APPENDIX. CUMULATIVE VOTING. THE following remarks on cumulative voting, a subject which is attracting much attention, both in England and America, are taken from a report made to the senate of the United States, on the 2d March 1869, by the Hon. Charles R. Buckalew, from a select committee on representative reform, and from a speech of the same learned gentleman delivered in Philadelphia on the 19th November 1867. Ours is said to be a government of the people, meaning, by that term, the whole electoral body with whom the right of suffrage is lodged by our constitution. The people, considered in this sense, are said to rule themselves, and our system is, therefore, described as one of selfgovernment; those who are bound by the laws are to enact them. Power is, in the first instance, exerted by them, and obedience yielded afterwards; all rests upon their voluntary assent and upon their free action. But, as it is impossible, that the whole mass of the political community should assemble together, for the purpose of enacting or agreeing upon those rules of conduct which are to bind the citizen, and as it would be impossible for such an enormous body, even if convened, to act with convenience, or to act at all, we, like the people of other countries, have resorted to what is known as the representative system. (Cumulative voting.) From the impossibility of convening ourselves together to determine those great questions which pertain to the political and social bodies, and about which government is employed, we have determined to select from among ourselves a certain number of persons, with whom shall be lodged all our powers connected with legislation and with government, and whatsoever they shall determine shall be to us, and to all men within our borders, the law of individual conduct. In carrying on this system of representative government, the manner in which the agents of the people shall be selected, becomes in the highest degree important. Although by our theory, although by our fundamental principle of self-government, all the people are to be represented in the making of laws, and in the administration of government, in point of fact, we have not attained to this result. We have fallen short of it in our arrangements, and hence it is, that men of intelligence and sagacity, driven to their conclusions by thorough examination and full inquiry, have been compelled to declare that our system is imperfect, and imperfect to such an extent, that the quality of our government is affected and many pernicious things have place in its administration. Instead of there being, under the representative system, as it is known among us, a representation of the entire electoral body, of all the individuals who compose it, there is, in fact, a representation of a part only. In other words, representation, instead of being complete and coextensive with all those who are to be represented, and who are to be bound by the action of the government, is partial and restricted to a part only of the political body. In the infancy or in the early stages of a government, an imperfection of this kind may be permitted or overlooked. The affairs of society, when they are not complicated, before the community has become rich, before its affairs, social and political, become involved and intricate, may admit of very rude and imperfect arrangements; and yet (Cumulative voting.) the people may be well governed, the laws may be just and wholesome, and administered in the proper spirit and with complete success. But as wealth accumulates, as population becomes dense, and great cities grow up, as vices are spread through the social body, and as widelyextended and complicated political action becomes necessary, those earlier and simpler arrangements (imperfect always), become positively pernicious and hurtful; and the necessity arises for their correction, and that the system of government shall be purified and invigorated by amendment. In popular elections which are held or taken under the majority, or rather under the plurality rule (which ordinarily amounts to the same thing), the smaller number of voices which are spoken in the election of representatives are stricken from the count. When the officers charged with the duty of collecting the voices of the people come to make up the count and declare the result, they strike from the poll or the return all those who, when numbered, are the smaller quantity or the smaller political force. Then, after representatives selected in this manner by a majority merely (by a part of the community), are convened together, when they come to act in the business of government-to enact laws-they again act by a similar rule; the majority in the representative body pronounce the opinion and decree of that body, and what they pronounce becomes the law, binding upon all the people. Now, what is observable in this statement of facts? In the first place, in selecting representatives, we strike off a part of the political body; then again, in representative action, we strike off the minority of the representative body, who represent another portion or mass of the popular electors; and the result is, that our laws may be made by men who represent a minority of the people who are to be bound by the laws so made. A representative majority may not be, in point of fact, and often is not, a representative of the majority of the people. Is it not then evi (Cumulative voting.) dent that, instead of our representative system being what we originally intended it to be, and what we had supposed it would be, it is, in its practical action, characterized by imperfections which must arrest universal attention, when the facts are examined, and provoke a cry for some measure of amendment and reform. Formerly, when elections of representatives in congress were had by general ticket, a great inconvenience resulted, which became at last offensive and intolerable; for a political majority in a state, organized as a party, and casting its votes under a majority or plurality rule, secured, in ordinary cases, the entire representation from the state, and the minority were wholly excluded from representation. To avoid this inconvenience and evil, which had become general throughout the country, congress interposed and, by statute, required the states to select their representatives by single districts, that is, to divide their territory into districts, each of which should elect one member. This contrivance, dictated by congressional power, ameliorated our electoral system, mitigated the evil of which general complaint had been made, and was an unquestionable advance in the art of government amongst us. But, retaining the majority or plurality rule for elections, and restricting the power and free action of the elector, it was imperfect in its design, and has been unsatisfactory in practice; it has not secured fair representation of political interests, and it has continued in existence, in a somewhat mitigated form, the evils of the plan of election by general ticket, which it superseded; still, one body of organized electors vote down another; electoral corruption is not effectually checked; and the general result is, unfair representation of political interests in the popular house of congress. Besides, the single district plan has called into existence inconveniences peculiar to itself, and which did not attach to the former plans. It excludes from congress men of ability and merit, whose election was possible before, |