natural and supernatural; and who made the former to be compounded of different principles. Accordingly, Xenophanes maintained, that the earth consisted of air and fire, that all things were produced out of the earth, and the sun and stars out of clouds, and that there were four elements. Parmenides also distinguished between the doctrine concerning metaphysical objects, called truth, and that concerning physical or corporeal things, called opinion; with respect to the former, there was one immoveable principle, but in the latter two that were moveable, viz. fire and earth, or heat and cold; in which particulars Zeno agreed with him. The other branch of the Eleatic sect were the atomic philosophers, who formed their system from an attention to the phenomena of nature; of these the most considerable were Leucippus, Democritus, and Protagoras. Lat. helenium. A Botanists enumerate ELECAMPA'NE, n. s. plant, named also starwort. thirty species of this plant. The Germans have a method of candying elecampane root like ginger, to which they prefer it, and call it German spice. Hill's Materia Medica. ELECAMPANE, in botany. See INULA. ELECTION, n. s. ELECTIONEERING, ELECTIVE, adj. Fr. elire; Ital. eleggere; Span. elegir; Port. eleger; Lat. elecELECTIVELY, adv. tus, eligere. To ELECTOR, n. s. choose; select: ELECTORAL, adj. used, theologiELECTORATE, N. S. cally, for God's ELECTORESS, choice of his Son, ELECTRESS. the Jews, Christians, &c. and in the same sense, as a substantive, for the party or parties chosen. An election, politically, is the ceremony of choosing, or too often of returning only, members of parliament: electioneering, the business, solicitations, or practices, whereby such returns are procured: elective, regulated, or bestowed, by election; exerting choice: elector, one who has a right, or power, to choose to office, or otherwise: electoral, having the right or dignity of elector, applied, in a particular sense, to certain German princes, whose dominions are called their electorate: electoress, or electress, is the wife, or widow, of an electoral prince. Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. Bible. Isa. xlii. 1. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? Id. Rom. viii. 33. If the election of the minister should be committed to every several parish, do you think that they would chuse the meetest? Whitgift. You have here, lady, And of your choice, these reverend fathers, Yea, the elect of the land, who are assembled To plead your cause. Shakspeare. Henry VIII. The wisdom of nature is better than of books: prudence being a wise election of those things which never remain after one and the self-same manner. A vicious liver, believing that Christ died for none but the elect, shall have attempts made upon him to reform and amend his life. Hammond. Some I have chosen of peculiar grace, Milton. Id. But natural necessity, begot. From the new world her silver and her gold Came, like a tempest, to confound the old; Feeding with these the bribed electors' hopes, Alone she gave us emperors and popes. Waller. To talk of compelling a man to be good, is a contradiction; for where there is force, there can be no choice: whereas all moral goodness consisteth in the elective act of the understanding will. Grew's Cosmologia Sacra. They work not electively, or upon proposing to themselves an end of their operations. Id. Thus while they speed their pace, the prince designs The new elected seat, and draws the lines. Dryden. The last change of their government, from elective to hereditary, has made it seem hitherto of less force, and unfitter for action abroad. Temple. Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and newmodel the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the tain of public security? government by the roots, and poison the very founLocke. How or why that should have such an influence upon the spirits, as to drive them into those muscles electively, I am not subtle enough to discern. Ray on the Creation. As charity is, nothing can more increase, the lustre and beauty than a prudent election of objects, and a fit application of it to them. Sprat. You see in elections for members to sit in parliament, how far saluting rows of old women, drinking with clowns, and being upon a level with the lowest part of mankind, in that wherein they themselves are lowest, their diversions, will carry a candidate. Steele. He has a great and powerful king for his son-inlaw; and can himself command, when he pleases, the whole strength of an electorate in the empire. Addison's Freeholder. Since the late dissolution of the club, many persons put up for the next election. Id. Spectator. He calls upon the sinners to turn themselves and live; he tells us that he has set before us life and death, and referred it to our own election which we will chuse. Rogers. The conceit about absolute election to eternal life, some enthusiasts entertaining, have been made remiss in the practice of virtue. Atterbury. Counties could neither be purchased nor intimidated. But their solemn determined election may be rejected; and the man they detest may be appointed by another choice, to represent them in parliament. Junius. Man, thus endued with an elective voice, Cowper. There are not, in this island, one million of persons who have a vote in electing parliament-men: and yet, in this island, there are eight millions of persons who must obey the law. Beattie. The act of parliament settled the crown on the electress Sophia and her descendants. Burke. ELECTION, in British polity, is the people's choice of their representatives in parliament. See PARLIAMENT. In this consists the exercise of the democratical part of our constitution: for in a democracy there can be no exercise of sovereignty but by suffrage, which is the declaration of the people's will. In all democracies, therefore, it is of the utmost importance to regulate by whom and in what manner, the suffrages are to be given. And the Athenians were so justly jealous of this prerogative, that a stranger, who interfered in the assemblies of the people, was punished with death, being esteemed guilty of high treason, by usurping those rights of sovereignty to which he had no title. 