Subject of the lecture.
Continuation of the philosophical examination of the electoral system in England in the fourteenth century.
Characteristics of the elections.
Examination of the principle of direct or indirect election.
Forms Of Election.
I now pass to the second of the great questions to which every electoral system gives rise. What are the proceedings and forms of the election? In this question many others are comprised. These may be divided into two classes: the one class relating to the manner of assembling the electors; the other, to their mode of operation when assembled.
The close union of the electoral system with the exercise of other rights and political powers, has been productive in England of extensive and very beneficial consequences with regard to the mode of collecting the electors together.
Originally the election of county representatives required no special and extraordinary convocation of the electors. At appointed times, they repaired to the county-court to fulfil the functions with which they were charged, and on these occasions they elected their representatives. The first writs addressed to the sheriffs set forth: Quod eligi facias in proximo comitatu, "you will elect in the next county-court."
When the importance of the House of Commons had imparted a corresponding importance to the election of its members, and the necessity of preventing the abuses arising from elections made, so to speak, by chance, and without any one receiving special notice thereof, had become felt, the election was announced throughout the country by a proclamation summoning the attendance of all the electors and indicating the time and place of the convocation of Parliament. The election thus became a special and solemn act; but was always conducted in the county-court, and at one of its periodic meetings.
The Object Of Election.
Ultimately, by the lapse of time, the changes of the judicial system, and the development of every institution, the county-courts ceased to retain in England that position which they anciently occupied. Their jurisdiction is now rare and very limited; the greater part of the freeholders never attend them; nor are they of any considerable political importance. At the present day the sole important object of any assembly of freeholders in these courts is the election of representatives, but the circumscriptions remain the same: frequent relations still exist among the freeholders of the county; the county-court is still their centre: it is now the electoral college, and that is its sole important character; but the electoral college is still the ancient county-court.
The great political result of all these facts is this, that the election of representatives has always been, and still is, not the work of an assembly of men extraordinarily and arbitrarily convened for that purpose, among whom no other tie subsists, and who possess no regular and habitual common interests, but the fruit of ancient relations, of constant and tried influences among men otherwise united in the transaction and possession of common affairs, functions, rights, and interests. In examining the question in itself, we shall very soon become convinced that this is the only way to insure veracity in elections, and suitableness and authority in the elected representatives.