Vote of censure

“ But, as was proved, things had become too bad for even the Caucus to prevail, and a Vote of Censure was proposed by the Leader of the Opposition, and, after an exciting debate, extending over three evenings, the vote was carried by a majority of thirty-five, notwithstanding that the Irish Party threw their weight in the scale for the Government. But many prominent Liberals went into the lobbies with the Opposition, and some of the Liberal party abstained from voting at all. ”

“ The triumph of the oligarchy was in proportion to their fright. The House having passed a vote of censure on Lord Buckingham, the Viceroy, for refusing to transmit their address to the Regent, a threat was now held out that every one who had voted for the censure, holding an office of honour or emolument in Ireland, would be made "the victim of his vote." ”

“ Later, when Grandolph remarked that Prime Minister had challenged them to move Vote of Censure, Mr. G. angrily retorted, "I did nothing of the sort." Too late now; Right Hon. Gentlemen on Front Opposition Bench having put their heads together, determined to ride in at gate Cameron obligingly opened. Drew up Motion of Vote of Censure, and Mr. G. must needs, out of his diminishing hoard of days, find one for debating it; Opposition mean to make it two, or even three. ”

“ They may be in no danger of prosecution or impeachment; but they are no less bound to bow to other signs of the will of the House of Commons; the unwritten Constitution makes a vote of censure as effectual as an impeachment, and in many cases it makes a mere refusal to pass a ministerial measure as effectual as a vote of censure. The written Law knows nothing of the Cabinet or the Prime Minister; it knows them as members of one or the other House of Parliament, as Privy Councillors, as holders, each man in his121 own person, of certain offices ”

“ Madison opposed the resolution, apparently believing that if it were enacted it would be a bill of attainder. His views in this regard are reported as follows: 'It is in vain to say that this indiscriminate censure is no punishment. If it falls on classes, or individuals, it will be a severe punishment. * * * Is not this proposition, if voted, a vote of attainder?' 4 Annals of Cong. 934 (1794) .↑ But compare Madison in Federalist Paper No. 42: 'As treason may be committed against the United States, the authority of the United States ought to be enabled to punish it. ”

“ The man who can right himself by a vote, will seldom resort to a musket. Grievances, moreover, are less frequent, the most corrupt representatives of a democratick constituency generally standing in awe of its censure. ”

“ When the Constitution determines that the state legislatures are to elect, he exclaims, "The people's rights are invaded!—the election should be immediately by them, and not by their representatives." How, then, can we satisfy him, as he is determined to censure, in this Constitution, that mode of election which he so highly approves in the old Confederation? ”

“ Au point de vue moral, la censure n'a été bonne à rien; au point de vue politique, bonne à rien. Pourquoi donc y tenez-vous?
Il y a plus. Comme la censure est réputée veiller aux mœurs publiques, le peuple abdique sa propre autorité, sa propre surveillance; il fait volontiers cause commune avec les licences du théâtre contre les persécutions de la censure. Ainsi que je l'ai dit un jour à l'Assemblée nationale, de juge, il se fait complice.
La difficulté même de créer des censeurs montre combien la censure est un labeur impossible. ”

“ In the first place, a distant prospect of public censure would be a very feeble restraint on power from those excesses to which it might be urged by the force of present motives. Is it to be imagined that a legislative assembly, consisting of a hundred or two hundred members, eagerly bent on some favorite object, and breaking through the restraints of the Constitution in pursuit of it, would be arrested in their career, by considerations drawn from a censorial revision of their conduct at the future distance of ten, fifteen, or twenty years? ”

“ The Democrats in Congress being in such a small minority as to be unable to do any thing effectual either to impede or advance legislation, could only present their vain protests in words. Chafing under the difficulties they encountered, it is not surprising that at times they used language so ill-timed and unparliamentary as to call forth the censure of the House. ”

“ Shall the House of Representatives, usurping the powers of the Senate, proceed to try the President through the agency of a secret committee of the body where it is impossible he can make any defence, and then, without affording him an opportunity of being heard, pronounce a judgment of censure against him? The very same rule might be applied, for the very same reason, to every judge of every court in the United States. From what part of the Constitution is this terrible inquisitorial power derived? No such express power exists. ”

“ On n'indique guère qu'un moyen: faire exercer la censure par des personnages considérables, des membres de l'Institut, de l'Assemblée nationale, et autres, qui fonctionneront au nom du gouvernement, avec une certaine indépendance, dit-on, une certaine autorité, et, à coup sûr, une grande honorabilité. Il n'y a à cela qu'une petite objection, c'est que c'est impossible....
Croyez-moi, n'accouplez jamais ce mot, qui est si noble, l'Institut de France, avec ce mot qui l'est si peu, la censure!
Dans votre comité de censure, mettez-vous des membres de l'Assemblée nationale élus par cette assemblée? ”

“ The law, therefore, which forbids the speaking evil of the ruler of the people, is certainly to be understood with proper exceptions, so as not to exclude any just censure of rulers, when their abuse of office, and the cause of truth and justice, may render such censure expedient and seasonable. ”

“ The principle of fairness to the minority is never lost sight of, and expresses itself in many different ways. When, for instance, the Leader of the Opposition gives notice of a motion of censure on the Government, the latter consider it their duty to accord their critics an early opportunity for its discussion ”