'In Britain,' says Blackstone, where the people do not debate in a collective body, but by representation, the exercise of this sovereignty consists in the choice of representatives. The laws have therefore very strictly guarded against the usurpation or abuse of this power, by many salutary provisions; which may be reduced to these three points, 1. The qualifications of the electors. 2. The qualifications of the elected. 3. The proceedings at elections. As to the Qualification of Electors.-The true reason of requiring any qualification, with regard to property, in voters, is to exclude such persons as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own. If these persons had votes, they would be tempted to dispose of them under some undue influence or other. This would give a great, an artful, or a wealthy man, a larger share in elections than is consistent with general liberty. If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind; then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote in electing those delegates to whose charge is committed the disposal of his property, his liberty, and his life. But since that can hardly be expected in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications; whereby some, who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting, in order to set other individuals, whose will may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other. And this constitution of suffrages is framed upon a wiser principle, with us, than either of the methods of voting, by centuries or by tribes, among the Romans. In the method by centuries, instituted by Servius Tullius, it was principally property, and not numbers, that turned the scale; in the method by tribes, gradually introduced by the tribunes of the people, numbers only were regarded, and property entirely overlooked. Hence the laws passed by the former method had usually too great a tendency to aggrandise the patricians or rich nobles: and those by the latter had too much of a levelling principle. Our constitution steers between the two extremes. Only such are entirely excluded as can have no will of their own: there is hardly a free agent to be found, but what is entitled to a vote in some place or other in the kingdom. Nor is comparative wealth or property entirely disregarded in elections; for though the richest man has only one vote at one place, yet, if his property be at all diffused, he has probably a right to vote at more places than one, and therefore has many representatives. This is the spirit of our constitution: not that we assert it is in fact so perfect as we have endeavoured to describe it; for, if any alteration might be wished or suggested in the present form of parliaments, it should be in favor of a more complete representation of the people. But to return to the qualifications; and first, those of elections for knights of the shire. 1. By stat. 8 Hen. VI. c. 7 and 10, Hen. VI. c. 2. (amended by 14 Geo. III. c. 58), the knights of the shire shall be chosen of people, whereof every man shall have freehold to the value of forty shillings by the year within the county; which (by subsequent statutes) is to be clear of all charges and deductions, except parliamentary and parochial taxes. The knights of shires are the representatives of the landholders, or landed interests of the kingdom: their electors must therefore have estates in lands or tenements within the county represented. These estates must be freehold, that is, for term of life at least; because beneficial leases for long terms of years were not in use at the making of these statutes, and copyholders were then little better than villeins, absolutely dependent upon their lords. This freehold must be of forty shillings annual value; because that sum would then, with proper industry, furnish all the necessaries of life, and render the freeholder, if he pleased, an independent man; for bishop Fleetwood, in his Chronicon Pretiosum, written at the beginning of the eighteenth century, has fully proved forty shillings in the reign of Henry VI. to have been equal to £12 per annum in the reign of queen Anne; and, as the value of money is very considerably lowered since the bishop wrote, we may fairly conclude, from this and other circumstances, that what was equivalent to £12 in his days, is equivalent to £30 at present. The other less important qualifications of the electors for counties in England and Wales, may be collected from the statutes 7 and 8 Will. III. c. 25; 10 Ann. c. 23; 2 Geo.¡II. c. 21; 18 Geo. II. c. 18; 31 Geo. II. c. 14; 3 Geo. III. c. 24, which direct, 2. That no person under twenty-one years of age, shall be capable of voting for any member. This extends to all sorts of members as well for boroughs as counties; as does also the next, viz. 3. That no person convicted of perjury, or subornation of perjury, shall be capable of voting in any election. 