Authorities.—Horace Twiss,Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon(1844); W.E. Surtees,Sketch of the Lives of Lords Stowell and Eldon(1846); Lord Campbell,Lives of the Chancellors; W.C. Townsend,Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges(1846);Greville Memoirs.
Authorities.—Horace Twiss,Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon(1844); W.E. Surtees,Sketch of the Lives of Lords Stowell and Eldon(1846); Lord Campbell,Lives of the Chancellors; W.C. Townsend,Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges(1846);Greville Memoirs.
EL DORADO(Span. “the gilded one”), a name applied, first, to the king or chief priest of a South American tribe who was said to cover himself with gold dust at a yearly religious festival held near Santa Fé de Bogotá; next, to a legendary city called Manoa or Omoa; and lastly, to a mythical country in which gold and precious stones were found in fabulous abundance. The legend, which has never been traced to its ultimate source, had many variants, especially as regards the situation attributed to Manoa. It induced many Spanish explorers to lead expeditions in search of treasure, but all failed. Among the most famous were the expedition undertaken by Diego de Ordaz, whose lieutenant Martinez claimed to have been rescued from shipwreck, conveyed inland, and entertained at Omoa by “El Dorado” himself (1531); and the journeys of Orellana (1540-1541), who passed down the Rio Napo to the valley of the Amazon; that of Philip von Hutten (1541-1545), who led an exploring party from Coro on the coast of Caracas; and of Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada (1569), who started from Santa Fé de Bogotá. Sir Walter Raleigh, who resumed the search in 1595, described Manoa as a city on Lake Parimá in Guiana. This lake was marked on English and other maps until its existence was disproved by A. von Humboldt (1769-1859). Meanwhile the name of El Dorado came to be used metaphorically of any place where wealth could be rapidly acquired. It was given to a county in California, and to towns and cities in various states. In literature frequent allusion is made to the legend, perhaps the best-known references being those in Milton’sParadise Lost(vi. 411) and Voltaire’sCandide(chs. 18, 19).
See A.F.A. Bandelier,The Gilded Man, El Dorado(New York, 1893).
See A.F.A. Bandelier,The Gilded Man, El Dorado(New York, 1893).
ELDUAYEN, JOSÉ DE,1st Marquis del Pazo de la Merced (1823-1898), Spanish politician, was born in Madrid on the 22nd of June 1823. He was educated in the capital, took the degree of civil engineer, and as such directed important works in Asturias and Galicia, entered the Cortes in 1856 as deputy for Vigo, and sat in all the parliaments until 1867 as member of the Union Liberal with Marshal O’Donnell. He attacked the Miraflores cabinet in 1864, and became under-secretary of the home office when Canovas was minister in 1865. He was made a councillor of state in 1866, and in 1868 assisted the other members of the Union Liberal in preparing the revolution. In the Cortes of 1872 he took much part in financial debates. He accepted office as member of the last Sagasta cabinet under King Amadeus. On the proclamation of the republic Elduayen very earnestly co-operated in the Alphonsist conspiracy, and endeavoured to induce the military and politicians to work together. He went abroad to meet and accompany the prince after thepronunciamientoof Marshal Campos, landed with him at Valencia, was made governor of Madrid, a marquis, grand cross of Charles III., and minister for the colonies in 1878. He accepted the portfolio of foreign affairs in the Canovas cabinet from 1883 to 1885, and was made a life senator. He always prided himself on having been one of the five members of the Cortes of 1870 who voted for Alphonso XII. when that parliament elected Amadeus of Savoy. He died at Madrid on the 24th of June 1898.
ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE(c.1122-1204), wife of the English king Henry II., was the daughter and heiress of Duke William X. of Aquitaine, whom she succeeded in April 1137. In accordance with arrangements made by her father, she at once married Prince Louis, the heir to the French crown, and a month later her husband became king of France under the title of Louis VII. Eleanor bore Louis two daughters but no sons. This was probably the reason why their marriage was annulled by mutual consent in 1151, but contemporary scandal-mongers attributed the separation to the king’s jealousy. It was alleged that, while accompanying her husband on the Second Crusade (1146-1149), Eleanor had been unduly familiar with her uncle, Raymond of Antioch. Chronology is against this hypothesis, since Louis and she lived on good terms together for two years after the Crusade. There is still less ground for the supposition that Henry of Anjou, whom she married immediately after the divorce, had been her lover before it. This second marriage, with a youth some years her junior, was purely political. The duchy of Aquitaine required a strong ruler, and the union with Anjou was eminently desirable. Louis, who had hoped that Aquitaine would descend to his daughters, was mortified and alarmed by the Angevin marriage; all the more so when Henry of Anjou succeeded to the English crown in 1154. From this event dates the beginning of the secular strife between England and France which runs like a red thread through medieval history.