“ Censorship, almost extinct in the restriction of the national literature, thrives in every other field. Censorships abound. Food, drink, movies, politics, baseball, diversion, dress—all these are under the jurisdiction of a continually aroused censorship. The pulpits and editorial pages emit sonorous hymns of taboo. Every caption writer is an Isaiah, every welfare worker fancies himself the handwriting on the wall. Unchallenged by the vote of the masses or by any outward evidence of mass dissent, the platitudes pile up, the nation is filled from morning to morning with stentorian clamor. ”

“ And we incur this appalling risk for the want of a single, or at the most, a handful of Censors, invested with a simple but limitless discretion to excise or to suppress entirely such political utterances as may seem to their private judgments calculated to cause pain or moral disturbance in the average man. The masses, it is true, have their protection and remedy against injudicious or inflammatory politicians in the Law and the so-called democratic process of election ”

“ They who escape from justice will not suffer a question upon reputation. They will take the crown of the causeway: they will be revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors. Nobody will dare to censure that popular part of the tribunal, whose only restraint on misjudgment is the censure of the public. ”

“ The election law should be carefully examined, and such guards thrown around it as will most effectually secure the sanctity of the ballot-box and preserve it from the taint of a single illegal vote. The man who will deliberately tamper with the elective franchise and dare to offer an illegal vote, strikes at the foundation of justice, undermines the pillars of society, applies the torch to the temple of our liberties, and should receive severe punishment. ”

“ An unexceptional censure ought not to be pronounced without a more complete knowledge of the subject than can be gained from novels and newspapers; still less ought this censure to extend to America as a whole, for the people of the Northern States are more ardent abolitionists than ourselves—more consistent, in fact, for they have no white slaves, no oppressed factory children, the cry of whose wrongs ascends daily into the ears of an avenging Judge. ”

“ No person shall, directly or indirectly, use, or threaten to use, force, coercion, violence, restraint, or undue influence, or inflict, or threaten to inflict, harm or damage on any person, in order to induce him to vote, or refrain from voting, for any candidate, party, or measure. No minister, priest, or officer of a church, shall otherwise than by public speech or print persuade any voter to vote or refrain from voting for any candidate, party, or measure. No person shall, by abduction, fraud, or duress, impede or prevent any voter in the free exercise of the franchise in any election. ”

“ Government of an Emperor is as well as government by unreasoning, tyrannous majority. In government, middle ground is rarely found, and if it is, it is only for a temporary period and for reasons of expediency: it; is a question of republic or empire, freedom or slavery, liberty or despotism, the life or death of the people! Censorship by the majority—as to what the individual shall eat, or drink, or wear, or religiously or irreligiously do or observe—is as hateful to the genuine American citizen as would be the censorship of a Czar! ”

“ By what fair rule shall the stigma be put upon one section, while the other escapes? A congressional election in New York last week, with the polling place in touch of every voter, brought out only 6,000 votes of 28,000—and the lack of opposition is assigned as the natural cause. In a district in my State, in which an opposition speech has not been heard in ten years and the polling places are miles apart—under the unfair reasoning of which my section has been a constant victim—the small vote is charged to be proof of forcible suppression. ”

“ Is it not an expression of the citizen's conviction concerning the sort of government he desires? How, then can his vote be thrown away if it really expresses his conviction? He is entitled to a single voice, and provided that he avails himself of his right to declare through the ballot box his conviction, no matter whether he stands alone or with ten thousand, his vote is not thrown away.
The only vote that is wasted is the vote that is cast for something other than the voter's earnest conviction, the vote of cowardice and compromise. ”

“ Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politic, which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick?
The same benign necessity and the same practical abuse appear in the parties, into which each State divides itself, of opponents and defenders of the administration of the government. Parties are also founded on instincts, and have better guides to their own humble aims than the sagacity of their leaders. ”

“ It is to be noted, in the first place, that a very few of the people can put all the people to the trouble and expense of a vote upon any measure, and the inquiry may well arise whether the cause of settled and orderly government will be promoted by vesting power in the minority thus to harass and annoy the majority. In my own state, for example, who can doubt that the prohibitory amendment, or some one of the statutes enacted for its enforcement, would have been resubmitted again and again if the initiative had been in force there these past twenty-five years. ”

“ A government changeable in its policy must soon lose its sense of national character, and forfeit the respect of foreigners. Senators will not be solicitous for the reputation of public measures, in which they had but a temporary concern, and will feel lightly the burden of public disapprobation, in proportion to the number of those who partake of the censure. ”

“ Rutledge, of South Carolina, would not oppose a reference if he were sure the committee would report as strong a censure as the memorial deserved; such a censure as a set of men ought to meet who attempt to seduce the servants of gentlemen traveling to the seat of government, and who are incessantly importuning congress to interfere in a business with which, by the constitution, they have no concern. ”

“ Time only will shew whether the general censure, which you afterwards qualify, if not contradict, and the unmerited contempt that you have ostentatiously displayed of the National Assembly, be founded on reason, the offspring of conviction, or the spawn of envy. ”

“ Here is conceded the power only to prescribe times, places and manner of holding the elections; and even with these Congress may interfere, with all excepting the mere place of choosing Senators. Thus you see, there is not the slightest permission in either section for the States to discriminate against the right of any class of citizens to vote. Surely, to regulate cannot be to annihilate! ”

“ The interest of the people is that there should be full liberty of censure on every public officer, and on every public act or measure. The interest of a ruling class, whether in an aristocracy or an aristocratic monarchy, is to assume to themselves an endless variety of unjust privileges, sometimes benefiting their pockets at the expense of the people, sometimes merely tending to exalt them above others, or, what is the same thing in different words, to degrade others below themselves. ”