To Mr. Norton.

Cambridge, July 9, 1869.

I have got so much accustomed to contemplating vast wastes of time behind me, which are infertile not so much from the lack of cultivation as from the long droughts to which they are subject, that I look upon my delay in answering your letter as a kind of fatality, of which I regard and suffer the consequences without self-reproach. Nevertheless, I am not a fatalist; for conscience has its share in determining me this sultry July morning to break my long silence. What roused my conscience under such an unpropitious sky, it would be difficult to say, — unless, like a beleaguered power, it wakes to find the siege raised and its enemies gone. . . .

Commencement was certainly a much finer day than I remember at its old dates; and the return to something like the old rational festivities at the dinner was a marked improvement in the interests of the day. The old readings of the necrology were not revived, and even the printed list is at last reduced to bare names and dates. Harvard now counts among its honored children only its benefactors, and even these are regarded as only partly paying the debt due to the great interests of learning. Attorney-General Hoar pronounced over those rich citizens who were not benefactors of the colleges “that saddest epitaph ever recorded in history, ‘And the rich man also died, and was buried?”...

The change in the government of the College by the new mode of electing its overseers was much eulogized, and with justice; for each year shows more clearly the value and importance of the change. One incident of it, which has lately interested me, is the chance it affords for a fair trial by competent electors of a modification of Mr. Hare's scheme. The adoption of this modified plan at the next choice of overseers is now very probable. The committee of elections have been

instructed to inquire into it, and to adopt it if they find it has substantial advantages. The modification of the scheme which this would involve—that is, the irresponsible choice of nominees by it, and the responsible choice of officers from these by plurality votes — has interested me a good deal during the past few days on account of its bearings on general politics, — a view of the matter which I think has not been considered in detail by any who have studied it. I cannot do better, I imagine, by way of ascent to philosophy, than to give you some account of my lucubrations on this subject.

Having studied the practical workings of this mode of counting votes, and found that it is made remarkably simple by certain practical devices for the roughly just distribution of the surplus and scattering votes to the candidates of second choice, my attention was called to the advantages of the proposed double election, —first of candidates by minorities, and then, from these, of officers by pluralities,—through which it is intended to prevent the virtual control of an election by a majority composed of minorities acting in concert. This is the main advantage of the modification, and has been duly considered; but there is also another advantage in it, through which majorities get their rightful power, and are made to assume their rightful responsibilities. To make this clear, I must go forward to the conclusions of my speculation, and regard the community as divided into two bodies, —although so far as the exercise of the suffrage is at present determined with us, these would be composed of the same individuals. The two classes ought to be, first, the governing class, who exercise government through the suffrage; and, secondly, those of the governed whose wishes and whose judgments of their own interests ought to be consulted. The functions and the implied qualifications and the consequent extent of these two classes, ought to be regarded as quite distinct, though both of them will and must include the same individuals, when these

belong at once to the governors and the governed. In logical language, these classes are communicant in their extension, though distinct in their comprehension.

The right to decide upon the choice of public officers, and the enactment of public measures, implies more than self-government. It implies, as Mr. Mill has so clearly pointed out, the right to govern others, and it ought to go along with responsibility, and with the power to enforce these decisions even in the last resort, that is, by force. This power in democratic communities resides, therefore, in the majority of male adults, — the potential rebel or anarchical power of the community. On the other hand, the right to be consulted and heard with reference to such decisions, not merely through the courtesy of electors or by the moral force of free discussions, but also by the exercise of a legal or constitutional control over the will of majorities, — this right does not involve ultimate responsibility, but only an intelligent interest in public affairs, and it belongs justly to all whose wishes and knowledge can be of any real service to themselves or others; that is, it belongs to all intelligent adults of both sexes. In this division of rights and powers, we have a solution of the woman’s suffrage question on what I conceive to be its real merits; and, by the proposed modification of Mr. Hare’s scheme, we have the means of carrying this solution into effect. At the same time, without modifying essentially the responsible suffrage or the present laws of election, we can put a highly just and civilized scheme of nomination in the place of a grossly unjust and barbarous one, through which caucuses and conventions not only fail to represent the wishes of intelligent minorities, but practically usurp the powers even of majorities, driving and penning them like sheep. This reform might be effected even without legal or constitutional enactments, if party organizations could be induced to consent to it, and use their influence for it, so great is their power for good or

for evil. That they would be the last to consent, is a proof of the evil.

Under law, the scheme would work in detail somewhat like this: Let the names of every intelligent adult, of either sex, who desires it, be registered at the nearest voting-place, and let copies of these registers be sent to a central bureau, and, between certain convenient dates, let each such person send to this bureau a list of nominations as long as each chooses, but written in the order of preference, — one vote counting in the final distribution for only one candidate. Newspapers, caucuses, and public meetings may aid in suggesting candidates, or candidates may offer themselves through any means of publication. Such extra-governmental agencies would still be of service, though without such a virtual usurpation of powers as now obtains.

Let the lists of nominations so made, and containing twice or thrice as many names as there are offices to be filled, be then sent to the voting-places, and let a choice be then made from this list by each elector, and the final decision be made by the electoral body at large, on the simple principle of pluralities. This will, in case of a division of the community on any prominent question, amount to a decision by a responsible majority, without neglecting or sacrificing minor questions or interests, as is so often done in our present political contests.

The scheme in this shape would not preclude the admission of women to the electoral body proper and to the legislature, when by practice in politics they shall have learned to make laws on other than parental and nursery principles. In native force and influence, they are not inferior to many non-militant men who now have the suffrage. But I have said enough to show the two principal advantages, — the prevention of “logrolling” by minorities and the assumption of responsibility by majorities, —belonging to this modification of Mr. Hare's scheme, and to show the ease with which it could be put into

practice, the cure it would effect of some of our worst political evils, and the solution it affords of the woman’s suffrage question. Could any political device have more or more important utilities?