Eleanor bore to her second husband five sons and three daughters; John, the youngest of their children, was born in 1167. But her relations with Henry passed gradually through indifference to hatred. Henry was an unfaithful husband, and Eleanor supported her sons in their great rebellion of 1173. Throughout the latter years of the reign she was kept in a sort of honourable confinement. It was during her captivity that Henry formed his connexion with Rosamond Clifford, the Fair Rosamond of romance. Eleanor, therefore, can hardly have been responsible for the death of this rival, and the romance of the poisoned bowl appears to be an invention of the next century.
Under the rule of Richard and John the queen became a political personage of the highest importance. To both her sons the popularity which she enjoyed in Aquitaine was most valuable. But in other directions also she did good service. She helped to frustrate the conspiracy with France which John concocted during Richard’s captivity. She afterwards reconciled the king and the prince, thus saving for John the succession which he had forfeited by his misconduct. In 1199 she crushed an Angevin rising in favour of John’s nephew, Arthur of Brittany. In 1201 she negotiated a marriage between her grand-daughter, Blanche of Castile, and Louis of France, the grandson of her first husband. It was through her staunch defence of Mirabeau in Poitou that John got possession of his nephew’s person. She died on the 1st of April 1204, and was buried at Fontevrault. Although a woman of strong passions and great abilities she is, historically, less important as an individual than as the heiress of Aquitaine, a part of which was, through her second marriage, united to England for some four hundred years.
See the chronicles cited for the reigns of Henry II., Richard I. and John. Also Sir J.H. Ramsay,Angevin Empire(London, 1903); K. Norgate,England under the Angevin Kings(London, 1887); and A. Strickland,Lives of the Queens of England, vol. i. (1841).
See the chronicles cited for the reigns of Henry II., Richard I. and John. Also Sir J.H. Ramsay,Angevin Empire(London, 1903); K. Norgate,England under the Angevin Kings(London, 1887); and A. Strickland,Lives of the Queens of England, vol. i. (1841).
(H. W. C. D.)
ELEATIC SCHOOL,a Greek school of philosophy which came into existence towards the end of the 6th centuryB.C., and ended with Melissus of Samos (fl.c.450B.C.). It took its name from Elea, a Greek city of lower Italy, the home of its chief exponents, Parmenides and Zeno. Its foundation is often attributed to Xenophanes of Colophon, but, although there is much in his speculations which formed part of the later Eleatic doctrine, it is probably more correct to regard Parmenides as the founder of the school. At all events, it was Parmenides who gave it its fullest development. The main doctrines of the Eleatics were evolved in opposition, on the one hand, to thephysical theories of the early physical philosophers who explained all existence in terms of primary matter (seeIonian School), and, on the other hand, to the theory of Heraclitus that all existence may be summed up as perpetual change. As against these theories the Eleatics maintained that the true explanation of things lies in the conception of a universal unity of being. The senses with their changing and inconsistent reports cannot cognize this unity; it is by thought alone that we can pass beyond the false appearances of sense and arrive at the knowledge of being, at the fundamental truth that “the All is One.” There can be no creation, for being cannot come from not-being; a thing cannot arise from that which is different from it. The errors of common opinion arise to a great extent from the ambiguous use of the verb “to be,” which may imply existence or be merely the copula which connects subject and predicate.
In these main contentions the Eleatic school achieved a real advance, and paved the way to the modern conception of metaphysics. Xenophanes in the middle of the 6th century had made the first great attack on the crude mythology of early Greece, including in his onslaught the whole anthropomorphic system enshrined in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. In the hands of Parmenides this spirit of free thought developed on metaphysical lines. Subsequently, whether from the fact that such bold speculations were obnoxious to the general sense of propriety in Elea, or from the inferiority of its leaders, the school degenerated into verbal disputes as to the possibility of motion, and similar academic trifling. The best work of the school was absorbed in the Platonic metaphysic (see E. Caird,Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, 1904).
See further the articles onXenophanes;Parmenides;Zeno(of Elea);Melissus, with the works there quoted; also the histories of philosophy by Zeller, Gomperz, Windelband, &c.
See further the articles onXenophanes;Parmenides;Zeno(of Elea);Melissus, with the works there quoted; also the histories of philosophy by Zeller, Gomperz, Windelband, &c.
