ies having a certain hostility
to each other. In a free state we are all citizens: it is desirable that
we should all be friends.

But this species of influence may be carried too far. To a certain
extent it is good. Inasmuch as it implies the enlightening one human
understanding by the sparks struck out from another, or even the
communication of feelings between man and man, this is not to be
deprecated. Some degree of courteous compliance and deference of the
ignorant to the better informed, is inseparable from the existence of
political society as we behold it; such a deference as we may conceive
the candid and conscientious layman to pay to the suggestions of his
honest and disinterested pastor.

Every thing however that is more than this, is evil. There should be no
peremptory mandates, and no threat or apprehension of retaliation and
mischief to follow, if the man of inferior station or opulence should
finally differ in opinion from his wealthier neighbour. We may admit
of a moral influence; but there must be nothing, that should in the
smallest degree border on compulsion.

But it is unfortunately in the very nature of weak, erring and fallible
mortals, to make an ill use of the powers that are confided to their
discretion. The rich man in the wantonness of his authority will not
stop at moral influence, but, if he is disappointed of his expectation
by what he will call my wilfulness and obstinacy, will speedily
find himself impelled to vindicate his prerogative, and to punish my
resistance. In every such disappointment he will discern a dangerous
precedent, and will apprehend that, if I escape with impunity, the
whole of that ascendancy, which he has regarded as one of the valuable
privileges contingent to his station, will be undermined.

Opulence has two ways of this grosser sort, by which it may enable its
possessor to command the man below him,--punishment and reward. As the
holder, for example, of a large landed estate, or the administrator of
an ample income, may punish the man who shews himself refractory to
his will, so he may also reward the individual who yields to his
suggestions. This, in whatever form it presents itself, may be classed
under the general head of bribery.

The remedy for all this therefore, real or potential, mischief, is said
to lie in the vote by ballot, a contrivance, by means of which every man
shall be enabled to give his vote in favour of or against any candidate
that shal