* *

tive body. *In the American democracy, which is constructed on this faulty model, the highly cultivated members of the community, except such of them as are willing to sacrifice their own opinions and modes of judgment, and become the servile mouthpieces of their inferiors in knowledge, do not even offer themselves for Congress or the State legislatures, so certain is it that they would have no chance of being returned.

*

"The great difficulty of democratic government has hitherto seemed to be how to provide, in a democratic society, what circumstances have provided hitherto in all the societies which have maintained themselves ahead of others—a social support, a point d'appui for individual resistance to the tendencies of the ruling power, a protection, a rallying point for opinions and interests which the ascendant public opinion views with disfavor. For want of such a point d'appui the older societies, and all but a few modern ones, either fell into dissolution or became stationary (which means slow deterioration) through the exclusive predominance of a part only of the conditions of social and mental well-being. The only quarter in which to look for a supplement, or completing corrective to the instincts of a democratic majority, is the instructed minority, but in the ordinary mode of constituting democracy this minority has no organ."

*

*

Though somewhat highly colored, there is much truth in these remarks. Neither in Congress nor the State Legislatures is the standard of intellectual ability and personal worth as high as it once was, nor is there to be found in any legislative body throughout the United States that active opposition which once made legislation intelligent and in the main pure. Once such a thing as a combination between members of opposing parties was unheard of in our law-making bodies; each party stood stiffly on its own principles, fiercely assailed the other in all its measures, and would have thought such a thing as an admission that it could possibly be wrong itself, flat political treason. The result of all this heat, sometimes tragic, sometimes comic in its intensity, was upon the whole beneficial. The party in power had a party out of power to watch it like a hawk, put it continually upon its best behavior, and hold it up at all times to popular scrutiny and judgment, by relentless discussion. At any slip out went the Ins and in came the Outs, to be in turn subjected to the surveillance of the opposition. Latterly this wholesome antagonism has lost its force. The evil word "Ring" reveals the fact that men of opposing parties join hands in legislative halls to originate and complete corrupt schemes. A dead level of greed has succeeded to the old turbulent ambition. Year by year, as politics becomes a trade, the legislative standard

lowers, and yet how great a change would be wrought if every one-hundredth part of the voters could elect one member of a law-making body of one hundred, without regard to what any other one-hundredth part might do. In such a case "rings would be impotent, the balance of power vote lose its force, and the disfranchisement of minorities be at an end. Let but one or two really able and independent men be sent to every law-making body in the United States, and who can estimate the influence for good of such an enlightened, upright, and unflinching opposition.

CHAPTER II.

THE PURPOSE OF MINORITY REPRESENTATION-ITS PROCESSES, HISTORY, AND PROGRESS DEBATES ON THE SUBJECT IN PARLIAMENT AND CONGRESS-IN NEW YORK, ILLINOIS, SOUTH CAROLINA, CALIFORNIA, WEST VIRGINIA, ETC.

To remedy the defects of the existing electoral system is the aim of what is variously known as Minority, Proportional, Personal, or Totality Representation, all of which mean about the same thing. The idea is, that as the vote stands, so should stand the representation; or if there are 100,000 voters and 100 persons to be elected, every 1,000 voters should have a representative. If the 100,000 voters are politically divided into 40,000 Democrats, 30,000 Republicans, 15,000 Labor Reformers, 10,000 Free Traders, and 5,000 Temperance men, then the representative body should consist of 40 Democratic, 30 Republican, 15 Labor Reform, 10 Free Trade, and 5 Temperance members, or, in Mirabeau's words, "the representative body should at all times present a reduced picture of the people, their opinions, aspirations, and wishes." To accomplish this end various methods of voting are proposed, the most prominent being the cumulative, or free, vote; the limited, or restricted, vote; the preferential vote; the list vote; and the proxy and substitute votes.

By the cumulative vote, every elector has as many votes as there are persons to be chosen, and may distribute said votes equally or unequally among several candidates, or cumulate them all upon one.