ELECAMPANE(Med. Lat.Enula Campana), a perennial composite plant, theInula Heleniumof botanists, which is common in many parts of Britain, and ranges throughout central and southern Europe, and in Asia as far eastwards as the Himalayas. It is a rather rigid herb, the stem of which attains a height of from 3 to 5 ft.; the leaves are large and toothed, the lower ones stalked, the rest embracing the stem; the flowers are yellow, 2 in. broad, and have many rays, each three-notched at the extremity. The root is thick, branching and mucilaginous, and has a warm, bitter taste and a camphoraceous odour. For medicinal purposes it should be procured from plants not more than two or three years old. Besidesinulin, C12H20O10, a body isomeric with starch, the root containshelenin, C6H8O, a stearoptene, which may be prepared in white acicular crystals, insoluble in water, but freely soluble in alcohol. When freed from the accompanying inula-camphor by repeated crystallization from alcohol, helenin melts at 110° C. By the ancients the root was employed both as a medicine and as a condiment, and in England it was formerly in great repute as an aromatic tonic and stimulant of the secretory organs. “The fresh roots of elecampane preserved with sugar, or made into a syrup or conserve,” are recommended by John Parkinson in hisTheatrum Botanicumas “very effectual to warm a cold and windy stomack, and the pricking and stitches therein or in the sides caused by the Spleene, and to helpe the cough, shortnesse of breath, and wheesing in the Lungs.” As a drug, however, the root is now seldom resorted to except in veterinary practice, though it is undoubtedly possessed of antiseptic properties. In France and Switzerland it is used in the manufacture of absinthe.
ELECTION(from Lat.eligere, to pick out), the method by which a choice or selection is made by a constituent body (the electors or electorate) of some person to fill a certain office or dignity. The procedure itself is called an election. Election, as a special form of selection, is naturally a loose term covering many subjects; but except in the theological sense (the doctrine of election), as employed by Calvin and others, for the choice by God of His “elect,” the legal sense (seeElection,in law, below), and occasionally as a synonym for personal choice (one’s own “election”), it is confined to the selection by the preponderating vote of some properly constituted body of electors of one of two or more candidates, sometimes for admission only to some private social position (as in a club), but more particularly in connexion with public representative positions in political government. It is thus distinguished from arbitrary methods of appointment, either where the right of nominating rests in an individual, or where pure chance (such as selection by lot) dictates the result. The part played by different forms of election in history is alluded to in numerous articles in this work, dealing with various countries and various subjects. It is only necessary here to consider certain important features in the elections, as ordinarily understood, namely, the exercise of the right of voting for political and municipal offices in the United Kingdom and America. See also the articlesParliament;Representation;Voting;Ballot, &c., andUnited States:Political Institutions. For practical details as to the conduct of political elections in England reference must be made to the various text-books on the subject; the candidate and his election agent require to be on their guard against any false step which might invalidate his return.
Law in the United Kingdom.—Considerable alterations have been made in recent years in the law of Great Britain and Ireland relating to the procedure at parliamentary and municipal elections, and to election petitions.
As regards parliamentary elections (which may be either the “general election,” after a dissolution of parliament, or “by-elections,” when casual vacancies occur during its continuance), the most important of the amending statutes is the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act 1883. This act, and the Parliamentary Elections Act 1868, as amended by it, and other enactments dealing with corrupt practices, are temporary acts requiring annual renewal. As regards municipal elections, the Corrupt Practices (Municipal Elections) Act 1872 has been repealed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1882 for England, and by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 for Ireland. The governing enactments for England are now the Municipal Corporations Act 1882, part iv., and the Municipal Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act 1884, the latter annually renewable. The provisions of these enactments have been applied with necessary modifications to municipal and other local government elections in Ireland by orders of the Irish Local Government Board made under powers conferred by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. In Scotland the law regulating municipal and other local government elections is now to be found in the Elections (Scotland) (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act 1890.
The alterations in the law have been in the direction of greater strictness in regard to the conduct of elections, and increased control in the public interest over the proceedings on election petitions. Various acts and payments which were previously lawful in the absence of any corrupt bargain or motive are now altogether forbidden under the name of “illegal practices” as distinguished from “corrupt practices.” Failure on the part of a parliamentary candidate or his election agent to comply with the requirements of the law in any particular is sufficient to invalidate the return (see the articlesBriberyandCorrupt Practices). Certain relaxations are, however, allowed in consideration of the difficulty of absolutely avoiding all deviation from the strict rules laid down. Thus, where the judges who try an election petition report that there has been treating, undue influence, or any illegal practice by the candidate or his election agent, but that it was trivial, unimportant and of a limited character, and contrary to the orders and without the sanction or connivance of the candidate or his election agent, and that the candidate and his election agent took all reasonable means for preventing corrupt and illegal practices, and that the election was otherwise free from such practices on their part, the election will not be avoided. The court has also the power to relieve from the consequences of certain innocent contraventions of the law caused by inadvertence or miscalculation.
