Proportional representation; or, The representation of successive majorities in federal, state, municipal, corporate and primary elections

Front matter

i\\'i^ "rAiyAia

Cornell University Library

The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library.

Table Of Contents

PAaE

Editor's Peeface vii.

Preliminary Remarks xi.

Appendix

Parliamentary Debate on Limited Voting. Minority Representation ; an Essay.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

Within the last few years the public mind has been awakened to many questions relating to government, but to no one more important than that discussed in the volume now presented to the reader. The editor believes it to be a necessity of the times, in view of current discussions of electoral reform, that the papers now collated and arranged should be put into a permanent and accessible form. For not only in Pennsylvania, but in many other states of the Union, the great evils of the present system of voting and of deficient representation, are being earnestly discussed. Therefore, whatever can assist in bringing about just conclusions either as to the necessity of some fundamental changes in electoral action, or, that being conceded, as to the best method of adapting the changes agreed upon to the needs of the people, may be accepted as fit, timely and useful.

Although a number of works, more or less elaborate, have been recently published upon electoral and representative reform, no one of them covers precisely the ground covered by the present one. They have dealt mostly with the theoretical and philosophical aspects of the questions treated, whereas the volume in hand is largely devoted to the practical application of the plan proposed in it for popular acceptance. Herein will be found not only the theory of a reform to extend representation, but sundry via , EDITORS PREFACE.

acts of legislation for its enforcement, and the returns of elections which illustrate the practical workings of reform and the results to be obtained from it. This information is believed to be more useful and convincing than abstract arguments with the great mass of persons with whom political power is justly lodged by our American Constitution. And as to theory : If the people shall once be satisfied that a system can be applied whereby in popular elections, nearly the whole mass of those who vote shall be represented in government, they will accept it promptly upon the sound theory of equal and exact justice to all.

The matter contained in this volume, it will be observed, is arranged, as nearly as may bej in chronological order, thus exhibiting the growth and modifications of opinion in the author's mind, contemporaneous with movements in other states and publications abroad. And although it consists mainly of legislative arguments, popular addresses and casual papers thrown oif or produced as occasion invited during several years, yet the collected volume has nearly the completeness and symmetry of a regular work, with little of surplusage or repetition. There is a regular development of argument, illustration and thought, and each separate, successive part presents the question in hand from a new or enlarged point of view.

The haste with which this volume is put to press precludes careful revision, a correction of former errors of publication and slips unavoidable in oral discourse, but for these the intelligent reader will make due allowance without prolonged apology.

As a citizen of the State, and a resident of the town in Avhich the free vote was first applied at a popular election, the editor has felt the promptings of a laudable, or at least editor's pkeface. ix

a natural, ambition in presenting this work to the public, convinced as he is that the reform which it presents and vindicates, when accepted generally, will purify elections, establish justice in representation, elevate the tone of public life and give additional credit and lustre to that system of government by the people which is our proudest boast, and our best legacy for those who come after us.

J. G. F.

BiiOOMSBUBG, Nov. 12, 1872.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Mr. Dctcher, in his recent work on Proportional Representation,* has shown, by elaborate statistics, that of the votes cast at important contested popular elections in the United States, over fovty per ceiitum are lost or overruled in the computation of results. Of the electors throughout the country who voted for representatives to the Fortieth Congress, no Jess than forty-two per cent. failed to obtain representation by their votes ; and precisely the same percentage of voters failed in elections for representatives to the Forty-first Congress, and again in the elections to the Forty-second. For six continuous years the rate of actual representation in the popular branch of Congress was but sixty per cent, of the votes polled. At the session of the New York Legislature, in 1869, the voters unrepresented in the Senate were forty-one per cent, of the whole, and in the House forty-two; and at the session of 1871, in each House, forty-two.

Mr. Hare is authority for the statement that the percentage of disfranchisement upon votes cast in Parliamentary elections is very nearly as great as in the above examples. He says: "Those who, disagreeing with the majority in their electoral districts, are now in Parliamentary elections outvoted and left without representation,

* " Minority or Proportional Bepresentation, by Salem Dutcher, N.^ York, 1872."