By the limited vote the elector has a less number of votes than there are persons to be chosen; as, if four persons are to be chosen, no elector can vote for more than three candidates; if three are to be chosen, then only for two; and so on.

By the preferential vote, each elector votes for as many candidates as there are persons to be chosen, indicating by the figures 1, 2, 3, or in some other manner, his preferences among

the candidates for whom he votes, as that A. is his first choice, B. his second, and so on. The whole number of ballots cast is divided by the number of persons to be elected, and the quotient, excluding fractions, is the quota, or number of votes sufficient to elect a candidate. In the counting of the ballots, the first choices are first read, and he who has a quota of these is thereby elected, all such votes in excess of the quota going to the nextnamed person, and so on with the second and other choices.

By the list vote, the elector votes not for any candidates by name, but for a list containing their names and designated as List A., the Green List, or what not; and if that list receives, say, five, or three, or two quotas, then the first five, or three, or two candidates named thereon are elected.

By the proxy vote the elector gives a power of attorney to any qualified person to represent him, and on such person obtaining a quota of proxies he becomes ipso facto a member of the representative body.

By the substitute vote, the ballots which have been cast in excess of a quota for any candidate or candidates, and those which fall short of a quota for any other candidate or candidates, are cast anew by the successful and unsuccessful nominees for a sufficient number of new candidates to make up the full tale of persons to be chosen.

Besides these various methods there are a number of others of less importance, which will be considered when coming to speak more fully of the various plans for Proportional Representation proposed or now in use. Norway must have the credit of first putting the representation of minorities into the form of law. It is all but universally supposed that Denmark first provided for such a representation by the adoption of M. Andræ's scheme in 1859, but the fact remains that in the constitution of Norway as adopted October 7, 1814, a very distinct plan of Minority, or Proportional, Representation is set forth. From this original the neighboring kingdom of Denmark doubtless derived, ab longo intervallo, the Andreæ scheme of 1855. In 1831, another reform bill being before Parliament, Mr. Praed, the poet, said:

"If we desire that the representatives of a numerous constituency should come hither merely as witnesses of the fact that certain opinions are entertained by the majority of that constituency, our present system of election is certainly rational, and members are right in their reprobation of a compromise, because it would diminish the strength of the evidence to a fact we wish to ascertain. But if we intend, as surely we do intend, that not the majority only, but the aggregate masses of every numerous constituency, should, so far as is possible, be seen in the persons and heard in the voices of their representatives-should be, in short, in the obvious literal sense of the word 'represented,' in this House-then, sir, our present rule of election is in the theory wrong and absurd, and in practice is but partially corrected by compromise."

In an article upon the subject of Minority Representation, contributed to the American Law Review for January, 1872, by a very well-informed writer who withholds his name, it is stated that in 1844 a Mr. Thomas Gilpin, of Philadelphia, issued in that city the first work on Proportional Representation, under the title "The Representation of Minorities of Electors to act with the Majority in Elected Assemblies." This was read as a paper before the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and afterward published in book form in a very small edition, but one copy, which is in the library of Harvard College, being now known as in existence. Mr. Gilpin's plan is described as worked out with great exactness, and to be from point to point identical with the Libre Liste, or ticket, vote advocated in 1871 by M. Ernest Naville, of Geneva, Switzerland. The claim in behalf of Mr. Gilpin seems indisputable, and it is a curious overthrowing of former beliefs on the subject of Minority Representation that Norway in 1814 and not Denmark in 1855 first put the idea into practical operation, and that the United States through Mr. Gilpin in 1844, instead of England through Mr. Thomas Hare in 1859, put forth the first book on the subject. In 1834, still another reform bill being before Parliament, Lord John Russell moved a representation of minorities (on a plan identical with one suggested by Professor Fawcett, the mode being what is known as the "three-cornered constituency," or that in the electoral districts returning three members no elector should vote for more than two candidates), and said:

"Now it appears to us that many advantages would attend the enabling the minority to have a part in these returns. In the first place there is apt to be a feeling of great soreness when a very considerable number of electors,

1