-booth where coarse, drunken men, elbowing
each other, wade knee-deep in mud to drop a little piece of paper
two inches long into a box--simply this and nothing more. The
poet Wordsworth, showing the blank materialism of those who see
only with their outward eyes, says of his Peter Bell:

"A primrose on the river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."

So our political Peter Bells see the rough polling-booth in this
great right of citizenship, and nothing more. In this act, so
lightly esteemed by the mere materialist, behold the realization
of that great idea struggled for in the ages and proclaimed by
the Fathers, the right of self-government. That little piece of
paper dropped into a box is the symbol of equality, of
citizenship, of wealth, of virtue, education, self-protection,
dignity, independence and power--the mightiest engine yet placed
in the hand of man for the uprooting of ignorance, tyranny,
superstition, the overturning of thrones, altars, kings, popes,
despotisms, monarchies and empires. What phantom can the sons of
the Pilgrims be chasing, when they make merchandise of a power
like this? Judas Iscariot, selling his Master for thirty pieces
of silver, is a fit type of those American citizens who sell
their votes, and thus betray the right of self-government. Talk
not of the "muddy pool of politics," as if such things must need
be. Behold, with the coming of woman into this higher sphere of
influence, the dawn of the new day, when politics, so called, are
to be lifted into the world of morals and religion; when the
polling-booth shall be a beautiful temple, surrounded by
fountains and flowers and triumphal arches, through which young
men and maidens shall go up in joyful procession to ballot for
justice and freedom; and when our election days shall be kept
like the holy feasts of the Jews at Jerusalem. Through the trials
of this second revolution shall not our nation rise up, with new
virtue and strength, to fulfill her mission in leading all the
peoples of the earth to the only solid foundation of government,
"equal rights to all." ...

Our danger lies, not in the direction of despotism, in the
one-man power, in centralization; but in the corruption of the
people....