Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/195

 more than a century, constituted a method mutual and national consultation and encouragement in the pursuit of public ends. The advocates of the ballot would, probably, say that they do not object to public meetings, for a man who wished to conceal his political opinions would not be obliged to attend them; and if he did attend them, he would be perfectly at liberty to applaud any opinion, however he may dislike it, and afterwards to compensate himself by voting the contrary way. The ballot, therefore, they would say, has nothing in it antagonistic to public meetings. We demand, say they, that the temporal interests of every man shall be protected from injury resulting from his opinions. No man has anything to do with the religion, the politics, or the morality of another. No man has a right, authoritatively, to determine what the religion, the politics, or the morals of another shall be; and what he cannot authoritatively determine, we demand that he shall be prevented, as far as possible, from influencing. All these things every man has a right to choose for himself. We demand for every man that none of his temporal advantages, of any kind, shall be restricted, or diminished, owing to prejudices which others may have against his religion, his politics, or his morals. A man may have prejudices in favour of Christianity, or of some special confession,—in favour of peace, of a general system of national education, or of free trade,—or in favour of a strict code of morals, and he may inculcate such doctrines, by his mouth or his pen; but he has no right to consider any of such things in the choice of his friends, his tradesmen, his tenants, or his servants. For none of these opinions is one man answerable to another,—and he usurps a right which does not belong to him who, beyond argument, attempts to exercise any influence or control on such points.

The reply to this may be,—that although it is true every man is accountable only to a higher judge for his religion, his