XU PEELIMINAKY REMARKS.

cannot ordinarily be taken at less than two-fifths of the whole electoral body."* It may be assumed that, in contested State and municipal elections in this country, the average proportion of unrepresented voters is as great as in elections for members of Congress and members of Parliament — in other words, that the average rate of virtual disfranchisement of voters in our contested popular elections is fully two-fifths of the total vote. This startling fact is the first one to be considered, and considered attentively, in any intelligent examination of the great subject of electoral reform in the United States; for all schemes for the amendment of popular representation in government must be insuiiicient and illusory which ignore it or underrate its enormous significance. For it means that our popular elections are unjust ; it exposes the principal cause of their corruption, and it may instruct us, if we duly consider it, concerning those measures of change Avhich will most certainly impart health, vigor and endurance to our political institutions.

The plan for securing Proijortional Representation presented in this volume, and other plans similar to it in character or object which have been proposed in recent years, strike at this great evil of disfranchisement in popular elections, and are intended to reduce it to its smallest possible dimensions. But the advantages of the plan set forth in the following pages will best appear by comparing it with the old one, which it is intended to supersede.

Under the old plan of majority voting, whenever two

* " Memorandnvi on the History, Working and Besutts of Oumulatke Voting,^' (prepared by Thomas Hare at the request of the English Government,) p. 14.

PEELIMINAEY REMARKS. Xlll

or more persons are to be elected at one time to the same office and for the same term of service, the law assigns to the voter as many votes as the number df persons to be chosen, and then commands him to distribute them singly among candidates. It restrains and prevents him from exercising his own judgment as to the manner of polling his votes, and, in, fact, undertakes to judge for him and to determine in advance what will be, under all circumstances, a judicious exercise of his right of suffrage. But in this it must blunder extremely and constantly. For as the law maker cannot know the future, cannot from sheer ignorance take into exact account its ever-changing conditions, his injunction or command to the voter must be purely arbitrary, and must be often or commonly unsuited to the circumstances to which it shall come to apply. Hence the virtual disfranchisement and actual non-representation of a large part of the voters is a common fact in all constituencies, large and small, throughout the country, the inevitable consequences of which are deeply injurious and truly deplorable. Misgovernment, injustice, violence, corruption and discontent are created and increased by an unnecessary and absurd restriction upon electoral freedom ; by a wholly gratuitous and impertinent interference of law with the free action of the citizen ; by an open and palpable violation of the principles of selfrgovernment upon which all our political institutions are founded. Only when a constituency shall be unanimous, or nearly so, in opinion and action can the enforced distribution of votes singly among the whole number of candidates operate justly ; in all other cases it must result in the non-representation of a part of the electors, and in consequent injustice and evil.

But we turn from this view to the free vote, now proposed to us as an instrument for the improvement of elections and amendment of representation. Its advantages over the majority vote may be roughly stated as follows :

1. It reduces greatly the number of candidates at popular elections, because under it parties will usually nominate only the number they are entitled to and have power to elect. Surplus candidates will not commonly be run, and but few persons will be beaten in struggles for place.

2. It secures nearly complete representation of the whole body of voters in plural elections, by permitting each considerable interest of political society to take to itself its just share of representation by its own votes.

3. It reduces enormously the expense of election contests, — not the legal charges borne by the public, but voluntary outlays by parties and candidates. These will no longer be required to subsidize the floating vote — the balance-of-power vote — the niercenary or impressionable vote — of a district or constituency, as the indispensable condition of success. Whether applied to legal elections or to primary ones ; to elections to office or to nominations for office, in this regard its effect will be the same — to produce, comparatively, cheap elections.

4. It is a powerful check upon all forms of corruption and undue influence at elections, because it takes away the motive, or most of the motive, to corrupt or pervert them in rendering all ordinary effijrts to that end unavailing and useless.

5. It produces satisfaction to voters in gratifying their desire for representation, and thus increases their attachment to the government under which they live.

6. It permits the representation of a greater variety of

PRELIMINARY KEMAKKS. XV

opinions and interests in legislative bodies, without impairing the right and power of the majority to rule.

7. It will often continue fit and able men much longer in public service than is now possible, because they will not hold their places subject so much to fluctuation of power between parties as to changed preferences in their own party.

8. It will greatly reduce party violence, and give a kindlier tone to social relations among the people, without producing stagnation or indifference to public affairs. In this, as in other cases, justice means peace, but it does not mean stagnation ; for it is beyond question that reformed voting " Avakes to newness of life," to activity and interest in public affairs, large numbers of persons who, under majority-voting, are inert because disgusted or discouraged by their exclusion from representation. Upon this point Mr. Buxton spoke wisely and soundly in Parliament in the Reform debates of 1867.*

9. It discourages election cheats, whether in the giving, receiving, counting, or returning of votes, because by it the effed, of cheating is greatly reduced. And, for a like reason, it also discourages the trading of votes, or bartering of the electoral privilege.

