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Disappointed and dangerous politicians who merely desire office and power have lifted their voices in the hue and cry to fool the honest voter.
Nevada's population of only 80,000 is scattered over an area of 110,000 square miles, a territory larger than the whole of New England. Of these, 40,000 are men over twenty-one years of age, of whom only 20,000 remained in the State long enough to vote at the last general election an average of one voter to every five square miles.
The ardour of those around him began to be contagious: the generous devotion to some cause apart from self, which pervades an election, and to which the poorest voter will often render sacrifices that may be called sublime; the warm personal affection which community of zeal creates for the defender of beloved opinions, all concurred to dispel that indifference to party politics, and counteract that disgust of their baser leaven, which the young poet had first conceived.
Having recognised what reason would prescribe to the legislative reformer, we have next to inquire how far the man voter conforms to these prescriptions of reason, and how far the woman reformer would do so if she became a voter.
As it was pronounced each voter pointed at us, three times making repetition of the word, until the last warrior had spoken, and we knew that our doom had been formally pronounced by a tribunal knowing no mercy, from whose decision there was no appeal.
Blaine in his Twenty Years gives a common sentiment, himself in 1884 still concurring in it: "The North believed, and believed wisely, that a poor man, an ignorant man, and a black man, who was thoroughly loyal, was a safer and better voter than a rich man, an educated man, and a white man, who in his heart was disloyal to the Union."
The property qualification for a voter was, in counties, the possession of lands or tenements of the yearly value of forty shillings sterling or upwards, over and above all rents and charges; and in towns or townships, the possession of a dwelling house and lot of the yearly value of five pounds sterling or upwards, or the having been a resident for twelve months, and the having paid a year's rent at the rate of ten pounds sterling or upwards.
Why shall we not, in this District, where the first effective legislative blow fell upon slavery, declare that these suffering, patient, devoted friends of the republic shall have the power to protect their own rights by their own ballots? Is it because they are ignorant? Sir, we are estopped from that plea. It comes too late. We did not make this inquiry in regard to the white voter.
Suffice it that it does give a method by which a voter may vote with confidence for the particular man he prefers, with no fear whatever that his vote will be wasted in the event of that man's chance being hopeless. There is a method by which the order of the voter's subsequent preference is effectively indicated. That is all, but see how completely it modifies the nature of an election.
That sort of talk, handed out as Evan can hand it, if he is convinced of the truth of what he is saying, will capture the honest voter every time. I tell you, little woman, there's a thing we politicians are constantly losing sight of: that down at the bedrock bottom the American voter 'the man in the street, as the newspapers call him is a fair man and an honest man.
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