Majority opinion

“ If it be said that public opinion is sufficient restraint, the answer is that in a democracy, or in a republic with universal suffrage, the efficient public opinion is practically that of the majority of the electorate, and it is an acknowledged truism that the unrestrained majority is even more likely than the few to be oppressive of the in [Pg 98] dividual. The opinion of the many is more variable than that of the few, more likely to be swayed by sympathy, prejudice, and other emotions. ”

“ PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. By means of preferential voting it is possible to make representative bodies a mirror not of the majority party, but of the real divisions of opinion in a community. One of the great evils in our present system of majority rule is the suppression of the wishes of the minority-which may amount to nearly half the community. ”

“ To responsible politicians the course to be pursued will depend mainly on fluctuating conditions of public opinion. Restrictions will be imposed, but only when and as far as they are supported by a genuine public opinion. It must not be a mere majority, but a large majority; a steady majority; a genuine majority representing a real and earnest desire, and especially in the classes who are most directly affected; not a mere factitious majority such as is often created by skilful organisation and agitation; by the enthusiasm of the few confronting the indifference of the many. ”

“ The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed. ”

“ Yet, as they have a tendency to impress some degree of respect for them, to establish the public opinion in their favour, and to rouse the attention of the whole community, it may be one means to control the majority from those acts, to which they might be otherwise inclined. ”

“ Few make up their minds; they are made up for them.
The common opinion which reflects the mind of the great majority, embodies the prevailing idea, the universal sentiment, and directs the common action is called. ”

“ A narrow majority should never enforce radical changes or unduly coerce a minority. Laws, measures and policies should as nearly as may be represent the average opinion after individuals have been counted and weighed. Revolutions are likely to keep on revolving and to be turned by cranks. ”

“ In democratic governments the temptations are of a different kind. Popularity is there the chief source of power, and the supreme tribunal consists of numbers counted by the head. The well-being of the great mass of the people is the true end of politics, but it does not necessarily follow that the opinion of the least instructed majority is the best guide to obtaining it. ”

“ The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able. ”

“ All that we can expect from such an effort to interest them, as I have described and recommended, is to get a majority on our side, so that we may have only a small minority, to deal with by other measures. ”

“ One pre eminently democratic quality our party with this glorious record unmistakably possesses, to do it justice, far beyond all true democracy, namely, a colossal respect for popular majorities. A majority it must have at all costs, and since it would have hard work to convince one, it buys its majority wherever it can. ”

“ Our popular form of government has so habituated us to seeing public questions decided by the voice of the majority, and the system is so manifestly equitable in the cases daily before us, that there has been produced in the general mind, an unhesitating belief that the majority’s right is unbounded. ”

“ Supposing the representatives to express the mind of their constituents, the question has been decided by a bare two-fifths of the nation, instead of a majority of it. Thus the present system is no more just to majorities than to minorities. ”

“ Speaking of the majority as the popular will, he says, “no obstacles exist which can impede, or so much as retard its progress, or which can induce it to heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. ”

“ No juggling with political machinery can evade this law of nature. However it may seem to lead, the dull-witted majority in the end follows a keener-witted minority. That is its salvation and the secret of progress. ”

“ The pleasure of a majority of the Assembly? God forbid! How many things have been done by majorities of a large body in heat and passion, that they themselves afterwards have repented of! Besides, would the minority choose to put themselves in the power of a majority? Few men, I presume, are always in a majority. None, therefore, could have even a chance of being secure, but sycophants that will for ever sacrifice reason, conscience, and duty, to the preservation of a temporary popular favor. ”

“ No one knows better than he that, in the most democratic of communities, it is the wills of the few that count. The organization of a party, clever leadership, the command of the press, the catching phrases of the popular orator, the street procession, the brass band, the possession of the ability to cajole and to threaten—these play no mean role in the outcome, which may be the adoption of a state policy of which a large proportion of the majority voting may be quite unable to comprehend the significance. Shall we say, in such a case, that the will of the majority was for the ultimate end? ”

“ You begin by recognizing the rights of the majority. You end by believing that the majority must be right. You cease to struggle against it. In other words, you yield to what Mr. Bryce calls "the fatalism of the multitude." ”

“ Ever since man first espoused the doctrine of majority rule in popular Government, students have been perplexed by the problems presented when [84] three or more candidates for one office, or three or more solutions of one question, have been before the people. Likewise, the utter elimination of the minority from a voice in affairs, and its treatment as a wholly negligible factor, has troubled philosophers and statesmen who desire justice and truly representative government. ”

“ Indeed, the necessary effect of the concurrent majority is, to make the government more popular — that is, to require more wills to put it in action, than if any one of the majorities, of which it is composed, were its sole element — as will be apparent by reference to figures. ”

“ Is it reasonable to think that even much more cultivated minds than those of the numerical majority can be expected to be, will have so delicate a conscience, and so just an appreciation of what is against their own apparent interest, that they will reject these and the innumerable other fallacies which will press in upon them from all quarters as soon as they come into power, to induce them to follow their own selfish inclinations and short-sighted notions of their own good, in opposition to justice, at the expense of all other classes and of posterity? ”

