Electuary

“ The bare name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing as a sheepcote, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, sends as many representatives to the grand assembly of law-makers, as a whole county, numerous in people, and powerful in riches. ”

“ Burning Ambition finds its fuel here; here Patriotism speaks boldly in the people's behalf, and virtuous Economy demands retrenchment in the emoluments of a lamp-lighter; here the Aldermen range their senatorial dignity around the Mayor's chair of state, and the Common Council feel that they have liberty in charge. ”

“ But on the other hand, the Aldermen shewed by many reasons, that unto them belongs the election of Mayor, both because they, the Aldermen are the heads, as it were, and the populace the limbs, as also because it is the Aldermen who pronounce judgments in pleas moved within the City. Of the populace on the other hand there are many who have neither lands, rents, nor dwellings in the City, being sons of divers mothers, some of them of servile station, and all of them caring little or nothing about the City’s welfare. ”

“ Every city is divided into districts and wards, and on these, in representative governments, the representation is based: he who has his abode in a district is both an elector, and may also be elected in it. But the view which the ancients took was this, that the land was only the substratum of the state; that the state itself was formed of individuals ”

“ As we marched from one petty district to another, each independent from the other, governed by its own chief and council of elders, exclusive from its own peculiar customs, habits, or passion, varying differently from the other according to the age, intelligence, and disposition of the chief, our duties and rule of conduct varied. ”

“ Each member of the elective assembly of a municipality, through whose collective votes bishops, administrators, judges, and other official persons received their appointments, felt for the moment, the importance which his privilege bestowed, and recognised in his own person, with corresponding self-complacency, a fraction, however small, of the immense community, now governed by those whom they themselves elected into office. ”

“ The provisional governor shall, by proclamation, declare the number of delegates to be elected by each county, parish, or election district; name a day of election not less than thirty days thereafter; designate the places of voting in each county, parish, or district, conforming as nearly as may be convenient to the places used in the State elections next preceding the rebellion; appoint one or more commissioners to hold the election at each place of voting, and provide an adequate force to keep the peace during the election. ”

“ It is fit that it should stand here, one of the chief distinctions of our splendid Capitol, here in the political centre of the State, here in the city where first in all the world was proclaimed and put into a political charter the fundamental idea of democracy, that "government rests upon the consent of the people," here in the city where by the action of these self existing towns was formed the model, the town and the commonwealth, the bi-cameral legislature, of our constitutional federal union. ”

“ If a village of half a mile square, and one hundred families, is capable of exercising all the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, in public assemblies of the whole, by unanimous votes, or by majorities, it is more than has ever yet been proved in theory or experience. ”

“ This was exactly the case with the representatives of this borough. The inhabitants of houses built on ancient foundations, and the inhabitants in general, have each been declared to possess the right of election; and a member, chosen by each description of voters, has been seated and ousted in the same Parliament. ”

“ Then let the gentlemen so charged return at once to their counties, and elect or cause to be elected, "by such at least of the people as are rightly qualified," a STANDING COUNCIL in every city and great town, all great towns henceforth to be called Cities. ”

“ As soon as a legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and house assembled in one room, shall have authority, by joint ballot, to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a right of debating but not of voting during this temporary government. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That the common council shall, annually, at their first meeting after their own election and qualification, choose by ballot a fit and able man, having the qualifications herein after directed, to be mayor of the town, which choice shall be made by a majority of the whole number of members of the said common council, unless the whole number of members be equally divided between two persons, in which case one of those two persons shall immediately, by the vote of the president of the council, elected. ”

“ So you see, when a nobleman had a ‘burgage tenure’ borough—like Old Sarum, for example, where the right of voting was in respect of the foundations of a ruined wall—he kept these tenures in his own hands, and just before the election conveyed them to his friends, or servants, who of course returned him to Parliament as their representative, and when the election was over gave back the deeds into his hands. ”

“ The government of the town, or the village, or the city is called local government. It is government close at hand--home government. And out of the home government of each town, village, and city in a state must come, by the votes of the people at the ballot-box, the men whom they choose as their representatives, in the government of the state and the nation--for the people rule through representatives of their own choosing. ”

“ If the electors and elected of other departments be of the same complexion with those of Arras, the new Assembly will not, in any respect, be preferable to the old one. I have reproached many of the people of this place, who, from their education and property, have a right to take an interest in the public affairs, with thus suffering themselves to be represented by the most desperate and worthless individuals of the town. ”

“ And to remove all doubts concerning the meaning of the word 'inhabitant' in this constitution, every person shall be considered as an inhabitant, for the purpose of electing and being elected into any office or place within the State in that town, district or plantation where he dwelleth or has his home. ”

“ As for the Spontaneous Commune, one may say that there never was on Earth a stranger Town-Council. Administration, not of a great City, but of a great Kingdom in a state of revolt and frenzy, this is the task that has fallen to it. ”

