weight. If there be no law—as in our electoral system there is no law—which requires a moiety, or any definite proportion of the entire body, including both the present or active and the absent or inactive members to form an effectual majority, the six must prevail, and yet the excluded candidates, or propositions, might perfectly express the sentiments of those who put them forward; and, moreover, may even be in harmony with the opinions of the most part of the fifty voters, and who are thus silenced by the six. An attempt has been made in a few recent borough elections to prevent the division of parties or interests amongst several candidates, by subjecting them to the difficult, cumbrous, and often illusory trial of a preliminary ballot. Under the prevailing systems, some means of giving unity to party action becomes, indeed, indispensable unless the result be abandoned to accident or chance. In America it has led to that species of political movement known by the appellation of the “caucus.”[1] It is, in fact, the method by which a few clever and adroit persons substitute their dictation for that of the leadership which, in earlier times, was conceded to territorial power, high birth, or natures fitted to command. The misfortune is that the qualities which are best adapted to succeed by intrigue, cajolery, and pandering to mean desires and appetites are far more common and degrading than those which formerly compelled submission, if they did not always inspire confidence.
With regard to the character of government by a numerical majority, where there is no constitutional provision for giving due weight to the minority, it is useful to listen to republican statesmen. Mr. Calhoun, who occupied at different times some of the highest offices in the government of the United States, and who studied American institutions with
- ↑ For the origin of this word, see Pickering's Vocabulary, Boston, 1816; Webster's Dictionary, New York, 1828. On the operation of the caucus, Tremenheere, Constitution of the United States, p. 223.
