Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[116] debater, was elected to the short term in the U. S. Senate, in the place of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, who had been appointed by the governor to succeed Webster in the Senate. Winthrop was the candidate of the opposition to Charles Sumner, who was loyally supported by the Coalition Democrats, or those who were elected on that ticket, with the exception of two or three. From the first, Sumner received within a very few votes of a majority, though bitterly opposed by the Hunker Democrats and all the Whigs, sixteen persons receiving scattering votes. The voting went on until April of that year, when Sumner lacked only two votes of an election. But the count disclosed that there had been two more votes cast than there were members present.

Early in the session a bill for voting by sealed envelopes at State elections was introduced, and was pressed before the legislature against the united vote of the Whig and Hunker parties. In this condition of things Mr. Sidney Bartlett, the Whig leader,--who until the day of his death at ninety years of age was one of the foremost lawyers of Massachusetts, if riot the foremost one,--made what he deemed to be a very cunning proposition, but which, contrary to his expectations, turned out to be a very decisive one. He believed that the scattering votes were all against Sumner, and that his vote was held to him by the party discipline of the Coalition combination. This was Mr. Bartlett's proposition, viz: As the Coalition members are desirous of having all voting done by secret ballot, would they try it in the election of senator?

This, of course, was illogical, and, in fact, unconstitutional. The people have a right to vote in secret; the representatives of the people have no right to vote in secret, and votes in all legislative matters, except the election of a senator, could, if demanded, be by viva voce. The United States Constitution and the constitutions of all the States have made provisions that the manner in which the representatives shall vote must be open, and have provided that it shall be made so by the call of the yeas and nays upon the demand of a meagre minority. The people are entitled to know how their representatives vote, and nobody ought to know how one of the people votes, for they are the supreme power, and are accountable to nobody.

I happened to be on the floor of the House, and standing beside the chairman of the State Committee of the Free-Soil party, who, I saw,