Incumbent

“ It was formerly a practice to evade enactments against plurality by means of commendams, i.e. by committing or commending a benefice to a holder of other benefices until an incumbent should be provided for it. ”

“ I need not speak of our candidate for President, whose simple, honest character has grown constantly upon the public interest, while his abilities have everywhere commanded most unhesitating respect. Nor need I speak of our candidate for Governor, whose eminent qualities alike of head and heart give assurance of a man deserving our most devoted support. Of their election there is no doubt. ”

“ The Executive.—In the election of the president and vice president, the exclusive agency of the States, as such, is preserved with equal distinctness. These officers are chosen by electors, who are themselves chosen by the people of each State, acting by and for itself, and in such mode as itself may prescribe. The number of electors to which each State is entitled is equal to the whole number of its representatives and senators. ”

“ Let who is to be our first chief be at the election of us all. For who shall follow, be it he or she whom it shall please the governor of the day to appoint, whenas the hour of vespers draweth near, and let each in turn, at his or her discretion, order and dispose of the place and manner wherein we are to live, for such time as his or her seignory shall endure. ”

“ If there shall be no election of governor or lieutenant-governor, or of both of these officers, or of a senator or senators at the first annual election, the house of representatives and as many senators as are chosen, shall forthwith elect, in joint committee, a governor or lieutenant-governor, or both, or a senator or senators, to hold their offices for the remainder of the political year, and, in the case of the two officers first named, until their successors shall be duly qualified. ”

“ But at the time of the election, the president or chairman of the assembly solemnly admonishes the voters of their obligation to divest themselves, as far as possible, of all personal bias, and nominate such persons as they shall in their consciences believe to be most fit. ”

“ Elective functions—Deputation—Elective councils.—There is a whole class of functionaries, if it be permitted to say so, who owe their origin to election, and who are the mandataries of the people, either in municipal councils, or in general councils, or in the great elective bodies of the State, the Senate and House of Representatives. (See Civil instruction.) The principle of the sovereignty of the people requires that for all its interests, communal, departmental or national, the country have a deliberative voice by means of its representatives. ”

“ And if, during such vacancy of the office of governor, the lieutenant-governor shall be impeached, displaced, resign, die, or be absent from the State, the president of the senate shall, in like manner as the lieutenant-governor, administer the government, until others shall be elected by the suffrage of the people, at the succeeding election. ”

“ Suppose him to aim at the president's chair, or vice-president's, at the next election—or at the office of war, foreign or domestic affairs, will he not naturally be tempted to make use of his whole patronage, his whole influence, in advising to appointments, both with president and senators, to get such persons nominated, as wall exert themselves in elections of president, vice-president, senators, and house of representatives, to increase his interests, and promote his views? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The constitution deduced from these principles has at least the merit of simplicity. We are to have universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. He inclines to give a vote to women. [445] There is to be no king, no house of peers, no established church. Members of parliament are not to be re-eligible, till after an interval. Elaborate rules provide for their regular attendance and exclusive devotion to their masters' business. They are to be simply 'deputies,' not 'representatives.' They elect a prime minister who holds office for four years. ”

“ All the Syphogrants, who are in number two hundred, choose the Prince out of a list of four who are named by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they take an oath, before they proceed to an election, that they will choose him whom they think most fit for the office: they give him their voices secretly, so that it is not known for whom every one gives his suffrage. ”

“ A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and solemnity, as any other title. The candidate that has deserved well of his neighbours, may now be certain of enjoying the effect of their approbation; and the elector, who has voted honestly for known merit, may be certain, that he has not voted in vain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Should I be elected next Tuesday, then without any sense of elation, with an appreciation of the great confidence you have resposed in me, I shall accept that high office which I regard as one of the highest upon the face of the earth because it is the highest executive office in the greatest of the American commonwealths, and I shall go forward to the performance of my duties with a sense of responsibility and with a determination to perform those duties to the very utmost of my abilities. ”

“ If we can ascertain those of the members of the council, elected by the assembly, we shall have a clue to the temper of the assembly itself. We may know the tree by its fruit. If we find that body electing to a place in the council men of very decided political character, we shall have a right to believe that those associated with them by the vote of the same body were, at least, not zealous members of the opposite party. ”

“ The poll-book showing the name and oath of each voter shall be returned to the provisional governor by the commissioners of election, or the one acting, and the provisional governor shall canvass such returns, and declare the person having the highest number of votes elected.
Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the provisional governor shall by proclamation convene the delegates duly elected, at the capital of the State, on a day not [Pg 25] more than three months after the election, giving at least thirty days’ notice of such day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If elected I will go into the office with a pure conscience, to promote with my utmost exertions the common good of our country, and free to select the most able and faithful public servants. If not elected, acquiescing most cheerfully in the better selection which will thus have been made, I will at least have the satisfaction of preserving my honor unsullied and my heart uncorrupted. ”

