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The Un-Englishness of the Secret Ballot*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Bruce L. Kinzer
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Extract

“Disguise in all its forms is a badge of slavery.” That J.S. Mill, at one time an ardent advocate of secret voting and later its equally ardent opponent, should have included this sentiment in his attack on the ballot may strike one as rather odd. Yet the expression of sentiments of this kind was not an uncommon feature of the debate provoked by the ballot question during the mid-Victorian period and before. Although Mill himself did not explicitly stigmatize the ballot as “un-English,” the emotional content of his condemnation strongly resembled a considerable number of written and verbal assaults on secret voting which attached that label to the proposed reform. Such denunciations of secret voting as un-English were taken seriously at the time, and should be treated seriously by historians of early and mid-Victorian England.

It is, however, necessary to place this un-English aspect within a broader context. The opponents of the ballot were motivated by a number of considerations, and different opponents attacked the measure for different reasons. The formulation of the case against the ballot incorporated several diverse elements: the self-interest of an aristocracy nervous about the potential impact of secret voting on the existing distribution of political power; intellectual convictions concerning the nature of the franchise; and emotional commitments which rejected secret voting as un-English. To ignore the first two of these elements would be to obscure the relative significance of the last. Thus it is perhaps best to begin with the emergence of the ballot as a practical political issue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , Fall 1978 , pp. 237 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1978

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Trevor Lloyd, J.M. Robson, and Ann Robson for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

References

1 Mill, J.S., Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859)Google Scholar, Essays on Politics and Society, in Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. Robson, J.M. (Toronto, 1977), XIX: 337Google Scholar.

2 In addition to the assault launched upon the electoral system created by the 1832 Reform Act, the 1830s also saw serious challenges offered to the constitutional position of both the House of Lords and the Church of England.

3 See Gash, Norman, Reaction and Reconstruction m English Politics 1832-52 (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar.

4 See Hamburger, Joseph, Intellectuals in Politics, John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals (New Haven and London, 1965)Google Scholar.

5 For documentation on the extensive part played by corruption and intimidation at these elections, see Gash, Norman, Politics in the Age of Peel (London, 1953)Google Scholar.

6 Mill, J.S., “Parliamentary Proceedings of the Session,” The London Review, I (1835): 516Google Scholar.

7 Hansard, 3rd ser., XVII (25 April 1833): 665Google Scholar.

8 Ibid. XXXIX (20 Nov. 1837): 69.

9 Brougham, Henry, “The History of Parliament with a view to Constitutional Reform,” Edinburgh Review, 56 (1832–1833): 548Google Scholar. The Chandos clause gave the vote in the counties to £50 tenants at will.

10 Quoted by Mr. Leader in 1836 ballot debate. Hansard, 3rd ser., XXXIV (23 June 1836): 820Google Scholar.

11 See, for example, Russell to Brougham, 1852, Brougham MSS 38201, 38202, 38223, University College, London, Library.

12 This assertion was given prominence in Brougham's anti-ballot speech of 1830. See Hansard, new ser., XXIV (28 May 1830): 1214Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., 3rd ser., XL (IS Feb. 1838): 1192.

14 Melbourne to Russell, 3 Jan. 1837, Broadlands papers, MEL/RU, National Register of Archives, London, cited by permission of Trustees.

15 Parliament's ineffectual response to the problem, which can be seen in the passage of the 1854 Corrupt Practices Act, was to define electoral corruption and provide penalties for those found guilty of engaging in such proscribed activities.

16 Brougham, , “History of Parliament,” p. 560Google Scholar.

17 Hansard, 3rd ser., XVII (25 April 1833): 633–4Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., CL (8 June 1858): 1772-3.

19 Mineka, Francis E. and Lindley, Dwight N., eds., The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill, in Collected Works (Toronto, 1972)Google Scholar, Mill to George Cornewall Lewis, 20 March 1859, XV: 607-8.

20 See, for example, Davis, Richard W., Political Change and Continuity 1760-1885: A Buckinghamshire Study (Newton Abbott, 1972)Google Scholar; Gash, Norman, Politics in the Age of Peel (London, 1953)Google Scholar; Hanham, H.J., Elections and Party Management (London, 1959)Google Scholar; Moore, D.C., The Politics of Deference (Hassocks, 1976)Google Scholar; Vincent, John R., Pollbooks: How Victorians Voted (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

21 Norman, E.R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (London, 1968), pp. 108–9Google Scholar.

22 Portion of document included in ibid. p. 174.

23 Lord William Russell to Lord John Russell, 28 Feb. 1838, Russell papers, PRO 30/22/3a, fo. 185.

24 Lord John Russell to the Dean of Bristol, 27 October 1858, Russell Papers, PRO 30/22/13f, fo. 135.

25 Records of the London Corresponding Society, Place Papers, British Library, Add. MSS. 27808, fo. 9.

26 Examiner, 16 June 1839; Smith, Sydney, Ballot (London, 1839), pp. 12–13Google Scholar.

27 Cobden wrote dejectedly in May 1857 that “The country is prosperous & therefore in a state of political apathy. When that is the case the old aristocratic influences acquire an ascendancy, & first principles are at a discount.” Cobden to Vaughan, 23 May 1857, Cobden papers, British Library, Add. MSS. 43669, fo. 149.