The inquiry into a disputed parliamentary election was formerly conducted before a committee of the House of Commons, chosen as nearly as possible from both sides of the House for that particular business. The decisions of these tribunals labouredunder the suspicion of being prompted by party feeling, and by an act of 1868 the jurisdiction was finally transferred to judges of the High Court, notwithstanding the general unwillingness of the bench to accept a class of business which they feared might bring their integrity into dispute. Section 11 of the act ordered,inter alia, that the trial of every election petition shall be conducted before apuisne judgeof one of the common law courts at Westminster and Dublin; that the said courts shall each select a judge to be placed on the rota for the trial of election petitions; that the said judges shall try petitions standing for trial according to seniority or otherwise, as they may agree; that the trial shall take place in the county or borough to which the petition refers, unless the court should think it desirable to hold it elsewhere. The judge shall determine “whether the member whose return is complained of, or any and what other person, was duly returned and elected, or whether the election was void,” and shall certify his determination to the speaker. When corrupt practices have been charged the judge shall also report (1) whether any such practice has been committed by or with the knowledge or consent of any candidate, and the nature thereof; (2) the names of persons proved to have been guilty of any corrupt practice; and (3) whether corrupt practices have extensively prevailed at the election. Questions of law were to be referred to the decision of the court of common pleas. On the abolition of that court by the Judicature Act 1873, the jurisdiction was transferred to the common pleas division, and again on the abolition of thatElection petitions.division was transferred to the king’s bench division, in whom it is now vested. The rota of judges for the trial of election petitions is also supplied by the king’s bench division. The trial now takes place before two judges instead of one; and, when necessary, the number of judges on the rota may be increased. Both the judges who try a petition are to sign the certificates to be made to the speaker. If they differ as to the validity of a return, they are to state such difference in their certificate, and the return is to be held good; if they differ as to a report on any other matter, they are to certify their difference and make no report on such matter. The director of public prosecutions attends the trial personally or by representative. It is his duty to watch the proceedings in the public interest, to issue summonses to witnesses whose evidence is desired by the court, and to prosecute before the election court or elsewhere those persons whom he thinks to have been guilty of corrupt or illegal practices at the election in question. If an application is made for leave to withdraw a petition, copies of the affidavits in support are to be delivered to him; and he is entitled to be heard and to call evidence in opposition to such application. Witnesses are not excused from answering criminating questions; but their evidence cannot be used against them in any proceedings except criminal proceedings for perjury in respect of that evidence. If a witness answers truly all questions which he is required by the court to answer, he is entitled to receive a certificate of indemnity, which will save him from all proceedings for any offence under the Corrupt Practices Acts committed by him before the date of the certificate at or in relation to the election, except proceedings to enforce any incapacity incurred by such offence. An application for leave to withdraw a petition must be supported by affidavits from all the parties to the petition and their solicitors, and by the election agents of all of the parties who were candidates at the election. Each of these affidavits is to state that to the best of the deponent’s knowledge and belief there has been no agreement and no terms or undertaking made or entered into as to the withdrawal, or, if any agreement has been made, shall state its terms. The applicant and his solicitor are also to state in their affidavits the grounds on which the petition is sought to be withdrawn. If any person makes an agreement for the withdrawal of a petition in consideration of a money payment, or of the promise that the seat shall be vacated or another petition withdrawn, or omits to state in his affidavit that he has made an agreement, lawful or unlawful, for the withdrawal, he is guilty of an indictable misdemeanour. The report of the judges to the speaker is to contain particulars as to illegal practices similar to those previously required as to corrupt practices; and they are to report further whether any candidate has been guilty by his agents of an illegal practice, and whether certificates of indemnity have been given to persons reported guilty of corrupt or illegal practices.
The Corrupt Practices Acts apply, with necessary variations in details, to parliamentary elections in Scotland and Ireland.