“ Let all the encumbrances in the shape of minor offices disappear from the ballot and be made appointive. Or at the very least prevent the few offices from overshadowing the many. Make all the candidates conspicuous by letting no one be more conspicuous than another. ”

“ No sooner was the result of the election known than I received three or four invitations to become a candidate for other constituencies, chiefly counties; but even if success could have been expected, and this without expense, I was not disposed to deny myself the relief of returning to private life. I had no cause to feel humiliated at my rejection by the electors ”

“ The policeman roars out name of leading constituent.
Leading constituent departed in a huff twenty minutes ago,
Because he thought you were not attending to him.
There being no answer,
Policeman roars out name of leading constituent once more.
Name echoes along Lords' Lobby;
But not being there, leading constituent fails to come forward.
You look embarrassed, turn tail, retire to your back bench,
And feel deucedly uncomfortable for the rest of the evening. ”

“ When the highest dignity in the state is to be conferred by popular election once in every few years, the whole intervening time is spent in what is virtually a canvass. President, ministers, chiefs of parties, and their followers, are all electioneerers: the whole community is kept intent on the mere personalities of politics, and every public question is discussed and decided with less reference to its merits than to its expected bearing on the presidential election. ”

“ The doctrine of election is questionless to be found in the pages of this evangelical writer; but reprobation is not a necessary consequence of election, nor does it appear in the writings of the Apostle to the Gentiles. A governour is elected by a commonwealth, a council, senators, representatives are elected; but are the people therefore consigned to perdition? ”

“ Who has enjoyed the honor of being received by his Electoral Highness need have no necessity for antechambering at the house of his minister and Stadtholder, for all favors and all honors flow from the almighty and exalted person of the Elector himself, and what he has done is good, and what he has said stands fast and is the law. ”

“ The Senate to consist of persons elected to serve during good behaviour; Their election to be made by electors chosen for that purpose by the people: in order to this the States to be divided into election districts. ”

“ HOW TO MAKE A PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL. Take a man who all his life loved office, merely for its emolument; and when measures which he had approved were eventually unfortunate, let him be notorious for relinquishing his share of the responsibility of them; and be stigmatized, for political courage in the period of prosperity, and for cowardice when there exists but the appearance of danger. ”

“ But now the ward politician of the great Babel steps upon the scene with his followers, the mighty man who packs caucuses and controls nominations, who does the heavy work at the ballot-box, and attends to the political work done in the grog-shops. ”

“ In fact, twenty or more names can be placed by petition on the official primary ballot of any party as candidates for any elective office, and the name of the person receiving the largest number of votes will be that of the candidate of a great party, to whose support the party will be committed and for whose conduct in office the party will be responsible, although the successful candidate may be entirely unknown to nineteen-twentieths of the voters at that particular primary. ”

“ An active opposition party made an open issue of the question as to whether the lieutenant-governor was eligible to become governor by succession, under the Constitution, or that a successor should be chosen at an election to be called by act of the Legislature. ”

“ The presidential electors are expected to vote for the candidate of the party which has chosen them, exercising no free will of their own. The Senate always confirms the nominations to a cabinet office made by the President. ”

“ If the executive be appointed, as has been determined, by the legislature, he will probably be appointed, either by joint ballot of both houses, or be nominated by the first and appointed by the second branch. ”

“ If this is accomplished, we shall then have the three great departments of the Government in the grasp of the "gerrymander," the legislative and executive directly and the judiciary indirectly through the power of appointment.
An election implies a body of electors having prescribed qualifications, each one of whom has an equal value and influence in determining the result. ”

“ In support of our nomination we hereby severally, each for himself or herself, solemnly and sincerely declare that we are, and we believe each of the persons nominated to be, honestly in favour of the candidate. ”

“ After a candidate has won the requisite number of points for the first degree, a unanimous vote of all leaders in council assembled, is necessary, after which, a solemn ceremony of initiation is conducted. ”

“ Your Republican candidate for the governorship, one of your purest, best informed and most useful and patriotic men who on every question of public interest stands on the side of the honor of the country and the welfare of its citizens; whom even the voice of slander cannot reach, and to whose hands his very opponents would without hesitation commit their interests. ”

“ My objection to the Resolve, or my reason why it should be repealed, (if it is one) is, that a delegation by the Legislature to the Electors appointed by the Citizens in their individual capacity for the Election of President and Vice President, to fill up vacancies in their own number, by death or resignation, is a dangerous power, and tends to the establishing a dangerous Precedent ”

“ Thus our President is chosen by ourselves, directly in practice, for we vote for A as elector only on the condition he will vote for B, our representatives by ourselves immediately, our Senate and judges of law through electors chosen by ourselves. ”