4. That no person shall vote in right of any freehold, granted to him fraudulently to qualify him to vote. Fraudulent grants are such as contain an agreement to recovery, or to defeat the estate granted; which agreements are made void, and the estate is absolutely vested in the person to whom it is so granted. And, to guard the better against such frauds, it is farther provided, 5. That every voter shall have been in the actual possession, or receipt of the profits, of his freehold to his own use for twelve calendar months before: except it came to him by descent, marriage, marriage-settlement, will, or promotion to a benefice or office. 6. That no person shall vote in respect of an annuity or rent-charge, unless registered with the clerk of the peace twelve calendar months before. 7. That in mortgaged or trust-estates, the person in possession, under the above-mentioned restrictions, shall have the vote. 8. That only one person shall be admitted to vote for any one house or tenement, to prevent the splitting of freeholds. 9. That no estate shall qualify a voter, unless the estate has been assessed to some landtax aid, at least twelve months before the election. 10. That no tenant by copy of court-roll shall be permitted to vote as a freeholder. Thus much for the electors in counties. As for the electors of citizens and burgesses, these are supposed to be the mercantile part or trading interest of this kingdom. But as trade is of a fluctuating nature, and seldom long fixed in a place, it was formerly left to the crown to summon pro re nata, the most flourishing towns to send representatives to parliament. So that as towns increased in trade, and grew populous, they were admitted to a share in the legislature. But the misfortune is, that the deserted boroughs continued to be summoned, as well as those to whom their trade and inhabitants were transferred; except a few which petitioned to be eased of the expense, then usual, of maintaining their member; four shillings a-day being allowed for a knight of the shire, and two shillings for a citizen or burgess; which was the rate or wages established in the reign of Edward III. Hence the members for boroughs now bear above a quadruple proportion to those for counties; and the number of parliament men is increased since Fortescue's time, in the reign of Henry VI., from 300 to upwards of 500, exclusive of those for Scotland. The universities were, in general, not empowered to send burgesses to parliament; though once, in 28 Edw. I. when a parliament was summoned to consider of the king's right to Scotland, there were issued writs, which required the university of Oxford to send up four or five, and that of Cambridge two or three, of their most discreet and learned lawyers for that purpose. But it was king James I. who indulged them with the permanent privilege to send constantly two of their own body to serve; for those students, who, though useful members of the community, were neither concerned in the landed nor the trading interest; and to protect in the legislature the rights of the republic of letters. The right of election in boroughs is various, depending entirely on the several charters, customs, and constitutions of the respective places, which has occasioned infinite disputes: though now, by statute 2 Geo. II. c. 24, the right of voting for the future shall be allowed according to the last determination of the house of commons concerning it; and, by statute 3, Geo. III. c. 15. no freeman of any city or borough (other than such as claim by birth, marriage, or servitude,) shall be entitled to vote therein, unless he has been admitted to his freedom twelve calendar months before. See BOROUGH. 2. As to the Qualifications of Persons to be elected. Some of the qualifications to be elected members of the house of commons depend upon the law and custom of parliaments, declared by the house; others upon certain statutes. And from these it appears, 1. That they must not be aliens born or minors. 2. That they must not be any of the twelve judges, because they sit in the lords' house; nor of the clergy, for they sit in the convocation; nor persons attainted of treason, or felony, for they are unfit to sit any where. 3. That sheriffs of counties, and mayors and bailiffs of boroughs, are not eligible in their respective jurisdictions, as being returning officers; but that sheriffs of one county are eligible to be knights of another. 4. That, in strictness, all members ought to have been inhabitants of the places for which they are chosen ; but, this having been long disregarded, was at length entirely repealed by statute 14 Geo. III. c. 58. 5. That no persons concerned in the management of any duties or taxes created since 1692, except the commissioners of the treasury, nor any of the officers following (viz. commissioners of prizes, transports, sick and wounded, winelicenses, navy, and victualling; secretaries, or receivers of prizes; comptrollers of the army accounts; agents for regiments; governors of plantations, and their deputies; officers of Minorca or Gibraltar; officers of the excise and customs; clerks or deputies in the several offices of the treasury, exchequer, navy, victualling, admiralty, pay of the army or navy, secretaries of state, salt, stamps, appeals, wine-licenses, hackney-coaches, hawkers, and pedlars,) nor any person that holds any new office under the crown, created from 1705, are capable of being elected, or sitting as members. 