“ There have been some of the chief men in the town, of chief authority and wealth, that have been great proprietors of their lands, who have had one party with them. And the other party, which has commonly been the greatest, have been of those who have been jealous of them, apt to envy them, and afraid of their having too much power and influence in town and church. ”

“ Until the Common Council—composed of representatives each directly elected by ward or district, and held personally responsible by the citizens in that ward for the efficient and honest discharge of his municipal duties—is restored to its natural position as the source and seat and centre of civic authority, it seems to me that we shall continue wandering in the wilderness. ”

“ In reality the lieutenant-governor is a. figure-head, and power is in the hands of the legislature, which consists of two houses, a Legislative Council, appointed nominally by the lieutenant-governor, really by the premier, and an Assembly, chosen by what is practically manhood suffrage. ”

“ Let there be two bodies to be elected by the people,—a council and an assembly. Let the council consist of seventy-two persons, to be chosen by universal suffrage, for three years, twenty-four of them retiring every year, their places to be supplied by new election. ”

“ The electors of the several towns meet once a year for the election of town officers, and for certain other business purposes. The electors of a town have power, at their annual town meetings, to order money to be raised for the support of the poor, for the building and repairing of bridges, and for other town purposes; to make regulations concerning fences ”

“ The government of the village is purely democratic. All the people meet and vote for their village magistrate, who decides, with the aid of a council of the elders, all the questions which arise within its confines, one of them being the division of the land. ”

“ The electors in each district shall appoint, by individual ballot and majority of the votes, an eligible citizen domiciled within the district, to whom they shall give, by the minutes of the election, a special mandate limited to the single function of electing the citizen whom he shall judge, upon his soul and his conscience, the most worthy to be elected regent of the realm. ”

“ In England, and in some other lands, the electors may choose as their representative a resident of any city, borough, or county as they please, and it only occasionally happens that the member of Parliament actually lives in the district which he represents. ”

“ There shall be a city council to consist of mayor, four aldermen and nine councillors, who shall have the qualifications of electors of said city, and shall be chosen by the qualified voters thereof, and shall hold their offices for two years, and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. ”

“ As time passed, the districts along the coasts and in the more accessible parts of the interior rapidly became populous. Constant strife necessitated chiefs and leaders, but the people loved their freedom, and the right of speaking and voting in their assemblies. ”

“ While the great lords with their armed bands of liveried retainers absolutely ruled the elections in the shires, in spite of all statutes of Parliament, the towns asserted their freedom to elect without fear or favour, and sent to the House of Commons the members who probably at that time most nearly represented the “people,” that is so far as the people had yet been drawn into a conscious share in the national life. ”

“ Everything is in motion around you; here, the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a church; there, the election of a representative is going on; a little farther, the delegates of a district are posting to the town in order to consult upon some local improvements ”

“ If your class president is elected by a majority of the class, or a county supervisor by a majority of the voters of the county, to what extent is it the duty of this officer to consider the interests of the minority which voted against him? ”

“ It was agreed that public meetings should be held throughout the city to arouse voters to the necessity of attending their respective primaries, and that every effort should be put forth to promote the candidacy of good men. The political committees of the various ward councils took up the matter with the central council, and systematic work was done in nearly every ward to secure, first, the appointment of competent and honest judges and clerks ”

“ Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.—Let the Assemblies be annual, with a President only. The representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.—Let each Colony be divided into six, eight or ten convenient districts, each district to send a proper number of Delegates to Congress, so that each Colony send at least thirty. ”

“ They have seen the busy aspirants for office running from the field to the council hall, and from this back to the camp, seeking emolument and not service, and swarming like hungry flies around the body politic. ”

“ Every large town has a mayor and deputy mayor, appointed by the government, and a town council, of whom one third are similarly appointed, while the citizens choose the rest; a proportionate number of councillors representing each religious community. ”

“ The local democracy, local republicanism everywhere, is a part of the national Democratic or Republican organisation. The party as a whole is composed of these municipal units. Each municipal campaign is conducted with an eye to the general fortunes of the party in the State or the nation; and the same power that appoints a janitor in a city hall may dictate the selection of a presidential candidate. ”

“ If one House represents popular feeling, the other should represent personal merit, tested and guaranteed by actual public service, and fortified by practical experience. If one is the People's Chamber, the other should be the Chamber of Statesmen—a council composed of all living public men who have passed through important political office or employment. ”

“ Posterity will be indebted to your Grace for not contenting yourself with a temporary expedient, but entailing upon them the immediate blessings of your administration. Boroughs were already too much at the mercy of government. Counties could neither be purchased nor intimidated. But their solemn determined election may be rejected, and the man they detest may be appointed, by another choice, to represent them in parliament. ”

“ Elections are the folly of our century. See here, my good fellow, look what is written here: In three days the municipal elections will come off throughout the country—in eighteen days the election of delegates. For eighteen days the whole country is to labor in election throes. Every man twenty-one years of age, having a wife and a homestead, is to be employed in rooting from out the soil of party councilmen, mayors, and deputies. ”