10. It is adapted to the bolting of nominations by an aggrieved interest, for such interest, if of respectable size, can represent, by its own votes, without disturbing or changing the whole result of an election.f

11. It renders elections more independent of each other. No one will much influence another; each one will be determined upon its own merits, or upon the issues directly

* Appendix, p. 279.

t See case of Northumberland borough election, post, 251.

XVI PKELIMINARY KEMARKS.

involved in it, and not with reference to its effect upon other elections.

12. Lastly, it is a certain remedy for the evil of gerrymandering in the formation of Congressional districts, and may be made to remedy, partially or completely, the same evil, in apportionments for members of State Legislatures.

Rightly understood, the free vote is not a plan of minority representation. It is, on the contrary, a plan for the representation of successive majorities in plural elections, by which will be realized, more fully than ever before, our fundamental principle of government by the people.*

It only remains to add, in this place, that in order that this or any other plan of reformed voting shall be thoroughly effectual, it must not stop with the legal elections, but must extend to the primary ones also. In fact, upon plans for the nomination of candidates to office must be fought out the ultimate battle of electoral reform. * Letter to Secretary Jordan, post, p. 182.

Proportional Representation.

A SPEECH,

DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JULY 11, 1867.*

The Senate having undet consideration Senate bill No. 131, to give effect to an act entitled "An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,'^ passed March 2, 1867, Mr. Bucka- LEW proposed the following amendment as a new section :

Sec. — . And be it further enacted, That in tlie election of Representatives in Congress from the said States mentioned in the act of March 2, 1867, each elector shall be entitled to give as many votes as there are Representatives assigned to his State by apportionment of law, and he may give one vote to each of the requisite number of persons to be chosen, or may cumulate his votes and bestow them at his discretion upon one or more candidates less in number than the whole number of Representatives to be chosen from such State.

After prolonged debate and a vote of the Senate on a question of order, Mr. Buckalew delivered the following speech for cumulative voting and in vindication of the amendment which he had proposed :

* Congressional Oldbe, let Sess. 40th Cong. 575. 1

Mr. BiTCKALEW. The Senate has furnished me a very good Argument against the passage of this bill. I think no bill of this kind should be passed and placed upon our statute-book which does not contain the proposition covered by my amendment ; and I propose! to enter upon an exposition of that amendment and a statement of the arguments by which it is supported.

The plan of cumulative voting has been thoroughly discussed in Great Britain, and is perhaps better understood in that country than in our own. What is it? Where more persons than one are to be elected or chosen by a body of electors, the first idea is that each elector may have votes equal in number to the number of persons to be chosen. Formerly in this country we elected members of Congress in the several States by what was called a general ticket, under which plan each voter in the State voted for as many candidates as there were Representatives in Congress to be chosen from his State, giving to each candidate one vote. That was the system which obtained throughout the United States. In process of time it came to be discovered that this plan of choosing Eepresentatives in Congress by general ticket was a complete and perfect mode of stifling the voice of the minority within a State. A political majority of only five hundred votes in such a State as New York might send twenty-five or thirty members to the lower House of Congress, while the large mass of the minority voters were entirely disfranchised, although nearly as numerous as those who were thus represented in the other House.

This plan of electing by general ticket was therefore abandoned in a number of the States because of its rank and notorious injustice and because of the dissatisfaction which it produced. The habit, however, of so electing Representatives remained in many of the States until Congress interposed by virtue of its power under the Constitution of the United States to regulate this subject, and there is now a law upon our statute-book which provides that Representatives in Congress shall be selected from each State by districts ; each State where more than one are to be chosen is to be broken into single districts and a member elected from each. That action by the States and this ultimate legislation by Congress were for the purpose of doing away with the injustice of the former system. It was to enable the minority, or, to speak in other words, to enable the various political interests of society, to have a voice in the councils of the nation, to be heard in these Halls, where laws were to be enacted which would be binding universally upon the citizens. The establishing of the system of single districts for the election of members of Congress was a great reform and a great improvement in American politics; it broke the power of the party, majority to this extent, that they could not absorb the whole representation of the State in the popular House of Congress. But when you established the system of single districts you retained still the majority rule for elections in the districts. The majority rule which obtained previously for the States was sent down into these divisions into which the States were broken, and now obtains in the election of Repre-

4 PKOPOETIOlirAL EEPBESENTATION.

sentatives from those several districts. But as society with, us has increased in magnitude and in the variety of its interests, inconveniences and evils which formerly were unnoticed or unimportant have grown in magnitude also, and have become exceedingly important, and the majority rule which prevails in the selection of Representatives by districts operates hardly and badly and requires amendment. At least that is my opinion ; and in vindication of that opinion, before I conclude I will submit such reasons as have occurred to me in its support.