The amendments in the law as to municipal elections are generally similar to those which have been made in parliamentary election law. The procedure on trial of petitions is substantially the same, and wherever no other provision is made by the acts or rules the procedure on the trial of parliamentary election petitions is to be followed. Petitions against municipal elections were dealt with in 35 & 36 Vict. c. 60. The election judges appoint a number of barristers, not exceeding five, as commissioners to try such petitions. No barrister can be appointed who is of less than fifteen years’ standing, or a member of parliament, or holder of any office of profit (other than that of recorder) under the crown; nor can any barrister try a petition in any borough in which he is recorder or in which he resides, or which is included in his circuit. The barrister sits without a jury. The provisions are generally similar to those relating to parliamentary elections. The petition may allege that the election was avoided as to the borough or ward on the ground of general bribery, &c., or that the election of the person petitioned against was avoided by corrupt practices, or by personal disqualification, or that he had not the majority of lawful votes. The commissioner who tries a petition sends to the High Court a certificate of the result, together with reports as to corrupt and illegal practices, &c., similar to those made to the speaker by the judges who try a parliamentary election petition. The Municipal Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act 1884 applied to school board elections subject to certain variations, and has been extended by the Local Government Act 1888 to county council elections, and by the Local Government Act 1894 to elections by parochial electors. The law in Scotland is on the same lines, and extends to all non-parliamentary elections, and, as has been stated, the English statutes have been applied with adaptations to all municipal and local government elections in Ireland.
United States.—Elections are much more frequent in the United States than they are in Great Britain, and they are also more complicated. The terms of elective officers are shorter; and as there are also more offices to be filled, the number of persons to be voted for is necessarily much greater. In the year of a presidential election the citizen may be called upon to vote at one time for all of the following: (1) National candidates—president and vice-president (indirectly through the electoral college) and members of the House of Representatives; (2) state candidates—governor, members of the state legislature, attorney-general, treasurer, &c.; (3) county candidates—sheriff, county judges, district attorney, &c.; (4) municipal or town candidates—mayor, aldermen, selectmen, &c. The number of persons actually voted for may therefore be ten or a dozen, or it may be many more. In addition, the citizen is often called upon to vote yea or nay on questions such as amendments to the state constitutions, granting of licences, and approval or disapproval of new municipal undertakings. As there may be, and generally is, more than one candidate for each office, and as all elections are now, and have been for many years, conducted by ballot, the total number of names to appear on the ballot may be one hundred or may be several hundred. These names are arranged in different ways, according to the laws of the different states. Under the Massachusetts law, which is considered the best by reformers, the names of candidates for each office are arranged alphabetically on a “blanket” ballot, as it is called from its size, and the elector places a mark opposite the names of such candidates as he may wish to vote for. Other states, New York for example, have the blanket system, but the names of the candidates are arranged in party columns. Still other states allow the grouping on one ballot of all the candidates of a single party, and there would be therefore as many separate ballots in such states as there were parties in the field.
The qualifications for voting, while varying in the different states in details, are in their main features the same throughout the Union. A residence in the state is required of from three months to two years. Residence is also necessary, but for a shorter period, in the county, city or town, or voting precinct. A few states require the payment of a poll tax. Some require that the voter shall be able to read and understand the Constitution. This latter qualification has been introduced into several of the Southern states, partly at least to disqualify the ignorant coloured voters. In all, or practically all, the states idiots, convicts and the insane are disqualified; in some states paupers; in some of the Western states the Chinese. In some states women are allowed to vote on certain questions, or for the candidates for certain offices, especially school officials; and in four of the Western states women have the same rights of suffrage as men. The number of those who are qualified to vote, but do not avail themselves of the right, varies greatly in the different states and according to the interest taken in the election. As a general rule, but subject to exceptions, the national elections call out the largest number, the state elections next, and the local elections the smallest number of voters. In an exciting national election between 80 and 90% of the qualified voters actually vote, a proportion considerably greater than in Great Britain or Germany.
The tendency of recent years has been towards a decrease both in the number and in the frequency of elections. A president and vice-president are voted for every fourth year, in the years divisible by four, on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. Members of the national House of Representatives are chosen for two years on the even-numbered years. State and local elections take place in accordance with state laws, and may or may not be on the same day as the national elections. Originally the rule was for the states to hold annual elections; in fact, so strongly did the feeling prevail of the need in a democratic country for frequent elections, that the maxim “where annual elections end, tyranny begins,” became a political proverb. But opinion gradually changed even in the older or Eastern states, and in 1909 Massachusetts and Rhode Island were the only states in the Union holding annual elections for governor and both houses of the state legislature. In the Western states especially state officers are chosen for longer terms—in the case of the governor often for four years—and the number of elections has correspondingly decreased. Another cause of the decrease in the number of elections is the growing practice of holding all the elections of any year on one and the same day. Before the Civil War Pennsylvania held its state elections several months before the national elections. Ohio and Indiana, until 1885 and 1881 respectively, held their state elections early in October. Maine, Vermont and Arkansas keep to September. The selection of one day in the year for all elections held in that year has resulted in a considerable decrease in the total number.
