Vote of confidence

“ We want all the sincere opinions and public purposes which are shared by a reasonable number of electors to be fairly represented here; and not only their opinions, but that they should be able to give effect by their vote to their confidence in particular men. Then why, because it is a novelty, refuse to entertain the only mode in which it is possible to obtain this complete reflection in the House of the convictions and preferences existing in the constituent body—to make the House, what we are so often told that it ought to be, the express image of the nation? ”

“ It follows, and the friends of the ballot have always said, that secrecy is desirable, in cases in which the motives acting on the voter through the will of others are likely to mislead him, while, if left to his own preferences, he would vote as he ought. ”

“ One of them is the security afforded by the present system for perfect freedom in the giving of the vote, which vote has been not only not conferred as a favour, but imposed as a duty by the legislature on the members of the community. ”

“ While the people cannot soon be ready to vote intelligently on complicated questions, they can so vote on simple fundamental questions, if they will; and they can, far better than they now do, put men in power who will faithfully work for the public good. ”

“ In this land of ours, this America, the common citizen may criticize without restraint the policies of his Government or the aims of the chief executive. He may vote as his judgment or his conscience advises and not as a ruler dictates. ”

“ We must elect a man to the Presidency who is not only known to be honest himself, but who by his character and antecedents gives the strongest guarantees that he will be strong enough to keep the Government honest. If neither of the two parties gives us such a candidate, then I hope there will be independent men enough to put up one for themselves, even if they should cast for him only a conscience vote. ”

“ Speaker, that because I protest against converting this Republic into a democracy therefore I lack confidence in the people. No man has greater faith, sir, than I have in the intelligence, the integrity, the patriotism, and the fundamental common sense of the average American citizen. But I am for representative rather than for direct government, because I have greater confidence in the second thought of the people than I have in their first thought. ”

“ In both cases the confidence of the people alone can procure an election. This insinuation is totally unwarrantable. Is it proper that the Constitution should be thus attacked with the opinions of every private gentleman? ”

“ Thus equipped with this important knowledge, each voter, both men and women alike, would be prepared at any time to vote intelligently and wisely, on every question affecting the welfare of the republic as a whole, or in part. ”

“ I challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to listen but also to do our part to try to restore faith in our elections. We should all work to improve the integrity of the electoral system and the confidence of the American people in this bedrock of our great democratic Republic. ”

“ You are far stronger than all these politicians combined—and they know it—so long as you can overawe them with the confidence the people repose in your fearless rectitude. Any favor you grant them at the expense of your standing in the popular confidence will weaken your power over them and strengthen them against you. ”

“ Could matters be so managed that none but sensible, honest men should be allowed to vote, either for members of Parliament, or for any other public functionary, the country would, in a short time, put on a very improved appearance. ”

“ The undeniable tendency has been to widen the suffrage; for Americans, as a rule, have a large confidence in the reasonableness of human nature, and believe that public opinion, properly and deliberately ascertained, will prove to be a wise and safe guide. But they recognize that a popular election may not always represent public opinion, that a people, like an individual, may and probably will need time to arrive at the best thought, the wisest counsel. ”

“ Similarly, it would seem, one way to secure an intelligent electorate is to admit individuals to the suffrage only when they demonstrate a minimum capacity for civic service, but at the same time to recognize that full moral development can come only through actual exercise of the vote. ”

“ I am not afraid of the judgments so expressed, if you give men time to think, if you give them a clear conception of the things they are to vote for; because the deepest conviction and passion of my heart is that the common people, by which I mean all of us, are to be absolutely trusted. ”

“ The citizens who exercise the power of suffrage should be gifted with no small degree of political prudence: they should be loyal to the institutions, laws, and welfare of the country, able to form a good judgment about men and measures that are the issues in a campaign, and ready to vote according to conviction rather than prejudice or personal interest. ”

“ A reason for a vote, or other public proceeding, must always be found; and any reason seemed to be taken up rather than the obvious one, that a man votes according to the decision of his reason and conscience. I often mentioned this to men in office, or seeking to be so; and they received it with a smile or a laugh which wrung my heart. Of all heart-withering things, political scepticism in a republic is one of the most painful. ”

“ When they fail to vote, they fail to rule--fail in their duty to the people and to themselves. The duty to vote implies the duty to vote right, to vote for good men and for good measures. Therefore, citizens should study their duty as voters, that they may elect honest, capable, faithful officers, and support the parties and principles that will best promote the good of the country? ”

“ What confidence, then, could we reasonably feel that if we committed ourselves to the policy it proposed, our constituents would reap the fruits of the promise held out; and on what ground could we, as fair men, approach them and challenge their support? ”

“ A representative, a senator, a governor may be made, any day, by a vote. Ballots can make a president out of almost any thing; the most ordinary material is not too cheap and vulgar for that. But all the votes of all the conventions, all the parties, are unable to make a people capable of [Pg 197] self-government. They cannot put intelligence and justice into the head of a single man. ”