28 Hansard, 3rd ser., CXXXVIII (22 May 1855): 944–5Google Scholar.

29 The Times, 8 March 1850.

30 Ibid. 10 Dec. 1856.

31 Bentham had included the ballot in his Plan of Parliamentary Reform (London, 1817)Google Scholar.

32 Northmore to Bentham, 23 March 1818, Bentham MSS 131A, p. 1, University College, London, Library.

33 Hovell, Mark, The Chartist Movement (Manchester, 1918), p. 287Google Scholar.

34 Ibid. p. 282.

35 Cole, G.D.H., Chartist Portraits (London, 1941), p. 193Google Scholar.

36 Ibid.

37 Reid, T. Wemyss, The Life oftheRt. Hon. W.E. Forster (London, 1888), i: 220Google Scholar.

38 Leeds Mercury, 14 April 1859.

39 Hansard, 3rd ser., CXXXIV (13 June 1854): 111Google Scholar.

40 Holyoake, George Jacob, A New Defence of the Ballot (London, 1868), p. 3Google Scholar.

41 Newman to Holyoake, 24 August 1868, Holyoake papers, No. 1816, The Cooperative Union, Manchester.

42 Sawyer to Holyoake, 19 Nov. 1868, ibid. No. 1831.

43 “Liberty and Light,” Westminster Review, 91 (1869): 388Google Scholar.

44 The Tories did not tremble at the prospect of secret voting becoming law in 1872; they did, however, feel more comfortable and secure with open voting and therefore vigorously opposed the ballot legislation of 1871 and 1872.

45 Gladstone included this point in the explanation which he offered the House in July of 1870 respecting his altered view of the ballot. On this occasion Gladstone argued that whereas those who formerly composed the electorate possessed some property and degree of independence, those enfranchised in 1867 were “dependent for their bread upon their daily labour.” See Gladstone's, speech in Hansard, 3rd ser., CCIII (27 July 1870): 1028–34Google Scholar.

46 Gladstone's attention was specifically directed towards the series of riots and mob violence which marred both municipal and parliamentary elections at Blackburn. Tory workingmen, responding to a Conservative circular calling upon men of influence in the town to exert themselves in the Tory interest, terrorized workers and others thought to have Liberal sympathies. Informed by the chairman of the local Gladstone Reform Club of the occurrences at Blackburn, Gladstone replied in a letter published by The Times on 12 November 1868. Referring to “the shameful proceedings” which had brought disgrace upon the town, Gladstone assured his correspondent (and readers of The Times) that “the House of Commons is not likely to want either the will or the power to vindicate freedom of election.” See also O'Leary, Cornelius, The Elimination of Corrupt Practices at British Elections 1868-1911 (Oxford, 1962), pp. 47–56Google Scholar.

47 In fact, the Liberal member for Huddersfield, E. A. Leatham, supported by several of his Liberal colleagues, expressed dissatisfaction with the government's dilatory handling of the question and accordingly introduced a Ballot bill of his own in February of 1870. See Hansard, 3rd ser., CXCDC (14 Feb. 1870): 268Google Scholar.

48 Just prior to joining the government, Bright wrote to Gladstone to convey his view that the ballot was “as needful & inevitable as a wider suffrage was two years ago.” He added that “For a Liberal Govt, to follow the unwise course of Lord Grey's Govt, after 1832, & to resist it, will be the beginning of weakness in the party, & will end in difficulty & perhaps in its destruction.” Bright to Gladstone, 27 Nov. 1868, Gladstone papers, British Library, Add. MSS44112, fos. 67-8.

49 Hansard, 3rd ser., CCIII (27 July 1870): 1031Google Scholar.

50 Ibid. CCX (18 April 1872): 1483.

51 Ibid. (15 April 1872): 1302.

52 Ibid. (18 April, 1872): 1489.

53 Ibid. See Gladstone's speech, cols. 1502-7.

54 Ibid., cols. 1508-12.

55 The Times, 22 April 1872.