Now if the primary electors adopt this view of their
position, one of the principal uses of giving them a vote at all is
defeated: the political function to which they are called fails of
developing public spirit and political intelligence; of making
public affairs an object of interest to their feelings and of exercise
to their faculties. The supposition, moreover, involves inconsistent
conditions; for if the voter feels no interest in the final result,
how or why can he be expected to feel any in the process which leads
to it? To wish to have a particular individual for his
representative in parliament is possible to a person of a very
moderate degree of virtue and intelligence; and to wish to choose an
elector who will elect that individual is a natural consequence: but
for a person does not care who is elected, or feels bound to put
that consideration in abeyance, to take any interest whatever in
merely naming the worthiest person to elect another according to his
own judgment, implies a zeal for what is right in the abstract, an
habitual principle of duty for the sake of duty, which is possible
only to persons of a rather high grade of cultivation, who, by the
very possession of it, show that they may be, and deserve to be,
trusted with political power in a more direct shape. Of all public
functions which it is possible to confer on the poorer members of
the community this surely is the least calculated to kindle their
feelings, and holds out least natural inducement to care for it, other
than a virtuous determination to discharge conscientiously whatever
duty one has to perform: and if the mass of electors cared enough
about political affairs to set any value on so limited a participation
in them, they would not be likely to be satisfied without one much
more extensive.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220