To elect this unique mandatory I have but one vote among ten
thousand; and in helping to elect him I am only the ten-thousandth; I
do not even count for a ten-thousandth in electing the others. And it
is these six or seven hundred strangers to me to who I give full power
to decide for me - note the expression full power - which means
unlimited power, not alone over my possessions and life, but, again,
over my conscience, with all its powers combined; that is to say, with
powers much more extensive than those I confer separately on ten
persons in whom I place the most confidence - to my legal adviser who
looks after my fortune, to the teacher of my children, to the
physician who cares for my health, to the confessor who directs my
conscience, to friends who are to serve as executors of my last will
and testament, to seconds in a duel who decide on my life, on the was
of my blood and who guard my honor. Without reference to the
deplorable farce, so often played around the ballot-box, or to the
forced and distorted elections which put a contrary interpretation on
public sentiment, or to the official lies by which, at this very
moment, a few fanatics and madmen, who represent nobody but
themselves, assume to represent the nation,[14] measure what degree of
confidence I may have, even after honest elections, in mandatories who
are thus chosen! Frequently, I have voted for the defeated candidate;
in which case I am represented by the other who I did not want for a
representative.
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