It Is The Duty Of An American Citizen To Vote; And When
He Has Voted, He Need Trouble Himself No Further Till The Time For
Voting Shall Come Round Again.
The candidate for whom he has voted
represents his will, if he have voted with the majority; and in
that case he has no right to look for further influence.
If he
have voted with the minority, he has no right to look for any
influence at all. In either case he has done his political work,
and may go about his business till the next year, or the next two
or four years, shall have come round. The Englishman, on the other
hand, will have no ballot-box, and is by no means inclined to
depend exclusively upon voters or upon voting. As far as voting
can show it, he desires to get the sense of the country; but he
does not think that that sense will be shown by universal suffrage.
He thinks that property amounting to a thousand pounds will show
more of that sense than property amounting to a hundred; but he
will not, on that account, go to work and apportion votes to
wealth. He thinks that the educated can show more of that sense
than the uneducated; but he does not therefore lay down any rule
about reading, writing, and arithmetic, or apportion votes to
learning. He prefers that all these opinions of his shall bring
themselves out and operate by their own intrinsic weight.
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