Article I. Initial Presentation of the Controversy

85. The subject of this chapter is defined more precisely.

a) We shall speak only of that right of suffrage by which the people elect magistrates, especially those through whom laws are enacted (deputies).

b) Moreover, we shall consider these two points: α) What is the exact rationale of this right? β) From what principles must its right ordering be made?

86. The opinions of the doctors. Most of the Scholastic doctors are of almost no assistance to us, since they pass over our question in silence.

St. Thomas, however, must be excepted, from whom we receive these teachings:

a) Although of the three forms of the state—the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic¹—none is absolutely good or bad, nevertheless a regime composed in some manner from these three is per se to be preferred. For he has these words in I–II, q. 105, art. 1, corpus: “For such is the best² polity, well mixed from kingship, insofar as one presides; and from aristocracy, insofar as many rule according to virtue; and from democracy, that is, the power of the people, insofar as princes can be chosen from the people, and the election of princes pertains to the people.”³

¹ You will not wonder that the Holy Doctor elsewhere (De Regimine Principum) defines democracy in somewhat harsh words if you observe that this word, in the Philosopher, designates the corrupt form of popular government, almost as tyranny is opposed to monarchy and oligarchy to aristocracy; but the genuine form of democracy is called polity. Cf. Politics, bk. 3, ch. 5. Molina already notes this, disp. 23, no. 13.

² Others read: “But such is every polity.”

³ In this matter St. Thomas adheres to the perpetual tradition of those who think moderately. For Aristotle had already so pronounced; so too Cicero: “I judge that a certain fourth kind of commonwealth is to be approved above all, one moderated and mixed from the three which I first named” (De Republica, bk. 1, ch. 29; cf. also bk. 1, ch. 45). More recent authors agree, so that a moderation of this kind seems to correspond to the more universal conditions of men.

β) Nevertheless, it is necessary that the people not be unworthy of the right with which they are endowed. Cf. I–II, q. 97, art. 1: “If gradually the same people, having been depraved, have a venal suffrage and entrust rule to disgraceful and criminal men, the power of conferring honors is rightly taken away from the people and returns to the judgment of a few good men.”

From these principles it is perhaps permissible to argue that the Angelic Doctor would not have recoiled from this tenet of Ahrens:⁴ “For the combination [of political forms] to be just, it must be such that it permits a successive enlargement of the democratic element, in proportion as civilization extends over a greater part of the nation.”

⁴ Cours de droit naturel [Course of Natural Law], p. 386. He himself taught at Brussels.

b) As regards the more recent authors:

α) Those who write on moral theology number the right of suffrage among privileges whose positive use is not commanded by virtue of commutative justice. Cf. Most Illustrious D. Waffelaert, De Iustitia et Iure, vol. 2, no. 406; Génicot, Theologia Moralis, vol. 1, no. 359.

β) Others, however, who are occupied with political studies, depart chiefly into two parties. For the Rationalists, the right of suffrage (the electoral franchise) is a natural and innate right of the people through which those who possess supreme power obtain the delegation without which no one would rule legitimately. For they say that by this means alone a man divests himself of his inborn liberty and independence and transfers his autonomy to the community. But they wish the divestment to be absolute, whence whatever right and autonomy inhered in individuals would thereafter belong to the state.

From this error flow these two conclusions as necessary: a) strictly universal suffrage, conceded equally to all, since the condition of all is one; b) after the suffrage of individuals has been cast, complete servitude and the omnipotence of the State, except that perhaps the right of rising up to bring about a revolution remains to the citizens (the right of revolution).

These things being omitted, however, there is sufficient agreement among the others that the right of suffrage is entrusted to citizens as a certain office to be discharged by them.

Nevertheless, not a few admit that this rationale of an office is only imperfect,⁵ so that they seem to hold the same opinion as most theologians.

⁵ Thus D. M. Block, Petit dictionnaire politique et social [Little Political and Social Dictionary]. Paris, Perrin, 1896, s.v. “Électorat”: “The electoral franchise can be conceived as being, to a certain degree, a function.” Likewise, in the Belgian Parliament, when D. Beernaert (Annales de la Chambre [Proceedings of the Chamber], 1893, p. 812) had said, “The right to vote is a function with which society invests those whom it judges capable of fulfilling it,” D. Woeste (ibid., p. 898) observed that this office must be distinguished from other offices: “An accepted function is one thing; a conferred function is another: the right of suffrage is a conferred function and not an accepted function.”

If we now ask about the manner in which the right of suffrage is to be ordered, there are some who, from absolute principles, wish this or that form either to be commended or condemned. This was recently observed in Belgium concerning the system by which each notable part of the electors is permitted, according to the number of suffrages, to elect some deputies (proportional representation). For some contended that without that system the government which they call representative lacked truth, while others thought that through the same system the rights of truth were denied and political skepticism introduced.