History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe

by François Guizot

Source Of Indirect Election.

This is precisely what is done, à posteriori, by indirect election; and thereby it introduces into representative government positive disorder, for it creates a means of tyranny for the benefit of the majority. It may even happen, and examples of this are not wanting, that indirect election, when thus employed to eliminate a portion of the natural electoral capacities, may result in turning against the majority itself, and putting it in the minority. A supposition will clearly explain this idea. If, in the fourteenth century, it had been decreed in England, that "the copyholders and villeins should unite in nominating the electors of the members of Parliament," is it not evident that their choice would have fallen on the lords whose lands they rented or cultivated by any particular title; and that the inhabitants of the towns, the citizens, would have been almost absolutely excluded from the House of Commons? Thus, this part of the nation, which had already attained so much importance, would have seen themselves deprived of the exercise of political rights by a system which urged, as its sole specious pretext, the extension of these rights to a greater number of individuals.

This is, in fact, the true source of indirect election; it is derived from the sovereignty of numbers, and from universal suffrage: and as it is impossible to reduce these two principles to practice, it is attempted to retain some shadow of their existence. The principle of representative government is violated, its nature debased, and the right of election weakened, in order that consistent adherence to an erroneous doctrine may, to all appearance, be maintained. Who can fail to see that such a system must necessarily enervate election, and that reality and energy can be preserved by the system of direct election alone? Every action, the result of which is distant and uncertain, inspires little interest; and the same men who will unitedly display great discernment and animation in the choice of their municipal officers, would give their suffrage blindly and coldly to subsequent electors whom their thoughts never follow into the future in which they interfere so little. This pretended homage to wills not sufficiently enlightened to be trusted with a greater share of influence in the choice of representatives, is at the bottom nothing but miserable quackery and lying adulation; and under a simulated extension of political rights there is concealed the restriction, mutilation, and enfeebling of these rights in the sphere in which they really exist, and in which they might be exercised in all their fulness and with complete effect.

The true way to diffuse political life in all directions, and to interest as great a number of citizens as possible in the concerns of the State, is not to make them all combine in the same acts, although they may not all be equally capable of performing them; but to confer upon them all those rights which they are capable of exercising. Rights are worth nothing unless they are full, direct, and efficacious. In place of perverting political rights by weakening them, under the pretext of giving them diffusion, let local liberties everywhere exist, guaranteed by real rights. The electoral system itself will thus become much more powerful than it could possibly be under a pretended system of universal suffrage.

Practice Of Open Voting.

The last important fact to be noticed in the electoral system of England in the fourteenth century, is open voting. Some have attempted to regard this as an absolute principle capable of constant application; but we think it ought not so to be considered. The only absolute principle in this matter is, that election should be free, and should truly display the true thoughts and real wishes of the electors. If open voting puts a serious restraint on liberty of elections and perverts their results, it ought to be abolished. Doubtless such a condition argues infirmity of liberty and timidity of morals, and proves that a portion of society is in conflict with influences which it is afraid to shake off, though it ardently desires to be rid of them. This is a melancholy fact, but it is one which liberty, rendered fruitful by time, can alone destroy. It is very true that open voting in elections, as well as in the debates of deliberative assemblies, is the natural consequence of representative government. It is quite true that there is a degree of shame attached to liberty if it claim secrecy for itself' while imposing publicity on power. That liberty which can only attack is still very feeble; for the true power of freedom consists in its bold defence and avowal of its rights. Certainly there is an ill grace in the complaints of the niggardliness and delay with which power grants rights, when concealment is necessary for the exercise of rights already possessed. But when reason is applied to practice, it regards, for some time at least, nothing besides facts; and the most imperious of all principles is necessity. To impose open voting when it would injure freedom of election would be to compromise general liberty itself, which, ere long, must necessarily establish open voting.

Electoral System Of England.

To sum up what I have said. Nearly all the fundamental principles of a free and reasonable electoral system may be discovered in the electoral system of England in the fourteenth century. Bestowal of electoral rights upon capacity; close union of electoral rights with all other rights; regard to natural influences and relations; absence of all arbitrary and factitious combinations in the formation and proceedings of electoral assemblies; prudent limitation in the number to be chosen by each assembly; direct election, and open voting; all are to be met with. These are entirely due to the decisive circumstance that the electoral system and representative government itself were in England the simple and natural result of facts, the consequence and development of real and powerful anterior liberties, which served as their basis, and guarded and nourished in their bosom the roots of the tree which is indebted to them for its growth.

By another equally decisive circumstance, this system, though so national and spontaneous in its origin, became corrupted, at least in part, and appears at the present day to require correction. Perhaps it is owing to its very power that it remains inflexible: it has only followed at a distance the vicissitudes and progress of social conditions. It now protects the remnants of those abuses against which, at first, and for a long time, it was directed; and yet the reform of these abuses, by whatever means and at whatever period it may be effected, will be the fruit of the institutions, habits, principles, and sentiments which this system has established.