Prince elector

“ As soon as the first news of the Elector George William's death reached here, I gathered about me my friends and yours, and held a long consultation with them, which satisfied me of their fidelity and devotion. Oh, most gracious sir, you have indeed no reason to bewail your lot, for you have many and reliable friends, who are ready for your sake to confront the most imminent dangers, to undertake what is most difficult and hazardous! All of our friends were convinced with me that the Electoral Prince is your implacable enemy, and that he only watches for an opportunity to accomplish your ruin. ”

“ My mother just said to me yesterday, 'Take care not to love the Electoral Prince seriously, for he can never be your husband.' And when, trembling and weeping, I asked the reason, she at last replied, 'Because you are a poor Princess, and because the misfortunes of your house overshadow you likewise.' The Elector and his minister will never give their consent to such a union, and the Electoral Prince will never have the spirit to be disobedient to his father and to marry in opposition to his wishes. ”

“ The third holds in his hand the parchment on which is inscribed the feudal oath. The high chancellor now descends from the steps of the throne and takes the parchment out of the senator's hands. The Elector bends his knee upon the richly embroidered cushion, a crimson glow flushes his cheeks, and deep in his soul he repeats: "I shall be the last Hohenzollern to submit to such humiliation and bow in the dust before another Prince. I shall make my Prussia and Brandenburg great. I shall free them from Emperor and King, and shall own no superior but God! ”

“ The Electoral Prince is a dangerous opponent, believe me. There is something bewitching in his character, and he would be in a position either to carry the Elector along with him in his career or to induce George William to follow his father's example, and resign the government in favor of his son, the Electoral Prince Frederick William. And do you know, Count Lesle, what would be the first act of Frederick William's reign? To depose me, to take all power out of my hands, and to institute a new course of policy for the house of Brandenburg! ”

“ And he himself, and no one else, ought at all times to be called in and admitted by the other prince electors, without any contradiction whatever, to the election and to all other transactions to be carried on for the honour or welfare of the holy empire. Nor, since they are and ought to be inseparable, may any one of the said rights, etc., be divided from the other, or at any time be separated, or be separately demanded back, in court or out of it, or distrained, or, even by a decision of the courts, be separated; nor shall any one obtain a hearing who claims one without the other. ”

“ Then, some day, the Electoral Prince, or the young Elector, would have the misfortune to fall from his horse, or be pierced while hunting by some missent bullet, or fall a victim to a sudden problematical sickness; in short, he would die, and his wife would be his heiress, and through her the Electoral Mark Brandenburg, the duchies of Prussia, Pomerania, and Cleves, accrue to the imperial house. ”

“ Now that Electoral Prince has become a very sad, serious, and poverty-stricken Elector, who has lived through much affliction, and must content himself, despite his glorious title, with being a poor tormented man, and therefore also a peevish man. ”

“ The King appointed no regent over the electorate in his absence; his uncle, the Duke of York was dead, and his son, the Prince of Wales, was now in England, so he placed the government of the electorate in the hands of a council of regency, and as a substitute for his own most gracious presence at the levées the King’s portrait as Elector was placed upon the vacant throne in the state room at Herrenhausen. ”

“ It is better, your highness, to try to chain him to you by goodness and love than by strictness and severity to repel him yet more, and force him to join the party of your opponents. It is a great and powerful party, and I well know that it is their plan to place the Electoral Prince at their head, and through him to attain their ends. ”

“ Oppressed by all, downtrodden by all, there is only one assured means of deliverance. It is this, that your highness nominate the Electoral Prince stadtholder of the duchy of Cleves, and permit him to take up his residence among the trusty people of Cleves."
"Just tell me, you wise and prudent deputies from Cleves, what advantage can accrue to you from the stadtholdership of the Electoral Prince?" asked the Elector hastily. "And how far would that go in furnishing redress for your difficulties?" ”

“ There is nothing left to be done but to summon the Electoral Prince from The Hague."
"It would be pleasant to the Emperor if the Electoral Prince came to his court," remarked Count Lesle; "it would be a token of confidence, and make an impression throughout the Holy Roman Empire upon friend and foe."
"Alas! the most important requisite of all is wanting—we want money," sighed Count Schwarzenberg, shrugging his shoulders.
"Well, that shall furnish no ground for objection, Sir Stadtholder. ”

“ So far as this, your highness, that our stadtholder would shield and protect us against the encroachments of inimical powers, and by his openly expressed neutrality secure us against the claims of all parties. The salvation of the duchy depends wholly and solely upon our having a neutral chief resident among us, and we beseech and implore your Electoral Highness to grant us such an one in the Electoral Prince, and to send his lordship your son to the duchy armed with plenipotentiary powers. ”

“ The elector received this letter just when Prince Christian of Misnia, generalissimo of the empire, and uncle of the Prince Frederic who was defeated at Mühlberg, and still very ill of his wounds, the high chancellor of the tribunal, Count Wrede, Count Kallheim, president of the state-chancery, and the two von Tronkas, the cup-bearer, and the chamberlain, who had both been friends of the elector from his youth, were present in the castle. ”

“ In reply to a question of the Elector, his wife answered that she regarded the election as a divine dispensation, that if he determined to accept it, which she left entirely to his consideration, she for her part was resolved to undergo everything that might follow from it. We must not regard as hypocrisy the prominence [Pg 490] which the prince and the princess alike gave to religious considerations. ”