Another tendency of recent years, but not so pronounced, is to hold local elections in what is known as the “off” year; that is, on the odd-numbered year, when no national election is held. The object of this reform is to encourage independent voting. The average American citizen is only too prone to carry his national political predilections into local elections, and to vote for the local nominees of his party, without regard to the question of fitness of candidates and the fundamental difference of issues involved. This tendency to vote the entire party ticket is the more pronounced because under the system of voting in use in many of the states all the candidates of the party are arranged on one ticket, and it is much easier to vote a straight or unaltered ticket than to change or “scratch” it. Again, the voter, especially the ignorant one, refrains from scratching his ticket, lest in some way he should fail to comply with the technicalities of the law and his vote be lost. On the other hand, if local elections are held on the “off” or odd year, and there be no national or state candidates, the voter feels much more free to select only those candidates whom he considers best qualified for the various offices.
On the important question of the purity of elections it is difficult to speak with precision. In many of the states, especially those with an enlightened public spirit, such as most of the New England states and many of the North-Western, the elections are fairly conducted, there being no intimidation at all, little or no bribery, and an honest count. It can safely be said that through the Union as a whole the tendency of recent years has been decidedly towards greater honesty of elections. This is owing to a number of causes: (1) The selection of a single day for all elections, and the consequent immense number voting on that day. Some years ago, when for instance the Ohio and Indiana elections were held a few weeks before the general election, each party strained every nerve to carry them, for the sake of prestige and the influence on other states. In fact, presidential elections were often felt to turn on the result in these early voting states, and the party managers were none too scrupulous in the means employed to carry them. Bribery has decreased in such states since the change of election day to that of the rest of the country. (2) The enactment in most of the states of the Australian or secret ballot (q.v.) laws. These have led to the secrecy of the ballot, and hence to a greater or less extent have prevented intimidation and bribery. (3) Educational or other such test, more particularly in the Southern states, the object of which is to exclude the coloured, and especially the ignorant coloured, voters from the polls. In those southern states in which the coloured vote was large, and still more in those in which it was the majority, it was felt among the whites that intimidation or ballot-box stuffing was justified by the necessity of white supremacy. With the elimination of the coloured vote by educational or other tests the honesty of elections has increased. (4) The enactment of new and more stringent registration laws. Under these laws only those persons are allowed to vote whose names have been placed on the rolls a certain number of days or months before election. These rolls are open to public inspection, and the names may be challenged at the polls, and “colonization” or repeating is therefore almost impossible. (5) The reform of the civil service and the gradual elimination of the vicious principle of “to the victors belong the spoils.” With the reform of the civil service elections become less a scramble for office and more a contest of political or economic principle. They bring into the field, therefore, a better class of candidates. (6) The enactment in a number of states of various other laws for the prevention of corrupt practices, for the publication of campaign expenses, and for the prohibition of party workers from coming within a certain specified distance of the polls. In the state of Massachusetts, for instance, an act passed in 1892, and subsequently amended, provides that political committees shall file a full statement, duly sworn to, of all campaign expenditures made by them. The act applies to all public elections except that of town officers, and also covers nominations by caucuses and conventions as well. Apart from his personal expenses such as postage, travelling expenses, &c., a candidate is prohibited from spending anything himself to promote either his nomination or his election, but he is allowed to contribute to the treasury of the political committee. The law places no limit on the amount that these committees may spend. The reform sought by the law is thorough publicity, and not only are details of receipts and expenditures to be published, but the names of contributors and the amount of their contributions. In the state of New York the act which seeks to prevent corrupt practices relies in like manner on the efficacy of publicity, but it is less effective than the Massachusetts law in that it provides simply for the filing by the candidates themselves of sworn statements of their own expenses. There is nothing to prevent their contributing to political committees, and the financial methods and the amounts expended by such committees are not made public. But behind all these causes that have led to more honest elections lies the still greater one of a healthier public spirit. In the reaction following the Civil War all reforms halted. In recent years, however, a new and healthier interest has sprung up in things political; and one result of this improved civic spirit is seen in the various laws for purification of elections. It may now be safely affirmed that in the majority of states the elections are honestly conducted; that intimidation, bribery,stuffing of the ballot boxes or other forms of corruption, when they exist, are owing in large measure to temporary or local causes; and that the tendency of recent years has been towards a decrease in all forms of corruption.