“ CORONATIONS AND CRUCIFIXIONS. Do you know, my friends, it is so easy to agree with the ignorant majority. It is so easy to make the people applaud an empty platitude. It takes some courage to face that beast called the Majority, and tell him the truth to his teeth! ”

“ The majority, if you mean the greater number of people, never did rule and never will. It's the few that does the thinking, does the ruling. Why, my boy, there are times in our lives when God and one are a majority. ”

“ Upon this fact rests the basis of my wonderful improvements. If the majority be wrong, the inference is obvious—the minority must be right. Then, in future, let everything be conducted by the minority—the sensible few. ”

“ They can carry everything which appertains to that, and nothing else. And so it is; no sooner do they get a great majority on some important question than they find themselves in a minority, perhaps more than one, on something else. ”

“ The act itself can produce nothing [312] but good; it enables the wise few to superintend the actions of the unwise many, and it subjects the “tyrant majority,” as ever should be the case, to the will of the favored minority. ”

“ They usually represent not the collective wisdom of the whole community, but the wisdom of the majority after it has been checked, modified, and perhaps nullified by the opposing wisdom of an almost equal minority. ”

“ If democracy means the certain ascendancy of the majority, there are no means of insuring that but by allowing every individual figure to tell equally in the summing up. Any minority left out, either purposely or by the play of the machinery, gives the power, not to the majority, but to a minority in some other part of the scale. ”

“ Must the wise, the virtuous and worthy part of the community, who constituted a very great majority, surrender their liberty, and involve their posterity in misery, in complaisance to a detestable, though small, party of knaves, and a despicable, though more numerous, company of fools? ”

“ Whatever may be said concerning its limitations and its perversions, this, then, is an age of democracy, founded upon a widespread faith in majority rule. Whether it be true or not, the conviction is almost universal that the majority can, through its political power, accomplish any and every change, no matter how revolutionary. ”

“ The strongest point to be made in behalf of even such rudimentary political forms as democracy has already attained, popular voting, majority rule and so on, is that to some extent they involve a consultation and discussion which uncover social needs and troubles. ”

“ Looking at democracy in the way in which it is commonly conceived, as the rule of the numerical majority, it is surely possible that the ruling power may be under the dominion of sectional or class interests, pointing to conduct different from that which would be dictated by impartial regard for the interest of all. Suppose the majority to be whites, the minority negroes, or vice versâ: is it likely that the majority would allow equal justice to the minority? ”

“ The gradation of reasoning, "that each individual ought to be governed by the majority of some party: that a majority thus obtained, is a genuine republican majority: and that it is both the government and the nation," seizes upon the amiable and honest respect of the people for their representatives, and rewards them for their virtues by the calamities of a war, entered into contrary to the true wishes of themselves. ”

“ But with you the majority is the government, and has the rich, who are always in a minority, absolutely at its mercy. The day will come when the multitude of people, none of whom has had more than a half a breakfast, or expects to have more than a half a dinner, will choose a legislature. ”

“ Here everybody feels himself as good as anybody else. Here the masses have from generation to generation been accustomed to the exercise of political power in their own right and in their own way, — at least in the way they tolerate, if they do not in every respect specifically direct it. Here the opinion of the masses, in the broadest sense of the term; the way in which they feel and think or understand their interests, or misunderstand them, as the case may be, expressed in the greatest number of votes, are the real power that controls the government. ”

“ It may constitute only a minority of all the voters of the community, but its compact organization, its strict discipline, its constant readiness for united action, will usually give it a great advantage over the majority, which but seldom can be united against it without the impulse of an uncommon excitement. ”

“ We are further told that the principle of majority involves the submission of the minority and of the individual, for these must yield to the desires of the majority, and must recognise the morally coercive energy of the common action. ”

“ We cannot suppose that he would recommend popular election; for that is merely an appeal to public opinion. And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best? ”

“ Generally it has been, and in great communities it must be, by the choosing of a few to speak and act in behalf of the many: and, as there will hardly ever be perfect unanimity amongst men assembled for any purpose whatever, where fact and argument are to decide the question, the decision is left to the majority, the compact being that the decision of the majority shall be that of the whole. ”

“ Majority rule, under certain prescribed conditions, is a necessary constituent of any practicable democratic organization; but the actions or decisions of a majority need not have any binding moral and national authority. ”

“ "The man who is right is a majority," is an aphorism struck out by Mr. ”

“ Everything, on the other hand, that brings the minority and the majority into presence, before the moment when they must appear in public and pronounce their decision, draws them for a time out of their habitual sphere, and leads them to extend or to correct their ideas. ”

“ Side by side with the lack of true proportion in the view taken by the majority of men, of the relative importance of different measures, stand the constant errors made by the people in their judgment of the character and objects of different politicians. ”

“ Wherever the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to have abated little of its claim to be obeyed. ”

“ We must ask ourselves tonight how we can forge and wield a popular majority from one end of this country to the other, a majority united on basic, positive goals with a platform broad enough and deep enough to endure long into the future, far beyond the lifespan of any single issue or personality. ”