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NOTE Section IX

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Section 9. What is the motive of the secret ballot? This and only this. Like other

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confederates in crime, those who use it are not friends but enemies, and they are

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afraid to be known and to have their individual doings known even to each

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other. They can contrive to bring about a sufficient understanding to enable them

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to act in concert against other persons, but beyond this they have no confidence

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and no friendship among themselves. In fact, they are engaged quite as much in schemes for

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plundering each other as in plundering those who are not of them. And it is perfectly well understood

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among them that the strongest party among them will, in certain contingencies, murder each other

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by the hundreds of thousands, as they lately did do, to accomplish their purposes against each other.

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Hence they dare not be known and have their individual doings known even to each other.

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And this is avowedly the only reason for the ballot. For a secret government. A government by secret bands of robbers and murderers.

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And we are insane enough to call this liberty. To be a member of this secret band of robbers and murderers is esteemed a privilege and an honor.

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Without this privilege a man is considered a slave, but with it a free man.

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If any number of men, many or few, claim the right to govern the people of this country,

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let them make and sign an open compact with each other to do so.

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Let them thus make themselves individually known to those whom they propose to govern,

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and let them thus openly take the legitimate responsibility of their acts.

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How many of those who now support the Constitution will ever do this?

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How many will dare openly proclaim their right to govern, or to take the legitimate responsibility

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of their acts?

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Not one.