Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/163

 twenty thousand voices, haye certainly done their part in teaching the people to abuse their political powers and despise minorities. Be sure that the sins of a nation, and of a class, will find them out.

Great as would be the national gain, from the extinction of the corrupt and illegitimate influences which now preside at elections, the benefit of the proposed system would be infinitely more extensive, in bringing into action all the better and more generous motives. It would not only depose vice, but it would set up virtue in its place. The support which is rendered to a candidate, by the admirers of his character and political principles,—instead of being as it now is, from its absolute necessity, regarded as a favour of inestimable personal value, which the candidate is scarcely ever considered sufficiently to repay,—will become a voluntary and disinterested service. The electors will know that their support is not necessarily indispensable, and that the candidate may be returned by the votes of other constituencies; and this knowledge at once reduces the artificial and conventional value of that support to its just dimensions. The candidate and the electors are, by the present system, placed in a false position. Many of the electors are made to be mercenary in their conduct, by the very fact that their individual aid is of the greatest moment, whilst, if that were not so, they would voluntarily render to the candidate the same, or more hearty, assistance, from their attachment to his sentiments and opinions. The judges who sit in our Courts of Equity, and have occasion rigidly to scrutinise the motives and conduct of men, frequently meet with examples of the difficulty of blending together two motives, one generous and the other venal. The lower impulse is invariably destructive of the higher. Respect, admiration, and attachment, are unbought homage. The zeal and industry which, if it had not been diverted from its natural course, would have been freely devoted to uphold some public principle, is, owing to the price attached to it, perverted to