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COKPULSOEY VOTIHG.It; is difficult of belief that in “free America*1 a journal can be found so regardless or ignorant of the spirit of liberty as to advocate compulsory voting. Yet such is a serious fact. It is urged by several Western journals that lawsbe passed or a constitutional amendment adopted to make voting imperative on free American citizens, and a failure to vote punishable by §ne and imprisonment. While the -prevalent political apathy among large classes of citizens is a source of great anxiety to the well-wishers of a republican form oCgovernment, compulsory voting is not a proper remedy for the evil. To make of the polls a political pillory of opinion - is to fail in every suggestion of a free government, and to visit the default of voting by a citizen with penalties is to change a fundamental privilege to a virtual crime—a result too obviously unnatural in a republic to be even momentarily entertained. The right of choice necessarily implies the equal right of a refusal of all candidates for office. As well might the law dictate the voter’s choice on grounds of seniority, etc., as to rigidly impose penalties for not choosing. Either wouldbe an assumption of power entirely incompatible with the meaning of the enactments authorizing and regulating elections. Indeed,. the very phrase 4‘compulsory voting” is a contradiction. Voting implies a choice, and a choicecannot be compulsory. And yet, nothing is more evident than that some remedy must be devised to accomplish a complete expression of public opinionat the polls—or the end will approacheven more closely and rapidly, than therecent events in the South indicate. November 5th, 1872, endorsed the pol-ioy which reorganizes, or rather reconstructs, » State legislature at the dicta of a Cabinet official, and which sustainsthe usurpation by a federal judge lt;?f powers entirely foreign to his office. A large measure of popular apathy, induced by long-continued security, accomplished that endorsement. The remedy remains solely with the voters themselves—not in the forced, selfcontradictory republicanism of “eom-pulsoiy voting. —Bridgeport Farmer.
Newspaper Details
Catskill Recorder
Catskill, New York, US
Fri, Jan 10, 1873
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Lande W.
USA 17 Apr 2025
Other Publications Near Catskill, New York
Catskill Recorder and Greene County Republican
Catskill Recorder and Democrat and Democratic Herald
Catskill Recorder
