of the electoral system of England is nothing more than a violation of it.

By this it may be seen that, if the principle which attaches right to capacity in the matter of election, is universal in its nature, and susceptible of constant application, the conditions of this capacity and the external signs by which it is to be recognized are essentially variable, and can never be restricted to the terms of a law without endangering the existence of the principle itself. The vicissitudes of electoral rights, even in the earliest time of the existence of Parlia ment, demonstrate this. Political rights belonged at first to the freeholders alone. Who could reasonably have sought deputies and electors in those devastated boroughs, abandoned for the most part by their ancient inhabitants, peopled only by a few poor families, whose condition and

NO PERMANENT TEST OF ELECTORAL CAPACITY. 399

ideas were not elevated above those of the most miserable peasants?

Some towns rose again and became repeopled; commerce brought with it wealth, and wealth procured social importance, and the development of mind. Representatives should emanate from these bodies; for there were certainly electors. New capacities form and declare themselves by new symptoms. At the same time, or soon after, the number of freeholders increases by the division of fiefs, many among them fall to a much lower condition than that of the ancient freeholders, and no longer possess the same independence. Will they preserve the same rights when their capacity is no longer the same? no, necessity makes each to know his value; the mere title of freeholder is no longer a correct sign of electoral capacity. Another is sought, and the condition of forty shillings rent enters into the laws. Thus, without any violation, and even by the authority of the principle, the conditions and signs of electoral capacity vary according to the real state of society. It is only when this portion of the electoral system becomes invariable that the principle will be violated."

It would then be vain and dangerous to pretend to regulate, beforehand and for ever, this part of the electoral system of a free people. The determination of the conditions of capacity and that of the external characteristics which reveal it, possess, by the very nature of things, no universal or permanent character. And not only is it unnecessary to endeavour to fix them, but the laws should oppose any unchangeable prescription regarding them. The more numerous and flexible the legal characteristics of electoral capacity, the less need this danger be dreaded. If, for example, the land-tax was regulated and fixed once for all, as it is to be desired that it may be, this tax alone would be an incorrect sign of electoral capacity; for it would not follow the vicissitudes of property: it would enfeoff the land itself with the right of election; the rent would be a better indication, because it would be more pliable. If, instead of attributing electoral rights by name and for ever to a particular borough, the English laws had conferred them upon every town whose population reached a certain limit, or the revenue from which attained a certain amount, the

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GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

representation of boroughs, instead of becoming corrupt, would have followed the changes and progress of true political capacity. We could multiply these examples, and prove in a thousand ways that it is better neither to adopt any one legal sign of electoral capacity, nor to place this sign beyond the reach of the vicissitudes of society.

In summing up, we may deduce, from our examination of the electoral system of England in the fourteenth century, these three conclusions: I. The right ought to be coextensive with the capability of judicious election, for it is its source. II. The conditions of electoral capacity should vary according to time, place, the internal state of society, public intelligence, &c III The external characteristics prescribed by the laws, as declaring the accomplishment of the conditions of electoral capacity, should neither be utterly immutable nor derived entirely from purely material facts.

FORMS OF ELECTION.

401

LECTURE XVI.

Subject of the Lecture.-Continuation of the philosophical examination of the electoral system in England in the fourteenth century.— Characteristics of the elections.-Examination of the principle of direct or indirect election.

I Now pass to the second of the great questions to which every electoral system gives rise. What are the proceedings and forms of the election? In this question many others are comprised. These may be divided into two classes: the one class relating to the manner of assembling the electors; the other, to their mode of operation when assembled.

The close union of the electoral system with the exercise of other rights and political powers, has been productive in England of extensive and very beneficial consequences with regard to the mode of collecting the electors together.

Originally the election of county representatives required no special and extraordinary convocation of the electors. At appointed times, they repaired to the county-court to fulfil the functions with which they were charged, and on these occasions they elected their representatives. The first writs addressed to the sheriffs set forth: Quod eligi facias in proximo comitatu, "you will elect in the next countycourt."

When the importance of the House of Commons had imparted a corresponding importance to the election of its members, and the necessity of preventing the abuses arising from elections made, so to speak, by chance, and without any one receiving special notice thereof, had become felt, the election was announced throughout the country by a proclamation summoning the attendance of all the electors and indicating the time and place of the convocation of Parliament. The election thus became a special and solemn

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THE OBJECT OF ELECTION.

act; but was always conducted in the county-court, and at one of its periodic meetings.

Ultimately, by the lapse of time, the changes of the iudicial system, and the development of every institution, the county-courts ceased to retain in England that position which they anciently occupied. Their jurisdiction is now rare and very limited; the greater part of the freeholders never attend them; nor are they of any considerable political importance. At the present day the sole important object of any assembly of freeholders in these courts is the election of representatives, but the circumscriptions remain the same: frequent relations still exist among the freeholders of the county; the county-court is still their centre: it is now the electoral college, and that is its sole important character; but the electoral college is still the ancient county-court.

The great political result of all these facts is this, that the election of representatives has always been, and still is, not the work of an assembly of men extraordinarily and arbitrarily convened for that purpose, among whom no other tie subsists, and who possess no regular and habitual common interests, but the fruit of ancient relations, of constant and tried influences among men otherwise united in the transaction and possession of common affairs, functions, rights, and interests. In examining the question in itself, we shall very soon become convinced that this is the only way to insure veracity in elections, and suitableness and authority in the elected representatives.

The object of election is evidently to obtain the most capable and best accredited men in the country. It is a plan for discovering and bringing to light the true, the legitimate aristocracy, which is freely accepted by the masses over whom its power is to be exercised. To attain this end it is not sufficient to summon the electors together and to say to them, "Choose whom you will;" but they should have the opportunity of understanding thoroughly what they are about, and of concerting together how to do it. If they do not know each other, and are equally unacquainted with the men who solicit their suffrages, the object is evidently defeated. You will have elections which will result neither from the free choice nor the actual wishes of the electors.

Election in its nature is a sudden act which does not