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Show THE VALUE OF ONE VOTE. By Roderick Corwin. "I have only one vote. What difference does it make If I use it or not? There will bo no" change In the result because I do not go to the polls." This is the most frequent form of axouse with which care!e3S or indolent citizens soothe their consciences on election day. Of course the exoii3e oarries its own refutation with it. If everybody thought and aoted thus, there would be no election at all. But, moreover, there have been many cases known in this country when a single vote not merely on the bench or in the Legislative hall, but even at the polling booth, where it would appear that its individuality would beabsolutely lost, has decided the fate of great men and important causes. In the gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts Massachu-setts in November, 1839, Marcus Morton defeated Edward Everett by a single vote in a total poll Of 100,022. This defeat interrupted tho hitherto triumphant tri-umphant political career of Everett, and withdrew him from the field of possible presidential candidates candi-dates until 18G0, when he reluctantly consented to run as Vice Presidential nominee on the ticket headed by John Bell, and was "snowed out of sight." The famous Tom Corwin, United States Senator Sena-tor from and Governor of Ohio, was fond of telling tell-ing the following story: "In the spring of 1811, at the annual eleotion in Rhode Island, there was a town precinct closely close-ly contested by the Federal and the Republican (the peace and war parties). A Federal farmer hurrying down to vote, just before closing time, was stopped in the way by finding one of his valuable valu-able pigs fast between the planks of a fence. He tried to pull the pig out, and failed. Then with some difficulty he pried away one of the planks, released re-leased the pig, and started on a run for the voting place. Just as he got within a hundred feet of it the town clock struck six. The polls closed without his vote. Tho result was that a war Representative Rep-resentative from that town was elected by one vote. "When the General Assembly met a few weeks afterward, Ti war Senator was chosen by one ma jorlty on the joint ballot. In 1812 the declaration of war against England was carried in the United State Senate by one vote. General Jackson was nominated as a major general and confirmed by one vote, January 8, 1815. He commanded the army at the battle of New Orleans, won a great victory, became a popular military hero, was elected and re-elected President of the United States, turned all the Whigs out of office, removed all the deposits from the national banks, vetoed the bill, and played havoc generally, and all because be-cause this pig away up in Rhode Island got fast in a plank fence." In the more limited area of Congress, a single vote has frequently lost or carried an important measure. In 1868 one vote transferred from the nineteen nogatives to the thirty-five affirmatives in the Andrew Johnson impeachment case would have given the President's enemies the twothirds majority necessary for conviotion and removal. In 1840 the revenue-reform or "free-trade" tariff, an act of the greatest financial significance, was carried by the casting-vote of Vice-President George M. Dallas, who had at one time pledged himself against it. But tho importance of one vote was never more signally demonstrated tha.n in 1801. Suppose that just one of the seventy-three Presidential electors who declared for both Jefferson Jeffer-son and Burr had cast for somebody else the vote he gave to Jefferson? There would have been no tie, and the election would not have baen transferred trans-ferred to tho Iouse of Representative, and Aaron Burr and not Thomas Jefferson would have btsn President of the United States.--Cbicago Record-Herald. |