I. In whom are the electoral rights vested? that is to say, who are the electors?
II. How are these rights exercised? that is to say, what are the modes of procedure and the forms of election?
I wish to bring together in succession under these two questions, all the facts which relate thereto in the electoral system in England, in the fourteenth century, and to examine what general principles are contained in these facts.
And first, who were the electors? There were two classes of electors, in the same manner as there were two kinds of elections—those for counties and those for boroughs. This classification was not the result of a systematic combination nor of any previous intention: it was the expression of a fact.
Originally the knights, and a little later, the freeholders, alone formed the political nation, and alone possessed political rights. All enjoyed the same right of assisting at the court or council of their lord; politically, therefore, they were equal. When the towns had acquired sufficient importance to assist the central power when needful, and strength enough to resist it if occasion required, then inhabitants became citizens. A new nation truly then entered the state. But in entering there, it remained distinct from that by which it was preceded. The representatives of boroughs never deliberated with those of counties. Each of these two classes treated with the government of those affairs which interested itself, and consented on its own account to the taxes which weighed on itself alone. Originally there was no more coalition between the representatives than between the electors: the distinction was complete. It cannot be said that there was inequality, for there was no room for comparison. They were simply two different societies represented by their deputies to the same government; and the difference of the representation arose from no other principle than the real and primitive difference between the two societies.
Right Derived From Capacity.
Now if each of these societies is considered singly and in itself, an equality of political rights will be found among the citizens called to enjoy them. As, in the counties, all the freeholders had the same right to participate in the election, so, in the towns, every member of the corporation to which a charter had been granted shared in the election of their representatives.
Thus the variety of classes existing in society was reproduced in the representation. But, on the one hand, the different classes were completely independent of one another: the knights of the shire did not tax the citizens, nor the citizens the knights of the shire; much less did either take part in the other's elections. On the other hand, the principle of the equality of right prevailed in each class, among the citizens summoned to share in the election.
There is nothing, then, that can be deduced from this in favour of an inequality among men called by virtue of the same principle to take part in a like action. Such an inequality never existed in the electoral administration of England in the fourteenth century. The difference that existed was derived from society itself, and was continued even to the very centre of representation, which did not present a more uniform whole than society itself. The true, the sole general principle which is manifested in the distribution of electoral rights as it then existed in England, is this, that right is derived from, and belongs to, capacity. This requires some explanation.