Mr. Bright and his
school of democrats think themselves greatly concerned in
maintaining that the franchise is what they term a right, not a trust.
Now this one idea, taking root in the general mind, does a moral
mischief outweighing all the good that the ballot could do, at the
highest possible estimate of it. In whatever way we define or
understand the idea of a right, no person can have a right (except
in the purely legal sense) to power over others: every such power,
which he is allowed to possess, is morally, in the fullest force of
the term, a trust. But the exercise of any political function,
either as an elector or as a representative, is power over others.
Those who say that the suffrage is not a trust but a right will
scarcely accept the conclusions to which their doctrine leads. If it
is a right, if it belongs to the voter for his own sake, on what
ground can we blame him for selling it, or using it to recommend
himself to any one whom it is his interest to please? A person is
not expected to consult exclusively the public benefit in the use he
makes of his house, or his three per cent stock, or anything else to
which he really has a right. The suffrage is indeed due to him,
among other reasons, as a means to his own protection, but only
against treatment from which he is equally bound, so far as depends on
his vote, to protect every one of his fellow-citizens.
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