OPEN VOTING IN THE ELECTION OF SENATORS; SECRET VOTING AT POPULAR ELECTIONS.
Speech in the Senate, on the Bill concerning the Election of Senators, July 11, 1866.
The case of Senator Stockton, and the questions which then arose with regard to the election of Senators, suggested the necessity of legislation by Congress on this subject. Accordingly a bill was reported from the Judiciary Committee, “to regulate the times and manner of holding elections for Senators in Congress.”
July 11th, Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, moved an amendment to the bill, allowing every Legislature to settle the manner of voting, whether viva voce or by ballot. In the debate that ensued, Mr. Sumner said:—
MR. PRESIDENT,—I was impressed by a remark of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull], to the effect, that, while regulating the election of Senators, it would be well to require uniformity in all respects. I was impressed by the remark, for it seemed to me a key to this whole question. If it be of importance to require uniformity in all respects, then it seems to me we should not fail to prescribe in all respects the manner of the election. Nothing should be left uncertain. This, I understand, the bill before us undertakes to do. The amendment of the Senator from Maine, if adopted, would leave the manner of election in one important particular open to the caprice of each Legislature, so that one Legislature might act in one way and another in another way,—one might choose Senators by open vote, and another by secret vote.
Now, Sir, I remark, in the first place, that there should be uniformity. The question, then, is, Which system shall be adopted,—open voting, or secret voting? While I am entirely satisfied that at popular elections secret voting is preferable, and that every citizen, when about to vote at any such election, has a right to the protection of secrecy, I do not see my way to the same conclusion with regard to votes in a representative capacity. Such votes do not belong to the individual, if I may so express myself, but to his constituents. A sound policy requires that the constituent should be able to see the vote given by the representative; but that can be only where it is open. This argument seems to me unanswerable in principle.
Reference has been made to the English system; and I am glad to adduce it for example, not in the election of members of Parliament, but in elections by Parliament itself, as in the choice of Speaker. According to the principle I have already stated, elections for members of Parliament should enjoy the protection of secrecy, which they do not, while the representative in Parliament should be held to vote in such a way that his constituents may know what he does, and this is the English rule. The Speaker of the House of Commons is chosen by open voting, or viva voce.
Mr. Fessenden. We do not do it here in the election of a President of the Senate.