“ The Protestant Elector of the Palatinate was to have been changed into a King, waving his scepter over Catholic Bohemia, and in place of the little Elector of Brandenburg was to have arisen a mighty Prince, who was to have broken the power of the German Emperor in the north, and become the chief and center of Protestant Germany! ”

“ At every election the votes are more and more the voter's own. It is their minds, far more than their personal circumstances, that now require to be emancipated. They are no longer passive instruments of other men's will—mere organs for putting power into the hands of a controlling oligarchy. The electors themselves are becoming the oligarchy.
"Exactly in proportion as the vote of the elector is determined by his own will, and not by that of somebody who is his master, his position is similar to that of a member of Parliament, and publicity is indispensable. ”

“ This was the real beginning of the electoral college whose members at this time were the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, the duke of Saxony, the duke of Bavaria, who was also count palatine of the Rhine, the margrave of Brandenburg and the king of Bohemia. After this event the electors became a distinct element in the state. They were important because they could maintain the impotence of the crown to check disorder by imposing conditions upon candidates for the throne, and by taking care that no prince powerful enough to be dangerous to themselves should be elected to this position. ”

“ Equality of representation and the parity of the electors must be maintained or everything that is valuable in our system of government is lost. The qualifications of an elector must be sought in the law, not in the opinions, prejudices, or fears of any class, however powerful. The path of the elector to the ballot box must be free from the ambush of fear and the enticements of fraud ”

“ The presidents took their seats at a table on which stood a ballot-box and an urn. The secretaries gave to every elector a slip of paper, upon which each one wrote the name of the man whom he proposed as Doge. The forty-one slips of paper were then placed in the urn, and one was drawn out at hazard. If the noble, whose name was written upon the slip, chanced to be an elector, he was required to withdraw. Then each of the electors was at liberty to attack the candidate, to point out defects and recal misdeeds. ”

“ But these concessions of the Emperor, far from producing the desired effect, only revealed to the Elector the embarrassment of his adversary and his own importance, and emboldened him the more to prosecute the advantages he had already obtained. How could he, moreover, without becoming chargeable with the most shameful ingratitude, abandon an ally to whom he had given the most solemn assurances of fidelity, and to whom he was indebted for the preservation of his dominions and even of his Electoral dignity? ”

“ It was then the custom for the candidates in all elections personally to visit every house, whether occupied by a voter or not, to solicit the elector for his vote and the non-elector for his or her influence. ”

“ That if the opinion of the non-electors is likely to make the elector vote more honestly, or more beneficially, than he would vote if left to himself, they are more fit to be electors than he is, and ought to have the franchise. That whoever is fit to influence electors, is fit to be an elector. That those to whom voters ought to be responsible, should be themselves voters; and, being such, should have the safeguard of the ballot, to shield them from the undue influence of powerful individuals or classes to whom they ought not to be responsible. ”

“ The Emperor, aware of the engagement, and anxious to prevent the junction of these forces with the enemy, proposed to create a ninth electorate, in favour of the Duke, provided he brought his levies to the imperial banner. The degrading offer was accepted, and the envoys of Brunswick-Luneberg received the electoral cap, the symbol of their master’s dishonour, at Vienna, on the 19th of December 1692. From the opposition of the college and princes, Ernest was never more than nominally an Elector, and even his son’s nomination was with difficulty accomplished in 1710. ”

“ Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the Confederate States, shall be appointed an elector. ”

“ The election for the rank and dignity of Emperor was one of the most disgracefully corrupt proceedings that was ever witnessed, even in the palmiest days of the boroughmongering system in England, some centuries afterwards. The candidates were Francis the First of France, Charles the Fifth, king of Castile, Henry the Eighth of England, and the Elector Frederic of Saxony. The bribery was on a scale of vastness never before heard of, and it is said that Charles scattered his—or his people's—money among the independent electors with frightful prodigality. ”

“ The Elector of the Palatinate might come and wait on both their Majesties; these might visit the electors; the last electoral sitting might be attended for the despatch of business in arrear, and the renewal of the electoral union,—nothing could call me forth from my passionate solitude. I let the bells ring for the rejoicings, the emperor repair to the Capuchin Church, the electors and emperor depart, without on that account moving one step from my chamber. ”

“ It is as a matter of course evident that each elector will give his vote for the person who ought in his opinion to be elected. But as to the motives of that opinion, as to the grounds on which it seems best to each elector that such and such a man ought to be elected, the oath says nothing. The cardinals whose votes Alexander VI. bought [Pg 488] thought, no doubt, that in all honesty they ought to give their voices for the man who had fairly paid for them. ”

“ Along that path we shall go as the breath of a new generation blows into Congress and Parliament and these assemblies cease to be the gatherings of political botchers and tinkers representing the broken spirit and curtailed desires of a forty-year-old electorate. For round about forty must be the average age of the present-day British elector. ”

“ It is true that "a great number of the electors will have two sets of preferences—those on private, and those on public grounds;" but it is not true that "the last are the only ones which the elector would like to avow." All who have had experience in elections must admit that the former are frequently avowed. If an elector has no definite opinions, private friendship or obligation will decide his vote under any circumstances. ”

“ If any electoral prince violates any of the above or following laws of the empire, he shall be excluded by his fellow-electors from their body, and shall be deprived of his vote and his electoral dignity, and of his right to hold fiefs of the empire. ”