Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/145

 sense of duty which assists and accompanies the performance of the other acts of life must be attached to the act of voting. The indispensable conditions are—to render the duty of every man as perceptible to his understanding as it can be made, and to remove every obstacle in the way of its performance. The opening to every elector of the power of performing his electoral duty is the first and prime necessity, in order to re-establish the sense of personal responsibility, or the empire of conscience, in electoral action. No man will feel a conscientious obligation to undertake a duty which he believes to be beyond his resources to accomplish. Conscience, as a motive of action, is too dull rather than too sensitive. It is not the habit of mankind to strain all their resources in order to bring their conduct within the dominion of conscience. It is well if they can be led to act in obedience to conscience, when the means are ready and the dictate clear. Lamentable will be the error of those legislators—unhappy the condition of that people—who think, and form their constitutional laws on the belief, that government by representative institutions can be safe or permanent without the aid of conscience. It may be more or less enlightened; but be it clear or dim, it must be the guide; and that it may have its full force, it should be brought home to the knowledge and conviction of every elector that his vote is entirely within his own control; that he has the power of giving it in favour of the man he deems the worthiest of his age, and that when given it cannot be with-out effect. The judgment of the whole electoral body of the kingdom must be made up of the aggregate of the judgment of every individual, and the conscience of the whole electoral college must be the contribution of the separate consciences of every individual. There is not a person in Lambeth, from the archbishop to the poorest labourer, who is not answerable for his own acts, according to the measure of the ability which God giveth. To the prophetic declaration, that every man shall suffer for his own sin, both faith and reason are alike