A majority in a congressional district, although it be a majority of one vote, though it have but a preponderance of one vote over the opposing interest, is entitled to select a Representative, and its voice is heard in the Hall of the people's House. In theory the men who do not vote for the Representative are represented by him ; but that theory is simply a falsehood ; it is opposed to the fact ; it is not true. Instead of representing the men who do not vote for him in his district, the ordinary fact is that the Representative opposes their opinions and contributes all the power which he possesses to render those opinions unpopular and fruitless in the administration of government.

INJUSTICE TO THE MINOEITY.

Now, sir, it is a hardship that large masses of the American people should have no voice in the people's House, that they should be shut oirt from representation in the Hall where popular representation is supposed to prevail with completeness and perfection. Everybody admits that the fact is so, that there is such disfranchisement; and at some times when the cases are very glaring, that disfranchisement arrests public attention and elicits indignant debate.

But we are told that although a minority may be under our present system disfranchised in one district, the opposite party may be disfranchised in another; and so taking the whole State and the whole country together a sort of equilibrium is produced ; the party which fails in one district is successful in another, and vice versa ; so that when you carry this thing throughout the whole country there is some approach toward justice and a correct result. My answer to that, which is really the main plea for the existing system, is this: in the first place I do not see that the perpetration of injustice in one locality is any compensation for the perpetration of injustice in another ; that because a certain minority of voters in Pennsylvania are without a voice in this Government, therefore the non-representation of a different class of voters in Kentucky is justified and made equitable and honorable and of good repute under a republican system. In short, sir, my idea is that when you show me a multiplication of cases of injustice, you have simply swollen your evil in statement and made it more odious, more deserving of blows instead of favor, of opposition instead of support : that the variety of the interests which may be disfranchised under your majority rule as applied to congressional districts is the very fact which pronounces the most weighty condemnation of that rule instead of furnishing it a justification or an

6 PEOPOETIONAL EEPKESENTATIOlSr.

apology. Then I have another reply to this suggestion ; and that is that it is not true in point of fact that the disfranchisements throughout the country taken together, or the disfranchisements in districts in a particular State taken together, do result in an equilibrium. The fact has never been so ; it is not likely to occur ; the chances are a thousand to one against it. Therefore, even if there were some soundness in this doctrine of set-off, of setting off one wrong against another, the result would not be the production of an equilibrium of political forces or their just distribution. How was it in the last Congress ? Sixteen hundred thousand voters in a particular section of country represented in Congress — ^the North and West — ^had but thirty votes ; while two million voters in the same section were represented in that same House by one hundred and twenty-eight! Therefore, sir, it is manifestly absurd to talk about the equalization of disfranchisement. There is no such result ; there is no equalization.

Mr. President, we have all heard a great deal said in our time about the " sacred principle" that the majority shall bear absolute rule. Well, sir, I deny that there is any such principle in our system of government ; and if it could be established, I should deny that it possessed any sacred character. What is our principle, the principle upon which our republican system is founded ? It is that the people shall rule ; that they shall rule themselves ; that we shall have a system of self-government. Does that mean that a part of the people shall rule over another part? Does that mean that they shall be divided numerically, and that twenty shall absolutely control nineteen ; or does it mean volition and action of the whole mass in the business of self-government ? We have, however, from what we have supposed to be the necessity of the case, a majority rule at elections. It is a simple rule, nothing sacred in it or about it; an arrangement, a thing of detail, by which we have attempted in a rude manner to apply practically our principle of government by the people; and this majority rule formerly obtaining in the States and applied to a system of voting by general ticket, yet applies in the districts into which the States are divided. It is the same in its nature and to a great extent it is the same in its effects as before, and the very mischief and evil which led to the abolition of the general ticket plan yet obtains and prevails in elections in single districts. Though mitigated somewhat, it requires, as I think, the vigorous hand of reform.