The expenses connected with elections, such as the renting and preparing of the polling-places, the payment of the clerks and other officers who conduct the elections and count the vote, are borne by the community. A candidate therefore is not, as far as the law is concerned, liable to any expense whatever. As a matter of fact he does commonly contribute to the party treasury, though in the case of certain candidates, particularly those for the presidency and for judicial offices, financial contributions are not general. The amount of a candidate’s contribution varies greatly, according to the office sought, the state in which he lives, and his private wealth. On one occasion, in a district in New York, a candidate for Congress is credibly believed to have spent at one election $50,000. On the other hand, in a Congressional election in a certain district in Massachusetts, the only expenditure of one of the candidates was for the two-cent stamp placed on his letter of acceptance. No estimate of the average amount expended can be made. It is, however, the conclusion of Mr Bryce, in hisAmerican Commonwealth, that as a rule a seat in Congress costs the candidate less than a seat for a county division in the House of Commons. (See alsoBallot.)
ELECTION,in English law, the obligation imposed upon a party by courts of equity to choose between two inconsistent or alternative rights or claims in cases where there is a clear intention of the person from whom he derives one that he should not enjoy both. Thus a testator died seized of property in fee simple and in fee tail—he had two daughters, and devised the fee simple property to one and the entailed property to the other; the first one claimed to have her share of the entailed property as coparcener and also to retain the benefit she took under the will. It was held that she was put to her election whether she would take under the will and renounce her claim to the entailed property or take against the will, in which case she must renounce the benefits she took under the will in so far as was necessary to compensate her sister. As the essence of the doctrine is compensation, a person electing against a document does not lose all his rights under it, but the court will sequester so much only of the benefit intended for him as will compensate the persons disappointed by his election. For the same reason it is necessary that there should be a free and disposable fund passing by the instrument from which compensation can be made in the event of election against the will. If, therefore, a man having a special power of appointment appoint the fund equally between two persons, one being an object of the power and the other not an object, no question of election arises, but the appointment to the person not an object is bad.
Election, though generally arising in cases of wills, may also arise in the case of a deed. There is, however, a distinction to be observed. In the case of a will a clear intention on the part of the testator that he meant to dispose of property not his own must be shown, and parol evidence is not admissible as to this. In the case of a deed, however, no such intention need be shown, for if a deed confers a benefit and imposes a liability on the same person he cannot be allowed to accept the one and reject the other, but this must be distinguished from cases where two separate gifts are given to a person, one beneficial and the other onerous. In such a case no question of election arises and he may take the one and reject the other, unless, indeed, there are words used which make the one conditional on the acceptance of the other.
Election is either express,e.g.by deed, or implied; in the latter case it is often a question of considerable difficulty whether there has in fact been an election or not; each case must depend upon the particular circumstances, but quite generally it may be said that the person who has elected must have been capable of electing, aware of the existence of the doctrine of election, and have had the opportunity of satisfying himself of the relative value of the properties between which he has elected. In the case of infants the court will sometimes elect after an inquiry as to which course is the most advantageous, or if there is no immediate urgency, will allow the matter to stand over till the infant attains his majority. In the cases of married women and lunatics the courts will exercise the right for them. It sometimes happens that the parties have so dealt with the property that it would be inequitable to disturb it; in such cases the court will not interfere in order to allow of election.
ELECTORAL COMMISSION,in United States history, a commission created to settle the disputed presidential election of 1876. In this election Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic candidate, received 184 uncontested electoral votes, and Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, 163.1The states of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon and South Carolina, with a total of 22 votes, each sent in two sets of electoral ballots,2and from each of these states except Oregon one set gave the whole vote to Tilden and the other gave the whole vote to Hayes. From Oregon one set of ballots gave the three electoral votes of the state to Hayes; the other gave two votes to Hayes and one to Tilden.