6. That no person having a pension under the crown during pleasure, or for any term of years, is capable of being elected or sitting. 7. That if any member accepts an office under the crown, except an officer in the army or navy accepting a new commission, his seat is void; but such member is capable of being re-elected. 8. That all knights of the shire shall be actual knights, or such notable squires and gentlemen as have estates sufficient to be knights, and by no means of the degree of yeomen. This is reduced to a still greater certainty, by ordaining, 9. That every knight of a shire shall have a clear estate of freehold or copyhold to the value of £600 per annum, and every citizen and burgess to the value of £300, except the eldest sons of peers and of persons qualified to be knights of shires, and except the members for the two universities: which somewhat balances the ascendant which the boroughs have gained over the counties, by obliging the trading interest to make choice of landed men and of this qualification the member must make oath, and give in the particulars in writing, at the time of his taking his seat. But, subject to these standing restrictions and disqualifications, every subject of the realm is eligible of common right: though there are instances, wherein persons in particular circumstances have forfeited that common right, and have been declared ineligible for that parliament, by a vote of the house of commons; or for ever, by an act of the legislature. But it was an unconstitutional prohibition, which was grounded on an ordinance of the house of lords, and inserted in the king's writs, for the parliament holden at Coventry, 6 Henry IV., that no apprentice or other man of the law should be elected a knight for the shire therein; in return for which, our law books and historians have branded this parliament with the name of parliamentum indoctum, or the lack-learning parliament; and Sir Edward Coke observes, with some spleen, that there was never a good law made thereat. With respect to the clergy, their right or capacity of sitting in parliament was for a long time contested; but at length, by 41 Geo. III. (U. K.) c. 63. it was enacted, that no person having been ordained to the office of priest or deacon, or being a minister of the Church of Scotland, shall be capable of being elected to serve in parliament as a member of the house of commons. The election of such persons is declared void; and if any person after his election is ordained, he must vacate his seat. The penalty for any person sitting as a member, contrary to this act, is £500 a-day: and proof of having celebrated divine service is declared prima facie evidence of the party's being ordained, &c. 3. Respecting the method of proceeding.-The third point regarding elections, is the method of proceeding therein. This is also regulated by the law of parliament, and by various statutes, all of which we shall blend together, and extract out of them a summary account of the method of proceeding to elections. As soon as the parliament is summoned, the lord chancellor (or, if a vacancy happens during the sitting of parliament, the speaker, by order of the house, and without such order, if a vacancy happens by death in the time of a recess for upwards of twenty days,) sends his warrant to the clerk of the crown in chancery; who thereupon issues out writs to the sheriff of every county, for the election of all the members to serve for that county, and every city and borough therein. Within three days after the receipt of this writ, the sheriff is to send his precept, under his seal, to the proper returning officers of the cities and boroughs, commanding them to elect their members: and the said returning officers are to proceed to election within eight days from the receipt of the precept, giving four days notice of the same; and to return the persons chosen, together with the precept, to the sheriff. But elections of knights of the shire must be proceeded to by the she riffs themselves in person, at the next countycourt that shall happen after the delivery of the writ. The county-court is a court held every month or oftener by the sheriff, intended to try little causes not exceeding the value of 40s., in what part of the county he pleases to appoint for that purpose: but, for the election of knights of the shire, it must be held at the most usual place. If the county-court falls upon the day of delivering the writ, or within six days after, the sheriff may adjourn the court and election to some other convenient time, no longer than sixteen days, nor shorter than ten; but he cannot alter the place without the consent of all the candidates: and, in all such cases, ten days public notice must be given of the time and place of the election. And as it is essential to the very being of parliament that elections should be absolutely free, therefore all undue influences upon the electors are illegal, and strongly prohibited. As soon, therefore, as the time and place of election, either in counties or boroughs, are fixed, all soldiers quartered in the places are to remove, at least one day before the election, to the distance of two miles or more: and not to return till one day after the poll is ended. Riots likewise have been frequently determined to make an election void. By vote also of the house of commons, to whom alone belongs the power of determining contested