I have made these introductory remarks in order to approach the subject in an intelligible manner. What is meant by cumulative voting is this : that an elector in any State, whether he belongs to the majority or to the minority, can give his votes for some candidate or candidates who will be elected and who will actually represent him in the Congress of the United States. That is all there is of it. That is the Alpha and the Omega of this whole plan. It is a device by which there shall be actual instead of sham representation in Congress ; by which men who come here into the people's Hall shall represent the men who vote for them and nobody else, and by which it shall not happen that nearly half

8 PROPORTION^AL EEPBESENTATION.

the people of the United States shall have no efficient or fair representation where the laws are made.

HOW TO COEEECT IT.

How is this object accomplished ? The manner of accomplishing it is as simple as the thing is itself. Take the State of Kentucky, about which there is some discussion now, I believe, in the House of Representatives as to membership. She is entitled to nine members in that House. What is proposed is, that an elector in Kentucky may go to the election and vote for nine members, if he choose, to repsent his State in that House, giving each candidate one vote ; or bestow his nine votes upon four, if he choose, or upon one, or upon any other number less than the whole. All the provision of law that is necessary is that the elector may vote for a less number of candidates than the whole number to be chosen, and that he may distribute his votes among that less number according to his judgment and discretion, enlightened or directed by his convictions of public duty. That is simple. It does not require a long explanation here; nor to the commonest-minded man in the country is it necessary to go into a protracted argument in order that he may comprehend it. The Senator from Kentucky remarked a short time ago that he was in favor of this reform if it were practicable ; he was in favor of some improvement of this kind.

Mr. Davis. I did not mean to say that it was impracticable. I am very ready to receive information as to the practicability of it from the honorable Senator.

Mr. BucKALEw. The Constitution of tlie United States says you may regulate the manner of electing members of Congress ; you have interposed already by law to abolish the evils of the general ticket plan - by which a majority could elect all the members from a State. Now what I ask you to do is in the same line of reform with that former legislation ; that you shall go on, and instead of allowing any portion of the people of a State to be disfranchised, you shall permit them so to vote that they shall get actual representation.

Mr. Davis. If the honorable Senator will permit me. I will mention as an evidence of my friendliness to his principle, that I was a member of the House at the time that bill was passed, and voted for it ; and I was then upon the Committee of Elections, and I made a report in favor of the bill. Some of the States then voted by general ticket, and some did not. Some voted by the district system, with districts entitled to send two or three or four Representatives, as was the case in the honorable Senator's State. That measure was deemed entirely a Whig measure ; it was opposed by the Democracy ; and there were four States, according to my best recollection, two of which I remember, Mississippi and New Hampshire, who refused obedience to the law, and continued to elect their Representatives upon the exploded general ticket system, defying the law of Congress. But their representation, elected on the general ticket system, was accepted in the next House by a majority. I merely make this statement of my being a friend to that measure to give some assurance to the honorable

10 PROPORTIOIirAL REPRESENTATION.

Senator that I am not hostile to the principle of his proposition.

Mr. BucKALEW. Well, sir, whatever may be said of this measure, it is certainly practicable. It requires nothing but an act of Congress of half a dozen lines permitting an elector in any State choosing members of Congress to bestow his votes on any number of candidates less than the whole. Nothing further is necessary than that the votes so taken shall be reported, counted by the Secretary of the Commonwealth in a State, and the returns signed by the Governor in the usual way, and sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The scheme requires no machinery; it requires no involved legislation; it involves no difficulty in putting it into execution.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE NEW PLAN.

Now, let me show how this scheme would work by a particular example. Take the case of Vermont, a State with sixty thousand voters, forty thousand of whom are members of the majority party, and twenty thousand of the minority.' By act of Congress — ^the existing apportionment law— that State is entitled to three members. The numbers I have stated are very nearly the exact numbers of voters in that State. Every one at a glance can see what ought to take place. The maj ority having forty thousand votes should choose two members of Congress from that State, and the minority having twenty, thousand votes should choose one member. Then there would be just representation. Then there could be no complaint in any quarter. • Then our principle of the representation of the people would be applied in the particular case, and no human being can conceive of any argument or objection against the result.

This plan of cumulative voting renders just that result certain — ^renders it morally impossible that any other should take place; and why? Because the minority cumulating their votes upon a single candidate can give him sixty thousand votes ; each elector giving his candidate three votes, it would count him sixty thousand. The forty thousand constituting the political majority in the State, if they attempt to vote for three candidates, can give them only forty thousand each. If they cumulate their votes upon two candidates, (which is what they are entitled to,) they can give them sixty thousand votes each ; so that two men will be elected to Congress representing the majority and one man representing the minority, and it is impossible for either one of those political interests to prevent the other from obtaining its due share of representation.