The election of a president is a complex proceeding, the method being indicated partly in the Constitution, and being partly left to Congress and partly to the states. The manner of selecting the electors is left to state law; the electoral ballots are sent to the president of the Senate, who “shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all certificates, and the votes shall then be counted.” Concerning this provision many questions of vital importance arose in 1876: Did the president of the Senate count the votes, the houses being mere witnesses; or did the houses count them, the president’s duties being merely ministerial? Did counting imply the determination of what should be counted, or was it a mere arithmetical process; that is, did the Constitution itself afford a method of settling disputed returns, or was this left to legislation by Congress? Might Congress or an officer of the Senate go behind a state’s certificate and review the acts of its certifying officials? Might it go further and examine into the choice of electors? And if it had such powers, might it delegate them to a commission? As regards the procedure of Congress, it seems that, although in early years the president of the Senate not only performed or overlooked the electoral count but also exercised discretion in some matters very important in 1876, Congress early began to assert power, and, at least from 1821 onward, controlled the count, claiming complete power. The fact, however, that the Senate in 1876 was controlled by the Republicans and the House by the Democrats, lessened the chances of any harmonious settlement of these questions by Congress. The country seemed on the verge of civil war. Hence it was that by an act of the 29th of January 1877, Congress created the Electoral Commission to pass upon the contested returns, giving it “the same powers, if any” possessed by itself in the premises, the decisions to stand unless rejected by the two houses separately. The commission was composed of five Democratic and five Republican Congressmen, two justices of the Supreme Court of either party, and a fifth justice chosen by these four. As its members of the commission the Senate chose G.F. Edmunds of Vermont, O.P. Morton of Indiana, and F.T. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey (Republicans); and A.G. Thurman of Ohio and T.F. Bayard of Delaware (Democrats). The House chose Henry B. Payne of Ohio, Eppa Hunton of Virginia, and Josiah G. Abbott of Massachusetts (Democrats); and George F. Hoar of Massachusetts and James A. Garfield of Ohio (Republicans). The Republican judges were William Strong and Samuel F. Miller; the Democratic, Nathan Clifford and Stephen J. Field. These four chose as the fifteenth member Justice Joseph P. Bradley,a Republican but the only member not selected avowedly as a partisan. As counsel for the Democratic candidate there appeared before the commission at different times Charles O’Conor of New York, Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, R.T. Merrick of the District of Columbia, Ashbel Green of New Jersey, Matthew H. Carpenter of Wisconsin, George Hoadley of Ohio, and W.C. Whitney of New York. W.M. Evarts and E.W. Stoughton of New York and Samuel Shellabarger and Stanley Matthews of Ohio appeared regularly in behalf of Mr Hayes.
The popular vote seemed to indicate that Hayes had carried South Carolina and Oregon, and Tilden Florida and Louisiana. It was evident, however, that Hayes could secure the 185 votes necessary to elect only by gaining every disputed ballot. As the choice of Republican electors in Louisiana had been accomplished by the rejection of several thousand Democratic votes by a Republican returning board, the Democrats insisted that the commission should go behind the returns and correct injustice; the Republicans declared that the state’s action was final, and that to go behind the returns would be invading its sovereignty. When this matter came before the commission it virtually accepted the Republican contention, ruling that it could not go behind the returns except on the superficial issues of manifest fraud therein or the eligibility of electors to their office under the Constitution; that is, it could not investigate antecedents of fraud or misconduct of state officials in the results certified. All vital questions were settled by the votes of eight Republicans and seven Democrats; and as the Republican Senate would never concur with the Democratic House in overriding the decisions, all the disputed votes were awarded to Mr Hayes, who therefore was declared elected.
The strictly partisan votes of the commission and the adoption by prominent Democrats and Republicans, both within and without the commission, of an attitude toward states-rights principles quite inconsistent with party tenets and tendencies, have given rise to much severe criticism. The Democrats and the country, however, quietly accepted the decision. The judgments underlying it were two: (1) That Congress rightly claimed the power to settle such contests within the limits set; (2) that, as Justice Miller said regarding these limits, the people had never at any time intended to give to Congress the power, by naming the electors, to “decide who are to be the president and vice-president of the United States.”
There is no doubt that Mr Tilden was morally entitled to the presidency, and the correction of the Louisiana frauds would certainly have given satisfaction then and increasing satisfaction later, in the retrospect, to the country. The commission might probably have corrected the frauds without exceeding its Congressional precedents. Nevertheless, the principles of its decisions must be recognized by all save ultra-nationalists as truer to the spirit of the Constitution and promising more for the good of the country than would have been the principles necessary to a contrary decision.
By an act of the 3rd of February 1887 the electoral procedure is regulated in great detail. Under this act determination by a state of electoral disputes is conclusive, subject to certain formalities that guarantee definite action and accurate certification. These formalities constitute “regularity,” and are in all cases judgable by Congress. When Congress is forced by the lack or evident inconclusiveness of state action, or by conflicting state action, to decide disputes, votes are lost unless both houses concur.