elections, no lord of parliament, or lord-lieutenant of a county, has any right to interfere in the election of commoners; and, by statute, the lord warden of the cinqueports shall not recommend any members there. If any officer of the excise, customs, stamps, or certain other branches of the revenue, presumes to intermeddle in elections, by persuading any voter or dissuading him, he forfeits £100, and is disabled to hold any office. Thus are the electors of one branch of the legislature secured from any undue influence from either of the other two, and from all external violence and compulsion. But the greatest danger is that in which themselves co-operate by the infamous practice of bribery and corruption. To prevent which it is enacted, that no candidate shall, after the date (usually called the teste) of the writs, or after the vacancy, give any money or entertainment to his electors, or promise to give any, either to particular persons, or to the place in general, in order to his being elected, on pain of being incapable to serve for that place in parliament. And if any money, gift, office, employment, or reward, be given or promised to be given, to any voter, at any time, in order to influence him to give or withhold his vote, as well he that takes as he that offers such bribe forfeits £500, and is for ever disabled from voting and holding any office in any corporation: unless, before conviction, he will discover some other offender of the same kind, and then he is indemnified for his own offence. The first instance that occurs of election bribery, was so early as 13 Eliz., when one Thomas Longe acknowledged that he had given the returning officer and others of the borough for which he was chosen the sum of £4 to be returned member, and was for that premium elected. But for this offence the borough was amerced, the member was removed, and the officer fined and imprisoned. But as this practice has since taken much deeper and more universal root, it has occasioned the making of rious statutes; to complete the efficacy of waich, there is nothing wanting but resolution and integrity to put them in strict execution. Undue influence being thus guarded against, the election is to be proceeded to on the day appointed; the sheriff or other returning officer first taking an oath against bribery, and for the due execution of his office. The candidates likewise, if required, must swear to their qualification, and the electors in counties to theirs; and the electors both in counties and boroughs are also compellable to take the oath of abjuration, and that against bribery and corruption. The principal British statutes on this subject are: 7 H. 4. c. 15; 8 H. 6. c. 7; 23 H. 6. c. 14; 2 W. & M. stat. 1. c. 7; 5 & 6 W. & M. c. 20; 7 W. III. c. 4; 7 & 8 W. III. cc. 7, 25; 10 & 11 W.III.c.7; 12 & 13 W. III. c. 10; 6 Ann. c. 23; 9 Ann. c. 5; 10 Ann. cc. 19, 33; 2 Geo. II. c. 24; 8 Geo. II. c. 30; 18 Geo. II. c. 18; 19 Geo. II. e. 28; 10 Geo. III. c. 16; 11 Geo. III. c. 42; 28 Geo. III. c. 52. The election being closed, the returning officer in boroughs returns his precept to the sheriff, with the persons elected by the majority: and the sheriff returns the whole, together with the writs for the county and the knights elected thereupon, to the clerk of the crown in chancery; before the day of meeting, if it be a new parliament, or within fourteen days after the election, if it be an oc casional vacancy; and this under penalty of £500 If the sheriff does not return such knights only as are duly elected, he forfeits, by the old statutes of Henry VI., £100; and the returning officer in boroughs, for a like false return, £40; and they are besides liable to an action, in which double damages shall be recovered, by the later statues of king William; and any person bribing the returning officer shall also forfeit £300. But the members returned by him, are the sitting members, until the house of commons, upon petition, shall adjudge the return to be false and illegal. The form and manner of proceeding upon such petition are regulated by statute 10 Geo. III. c. 16. (amended by 11 Geo. III. c. 42, and made perpetual by 14 Geo. III. c. 15), which directs the method of choosing by lot a select committee of fifteen members, who are sworn well and truly to try the same, and a true judgment to give, according to the evidence. See PARLIAMENT. Since the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., the number of the representatives of the commons has been more than doubled. In his first parliament the house consisted only of 298 members; 360 have since been added by acts of parliament, or by the king's charter, either creating new, or reviving old boroughs. Under the provision of the acts 27 Hen. VIII. c. 26. sect. 29, and 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 26. sect. 27., there were added twenty-four for Wales; twelve precisely by the first act for the counties, and twelve under the provision of the latter act for the boroughs. Two for the county, and two for the city of Chester, were added by stat. 34, 35, Hen. VIII. c. 13. Two for the county, and two for the city of Durham, by stat. 25 Car. II. c. 9. Forty-five for Scotland, by the acts of union with that kingdom; and 100 for Ireland, by the acts of union with that kingdom; and the remainder by charter. The number of the house of commons may therefore be stated thus: : counties, cities, boroughs, and places throughout the united kingdom, will appear by the following statement : |