II
Does Voting Imply Support of the Pretended "Constitution"?

Let us consider these two matters, voting and tax paying, separately; and first, voting. All the voting that has ever taken place under the pretended "constitution" has been of such a kind that it not only did not pledge the whole people to support the pretended "constitution," but it did not even pledge any one of them to do so, as the following considerations show.

1. In the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nobody but the actual voters.

(Incidentally, due to the property qualifications required, it is probable that, during the first twenty or thirty years under the pretended "constitution," not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or perhaps twentieth of the whole population (black and white, men, women, and minors) were permitted to vote. Consequently, so far as voting was concerned, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth of those then existing, could have incurred any obligation to support the pretended "constitution.")

2. Many never vote at all. Many vote only once in two, three, five, or ten years, in periods of great excitement. No one, by voting, can be said to pledge himself for any longer period than that for which he votes. If, for example, I vote for an officer who is to hold his office for only a year, I cannot be said to have thereby pledged myself to support the pretended "constitution" beyond that term.
3. It cannot be said that, by voting, a man pledges himself to support the pretended "constitution," unless the act of voting be a perfectly voluntary one on his part. Yet the act of voting cannot properly be called a voluntary one on the part of any very large number of those who do vote. It is rather a measure of necessity imposed upon them by others, than one of their own choice. In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having even been asked a man finds himself environed by a gang of tyrants, robbers, and murderers (masquerading as a "government") that he cannot resist; terrocrats (terrorist bureaucrats or coercive "government" agents) who force him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot - which is a mere substitute for the bullet - because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.

Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive "government" terrocrats in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby meliorating their condition. But it would not, therefore, be a legitimate inference that the terrocrats themselves, that crush them, or their pretended "constitution," was one which they had voluntarily set up, or even consented to.

As we can have no legal knowledge as to who votes from choice, and who from the necessity thus forced upon him, we can have no legal knowledge, as to any particular individual, that he voted from choice; or consequently, that by voting, he consented, or pledged himself, to support any pretended "constitution," or the terrocrats who use it as a shield to "justify" their plunder and murder. Legally speaking, therefore, the act of voting utterly fails to pledge anyone to support any pretended "constitution." It utterly fails to prove that the "authority" or "jurisdiction" (pretended) of any terrocrats rest upon the voluntary support of anyone. On general principles of law and reason, it cannot be said that any terrocrats have any voluntary supporters at all, until it can be distinctly shown precisely who their voluntary supporters are.

4. As taxation is made compulsory on all, whether they vote or not, a large proportion of those who vote, no doubt do so to prevent their own money being used against themselves; when, in fact, they would have gladly abstained from voting, if they could thereby have saved themselves from taxation alone, to say nothing of being saved from all the other usurpations and tyrannies of terrocrats. To take a man's property without his consent, and then to infer his consent because he attempts, by voting, to prevent that property from being forcibly taken from him and used to his injury, is a very insufficient proof of his consent to support the pretended "constitution." It is, in fact, no proof at all.
5. At nearly all elections, votes are given for various candidates for the same office. Those who vote for the unsuccessful candidates cannot properly be said to have voted to sustain the pretended "constitution." They may, with more reason, be supposed to have voted, not to support the pretended "constitution," but specially to prevent the tyranny which they anticipate the successful candidate intends to practice upon them under color of the pretended "constitution"; and therefore may reasonably be supposed to have voted against the pretended "constitution" itself. This supposition is the more reasonable, inasmuch as such voting is the only mode given to them of expressing their dissent to the pretended "constitution."
6. Many votes are usually given for candidates who have no prospects of success. Those who give such votes may reasonably be supposed to have voted as they did, with special intention, not to support, but to obstruct the execution of, the pretended "constitution."
7. As all the different votes are given secretly (by secret ballot), there is no legal means of knowing, from the votes themselves, who votes for, and who against, the pretended "constitution." Therefore, voting affords no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the pretended "constitution." And where there can be no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the pretended "constitution," it cannot be legally said that anybody supports it at all. It is clearly impossible to have any legal proof of the intentions of large numbers of men, where there can be no legal proof of the intentions of any particular one of them.
8. There being no legal proof of any man's intentions, in voting, we can only conjecture them. Men's voluntary support of the pretended "constitution" is doubtless, in most cases, wholly contingent upon the question whether, by means of the pretended "constitution," they can make themselves masters, or be made slaves. Such contingent consent as that is, in law and reason, no consent at all.
9. As everybody who supports the pretended "constitution" by voting (if there are any such) does so secretly (by secret ballot), and in a way to avoid all personal responsibility for the act of his agents or representatives, it cannot legally or reasonably be said that anybody at all supports the pretended "constitution" by voting. No man can reasonably or legally be said to do such a thing as to assent to, or support, the pretended "constitution," unless he does it openly, and in a way to make himself personally responsible for the acts of his agents, so long as they act within the limits of the power he delegates to them.
10. As all voting is secret (by secret ballot), and as all secret "governments" (pretended) are necessarily only secret bands of tyrants, robbers, and murderers, the general fact that terrocrats are voted for, does nothing towards proving that "the people of the United States," or any one of them, voluntarily supports the pretended "constitution."

For all the reasons that have now been given, voting furnishes no legal evidence as to who the particular individuals are (if there are any), who voluntarily support the pretended "constitution." It therefore furnishes no legal evidence that anybody supports it voluntarily.

So far, therefore, as voting is concerned, the pretended "constitution," legally speaking, has no supporters at all. And, as a matter of fact, there is not the slightest probability that the pretended "constitution" has a single legitimate supporter in the country. That is to say, there is not the slightest probability that there is a single man in the country, who both understands what the pretended "constitution" really is, and sincerely supports it for what it really is.

The ostensible supporters of the pretended "constitution," like the ostensible supporters of most terrocrats, are made up of three classes, viz.:

1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see terrocrats as people they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth.
2. Dupes - a large class, no doubt - each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in enslaving, robbing, and murdering others, that others have in enslaving, robbing, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a "free man," a "sovereign"; that this is "a free government," "a government of equal rights," "the best government on earth," and such like absurdities.
3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of terrocrats, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.

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