and 131,187 votes actually received. This gives less than three out of four qualified voters, or less than 75 in a hundred. If we consider that Massachusetts is no extensive country; that it is more densely peopled than France, having 127.40 inhabitants to the square mile, while France has only about 125; that the roads are good and numerous; that the people are well trained in the whole election business; and that, as it has been stated, the excitement was very great, it furnishes us with a striking piece of evidence that the electoral barometer will hardly ever rise above 75 in a hundred.

There cannot be a more deeply interesting election than that which took place in the year 1851, in South Carolina, in which the palpable question was, shall or shall not the state secede from the Union? The political existence of the state formed the issue. On that occasion 42,755 votes were polled, which, taking one-fourth of the white population as the number of qualified voters, would show that about twothirds only of those who had a right to vote actually did vote, or that 66 out of a hundred went to the poll.

the

Connecticut, a small and densely peopled state, sent, at very excited election of 1852, about 75 or 76 out of each hundred voters to the poll. The calculation has been made from the official election returns, and taking one-fourth of the population as entitled to vote, which I have found to be the average number, where universal suffrage exists.

These instances might be greatly multiplied from statistical materials collected by me. I may only add the proportion of abstainers from our presidential elections since 1828. I have estimated the number of qualified voters by calculating, for the election year, the white population, according to the annual increments given by Mr. Kennedy, the first superintendent of the United States Census for

1850, and dividing that number by four.5 I have called the real voters in the table votants, and the qualified voters simply voters.6

5 In dividing by four I reduce the number of qualified voters in the United States too much, as will appear from the following table, abstracted from the American Census of 1850, and kindly furnished me by Mr. De Bow, at present superintendent of the

This gives an average ratio of 3.784. But this table shows the proportion of white males of twenty years and upwards, while a person acquires the right of voting with his twenty-first year only. It will be, therefore, pretty correct, if I take one-fourth of the whole white population. In several states colored persons go to the polls. If they were counted, it would reduce the proportion of actual voters to the number of qualified voters; but I am willing to take one-fourth only.

6 I am aware that, apparently, Votare has not been used in Low Latin for voting. Du Cange says that Votum was used in the middle ages for suffrage, but Votare for Vovere, Spondere. As it is,

It is necessary to take into consideration that in the whole south of the United States voting is a right of a privileged class, and that the proportion of abstainers is probably much smaller than it would be otherwise.

Against this calculation, however, so uniform in England, here and in France in former times, we have the vote of seven millions and a half for Mr. Bonaparte in 1852, when France was asked whether she approved of his breaking through oath and pledge, and of his proffered despotism, annihilating not only her constitution, which indeed was more than a frail one, but all the progress she had made in representative government, all her liberties, and all her civil dignity, and submitting her fortunes and all to a ruler who, never having been a soldier, tells civilized France that the history of armies is the history of nations, that responsible ministers are nothing but incumbrances, and that France desires a government which receives its whole impulse from one man."

The statement which the government of the president of France officially published regarding the election which surrendered everything to the unchecked sway of the despot was thus:

however, no uncommon case in the English language to have a noun and an adjective which is not derived directly from the former but from an intermediate though "missing" verb, which would be derived from the noun, did it exist, I feel sure the reader will permit me to use the term Votant, in a language in which brevity is often considered to cover logical and etymological sins.

7 See the preamble to the constitution proclaimed by Louis Napoleon.

Whatever may be thought of the suspiciously small number of noes, I do not believe that there is a man living who knows anything of elections, and who at the same time is ready to accept the given number of abstinents as a correct statement. According to the official number, between three and four persons only in one hundred abstained from voting, or were prevented by illness, absence from home, old age and the like, from doing so-a number utterly incredible, and which, it must be believed, would have been allowed to appear much larger had the officials who managed the whole business been acquainted with the usual number of abstinents. The minister of state, Mr. Persigny, stated himself, in a circular letter to the prefects at a later period, that there were about eight millions of voters in France. This agrees pretty well with the common rule of taking about onefourth of the whole population as the number of qualified voters where universal suffrage exists. There must then have been a great deal of manipulation within that number.. This is further proved when we consider that, according to the official reports of the commissioners, whom the chief of the French state sent into the departments to see who of the political prisoners might be pardoned, many thousands were actually in prison at the time of the general election. Colonel Espinasse reports that in the departments of the Lot and Garonne, and the Eastern Pyrenees, there were 30,000 affiliated socialists, and in the department of the Hérault 60,000. In three departments alone 90,000 disaffected persons. If they voted, they must have been forced by the police to vote for the coup d'état : if they did not vote, what becomes of the given number of abstinents? But there is another fact which shows the falsification of the statement, either by actually falsifying the numbers, or by forcing people to give the desired vote, or by both.

Algeria is not so directly under the influence of the police, nor could the statement concerning that colony be so easily falsified. Accordingly we have the following: Out of 68,000 voters (the army included) 50,000 abstained; 5,735 voted for L. N. Bonaparte, and 6,527 against him. Eighteen thousand only seem to have voted out of 68,000, not even 29 in 100.

I think this will sufficiently show how little reliance can be placed upon such a vote in a centralized country, and how futile it is to found any right or pretension upon it. Votes, without liberty of the press, have no meaning; votes, without liberty of the press and with a vast standing army, itself possessing the right to vote, and considering itself above all law, have a sinister meaning; votes, without an unshackled press, with such an army, and with a compact body of officials, whose number, with those directly depending upon them, or upon government contracts, amounts to nearly a million, have no meaning, whether he who appeals to the people says that he leaves "the fate of France in the hands of the people," or not.

This paper was written, with the exception I have mentioned, after the vote on the coup d'état had been given. Since then, the plebiscitum, making Louis Napoleon emperor, has been added.

The vote of the people on the question: Shall, or shall not, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte assume the imperial crown? is officially stated to have been thus:

The number of electors inscrib

ed in the departments, is

The number of the land and

naval forces

Total of voters

9,843,076

360,352

10,203,428