The Life and Correspondence of John Foster Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 Excerpt: ...honesty in the discharge of the electoral duty, consistently with impunity in so performing it. The persons resorting to these expedients are in the situation of a man who is about going with money to pay his debts, and is beset by a villainous extortioner, or a robber on the highway; and the sternest moralist would not refuse to acknowledge a great palliation of the turpitude of an insincere promise or a false declaration, made to elude these personages in order that his money might go to its right use. And if one of these exactors should afterwards chance to discover that he had thus been defrauded, what would you think of his exclaiming, with a virtuous indignation, against the. falsehood, the immorality, of the man who had by such means disappointed his wicked attempt? And what should I think of you, if you joined him in this righteous indignation, --saying, that though, to be sure, it was not quite the thing that he should have made the attempt on the man's property, yet it was extremely criminal in the man to protect himself against the plunderer by such means? But I cannot help noticing here what a strange leaning to the side of power (one of the worst and most general of our ill propensities), I have observed in the reasoning of the opposers of the ballot, on the moral ground that it would facilitate and protect the breach of promises. They constantly give the benefit of their casuistry to the oppressor's side. If the dependent voter, shrinking at threatened injury, shall have given a promise contrary to his judgment and conscience, his obligation, according to these moralists, is from that moment perfectly simple and unequivocal. No matter that his fears have brought him into a dilemma between, on the one side the obligation of his promise, and on t...