“ This is accomplished by enabling him to vote in secret; for, in that case, the man who could otherwise compel his vote, is ignorant in what direction it has been given. In all cases,therefore, in which the independent interests of the voter, those which, in propriety of language, may be called his own interests, would dictate the good and useful vote; but in which cases, at the same time, he is liable to be acted upon in the way either of good or of evil, by men whose interests would dictate a base and mischievous vote, the ballot is a great and invaluable security ... ”

“ We want the will of the people, not the votes of the people; and to give a man a vote against his will is to make voting more valuable than the democracy it declares. ”

“ The citizen is face to face with the problem, Shall he vote for candidates he knows to be unfit, merely to preserve his regularity, or shall he cast his ballot for the fittest men without respect to the party emblems on his ballot? ”

“ Fellows would not be repaired, but it would be aggravated, by his election. “He serves his party best who serves his country best,” and surely the rank and file of your party can, under existing circumstances, do no better service to themselves and to their cause than by showing that, whatever the vagaries of some of their leaders, the masses at least are sound at heart and worthy of confidence. ”

“ We may ask, to be sure,—Why need you vote? If new power is here, of a character which solves old tough questions, which puts me and all the rest in the wrong, tries and condemns our religion, customs, laws, and opens new careers to our young receptive men and women, you can well leave voting to the old dead people. Those whom you teach, and those whom you half teach, will fast enough make themselves considered and [421] strong with their new insight, and votes will follow from all the dull. ”

“ Though the fate of this vote is clear, the future of the American people’s faith in the core institution of this democracy remains uncertain. We as a body must turn our focus to protecting the integrity of our elections and restoring every American's faith that their voice and their vote matter. ”

“ But it can be said of none of us, least of all of the humble individual who now addresses you, that his continued possession of a share of public confidence, of the lead of a party, or of a seat in parliament, is essential or even highly important to the public interest; while for all of us what is needful is not that we should retain, but that we should deserve the public confidence; not that we should keep, but that while we do keep we should honestly use our seats in parliament. ”

“ They must vote at a particular place, at a particular time, and under particular conditions, or not at all. It is in these modes that we are to ascertain the will of the American people; and our Constitution and laws know no other mode. We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, nor from tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, the prudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are not American modes of signifying the will of the people, and they never were. ”

“ If we ask these ladies ourselves what a vote is, we shall get a very vague reply. It is the only question, as a rule, for which they are not prepared. For the truth is that they go mainly by precedent; by the mere fact that men have votes already. ”

“ It is not only our duty to vote but we should study and understand public questions so that we can vote intelligently on the issues of the day. We should be interested in the ballot for it is one way in which public opinion may be expressed.
Every man or woman under the protection of our government should feel obligated to give his or her best to make our government one of high ideals. ”

“ How they prayed for calmness, prudence, wisdom; begged that the legislators should not suffer themselves to be led into the temptation of partisan pride or party predilection; besought them to remember that their own just powers were loaned to them by the people at the polls, and that they must decide the people's will and not their own political preference ”

“ And they are apt to grow weary of continued appeals to vindicate their character and conduct at the polls, since success, however triumphant, is of such short duration, and confidence is so easily loosened. These considerations, which are always of some weight, are especially applicable to services in a national legislature, at a distance from the constituents, and in cases, where a great variety of information, not easily accessible, is indispensable to a right understanding of the conduct and votes of representatives. ”

“ To a member of the cabinet who had transgressed by absence from a division of life and death:—
I should not act frankly by you if I did not state it, without hesitation as a general and prospective proposition, that, without reference to the likelihood or unlikelihood of defeat, upon motions which must from their nature be votes of confidence, [there can] be but one rule for the members of the government, and that is to give the votes themselves which at the same time the government with less strong title is asking from the members of their party. ”

“ Such popular maxims as: "No man should be a judge in his own case," "The ballot a responsibility," "Patriotism above party," "Measures, not men," "A public office is a public trust," fostered self-restraint and helped the voters to take an impersonal, long-range view of political contests. ”

“ Trusting in the same confidence, and pursuing the same device, he appealed to the civic consciences of men in the open field of free debate, by the single instrument of reasoned speech, until, by his persuading arguments, he consolidated into effective harmony and led to national victory a party of independent voters, with watchword, platform, and experience all untried. ”

“ I promised my voters to be their voice. In this branch of government in which I now serve, it is my separate but equal obligation to weigh in on this election and object.
Are we not a government of, by, and for the people? ”

“ In the Twenty-first Century, doubtless, a legislator will owe his election to the confidence of his constituents in his ability to exert this kind of suasion. The candidate who can not by the power of his unaided eye compel his opponent to eat shoe-blacking and jump over a broomstick will not have the ghost of a chance at the polls. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I have found no better way of selecting the man in whom they place the highest confidence, than that delineated in the plan of the convention—nor has the gentleman told us. Perhaps it will be found impracticable to elect him by the immediate suffrages of the people. ”

“ Thus we shall deserve and possess the increased confidence of mankind, and enhance the credit of republican government by showing how an intelligent democracy can, unseduced by vulgar ambition, remain true to itself. ”

“ But it is not sufficient that your opinions be right; for the welfare of all that is essential that you so act as to make your convictions tell. You have in your hand the powerful weapon of the ballot, and that weapon you are now again called upon to wield for good or evil. ”