tarding, repetitionary and revisionary parliamentary process. Real public opinion on public matters of a truly free people under an institutional government is generally the wisest master to which the freeman can bow; general opinion is worth nothing as a political truth. It may be correct; it may be vicious, as a thousand rumors show, and public rumor is general opinion. This subject of public and merely general opinion has been largely discussed in the Political Ethics.

When Cromwell had dissolved parliament, and even dissolved the famous council of state, in spite of Bradshaw's opposition, we are informed that addresses of gratulation and thanks reached him from all parts of England, just as they were crowded upon L. N. Bonaparte affer the second of December, 1851. We cannot judge whether they expressed the opinion of the majority; for in politics, as in common life, it is the noisy that are heard and make themselves observed, while the majority and more substantial people are silent and overlooked; but, for argument's sake, we will grant that those addresses to Cromwell expressed the opinions, the views, the feelings of the majority of the nation at the moment. Even in this case they expressed nothing more than the existing general feeling, not the public opinion of England, as successive events very soon proved.

To seize upon loud and demonstrative general opinion and feeling of a part of the people while compressing the public opinion of the whole, is a frequent means of successful tyranny. It was the way the first French convention frequently managed things, and Danton knew it well. He acknowledged it.

As to the second and subsequent conditions which have been enumerated, the following observations may prove of interest. Numerous and extensive inquiries, referring to the

United States as well as to Europe, and some of which I propose to give to the reader, have proved to me certain instructive facts relating to the statistics of popular elections. I do not treat in this paper of the voting in assemblies of trustees, of representatives or boards.

I must also remark that I shall always use the term election for direct elections, in which the voter votes directly upon the question at issue, and not for a person who will have the ultimate right of the direct vote; either for a person or on a measure. The election of our presidents was intended to be a double election, and in form it continues to be such; for we elect electors. But it is well known that the election has long since become virtually a direct one, so far as the individual votes express the desire of the voters, because the persons voted for as electors declare beforehand for whom they shall vote in case they are made electors, and after being elected electors they do not become members of a deliberative body in which the question of the presidential election is discussed."

3 This knowledge of the vote which an elector will give does of course not affect the result. Each elector represents a majority and a minority, but his vote can only be cast for one candidate. Nevertheless, that which is called the popular vote indicates à proportion between the presidential candidates very different from that which appears from the official votes of the electors. For instance, the popular vote at the last presidential election stood:

Where the double election is introduced as an active principle, it deprives elections of much, and often of all interest, and is frequently resorted to for this very purpose, by governments which do not feel sufficiently strong to refuse the claims of the people to a share in the government, yet desire to defeat the reality of such a share.

The following, then, are the positions which experience seems fully to bear out:

The more exclusive the privilege of voting is, the smaller is the number of qualified voters who abstain from voting; and the largest number of abstinents occurs where universal suffrage is freely left to itself, and not interfered with by the executive.

The smaller the number of qualified voters, the smaller is also the number of abstinents.

So soon as the number of qualified voters exceeds five or six hundred, the number of abstinents will be at least twenty-five per centum.

The larger the number of qualified voters, voting upon the same question or persons, and under one and the same electoral system, the larger is also the number of abstinents.

The larger the area over which one and the same election or voting extends, the larger is the proportion of abstainers.

When there are three fairly supported candidates, the total number of votes polled is larger than when there are but two candidates, all other things being equal.

The whole number of polled votes, compared to the number of qualified voters, does not necessarily indicate the interest a community may take in a measure or person. Whenever people feel perfectly sure of the issue, there are many who abstain because their votes will not defeat the opponent; and many others abstain, because their candidate will be elected at any rate.

If the number of qualified voters (voting exactly upon

the same question or person) exceeds several thousands, one-half of it is generally a fair number for the actual voters; two-thirds show an animated state of things, and three-fourths are evidence of great excitement. It will be observed that the words: Voting exactly upon the same question or person—are a necessary qualification of these positions. Although an election all over England may turn upon free trade or protection, yet, if it be a parliamentary election, so that these questions appear only represented in the respective candidates, it is clear that this would not be an election extending over the area of England, in the sense in which the term is taken here, or in which we take it when we speak of our presidential election. Voting upon men generally draws out more votes than voting upon measures themselves.

Popular votes upon measures to be expressed by yes or no are wholly fallacious, unless this vote be the last act of a long and organic process; for instance, if a new constitution has been prepared by a variety of successive acts, and is ultimately laid before the people with the question, Will you, or will you not have it?

Popular votes in a country with an ample bureaucracy of a centralized government, on questions concerning measures or persons in which the government takes a deep interest, and by elections the primary arrangements of which are under the direction of the government, that is, under the executive, must always be received with great suspicion. It is a fact well worthy of remembrance, that the French people have never voted no, when a question similar to that which was settled, as it is called, by the election of December, 1851, was placed before them. In the year 1793, in the years III, VIII and XIII similar appeals were made, and the answer was always yes, by majorities even greater than that on which Louis Napoleon Bonaparte rests his ab

solutism. When a senatus consultum raised Napoleon the First to the imperial dignity, and the people were appealed to, there were in the city of Paris 70 noes and 120,947 ayes, and in all France 2,500 noes against 3,572,329 ayes. A vote of yes or no becomes especially unmeaning when the executive seizes the power by a military conspiracy, and then pretends to ask the people whether they approve of the

act or not.

From the best authorities on the Athenian government, for instance Bockh's Political Economy of Athens, and Tittman's Political Constitutions of Greece, under the head of Ostracism, we see that the common vote, polled by the Athenians, was about 5,000 (Thucydides viii. 72) out of from 20,000 to 25,000 qualified voters. Six thousand votes were considered the largest amount. They were required, therefore, for extraordinary cases, such as ostracism, or for anything that was against established law, or related to individuals only. Six thousand Athenian votes thus practically corresponded to our two-thirds of votes requisite for some peculiar cases, purposely removed beyond the pale of a simple majority, that is at least one more than one-half of the voters. Here, then, we have one-fourth of qualified voters, usually voting, although the voting took place in one and the same city by voters, the great majority of whom lived in the city.

Some writers have doubted whether six thousand votes, upon the whole, were necessary for ostracism and other peculiar cases, or six thousand votes in favor of the measure. I have no doubt that the first was the case. Plutarch distinctly says that one of the persons proposed was always exostracized, provided six thousand votes had been cast. (Aristides i. 7.) The same passage seems to prove that, if six thousand votes, altogether, had been cast, he who had the plurality of votes was banished; for, there were freVOL. II.-12