The Secret Ballot Issue in Massachusetts Politics from 1851 to 1853

Abstract

THE secret ballot was an important issue in Massachusetts politics from 1851 to 1853. All the reformers who favored the adoption of the secret ballot contended, not without reason, that many voters were victims of the pressure exerted upon them by unscrupulous party organizers. In some industrial centers, the managers and foremen of the spinning mills compelled their defenseless employees to vote the right ticket; and the right ticket for them was the Whig one. There had been great abuses;1 and the secret ballot was a device aimed to protect a democratic society against the undue influence of the monied aristocracy. In Massachusetts, however, the vote was not given viva voce because the state constitution required a written vote.2 The ballots until 1888 were printed by each political party organization and distributed to the voters before the election.3 When a voter handed over his ballot to the town officers, it was easy to know for whom he had voted; and the poor employee who dared to vote against his employer's orders took a great risk. The Free Soilers and the Democrats had denounced such a system and were pledged to establish the secret ballot. When they took control of the General Court and of the administration in 1851, they enacted a secret ballot law.4 That reform was almost the only one on which there was unanimity in the