To Let the Democracy of the Dead Teach Me How to Vote Like A Catholic UPDATED

From Chapter 13, The Duties of the Citizen.

The second class of duties incumbent on the citizen results from his electoral functions. In a republic, legislation and administration depend finally upon the intelligence and morality of the voters. They have it in their power to make the government a good one or a bad one. Whether the common good will be promoted or injured, depends upon the kind of laws enacted and the manner in which they are administered; but the character of the laws and the administration is primarily determined by the way in which the citizens discharge their function of choosing legislators and administrators. Therefore, this function is of the gravest importance and the obligation which it imposes is likewise grave.

It must be admitted that the importance and gravity of this obligation is frequently ignored by Catholics, as well as by other citizens. Writing of Great Britain, the Rev. Thomas Wright declares: “There are large numbers of Catholics in this land with but little appreciation of the strong interrelation which exists between true citizenship and Christianity. . . . Many excuses, it must be owned, may be alleged in extenuation of the apathy of Catholics toward their civic obligations in these lands. Time, however, has undermined the substance of these apologetic pleas. Catholics are now able to appeal to no sufficient cause why they should stand aloof from public affairs, or why, participating in them, they need indiscriminately follow the policies of parties without thought or test of their moral justification.”

These observations may be applied in full measure to the Catholics of the United States. Like their coreligionists of Great Britain, they can show historical conditions to extenuate, if not to justify, their neglect of political obligations. Very many, if not the majority, of them are persons, or the descendants of persons, who came from countries whose governments treated Catholics unfairly and allowed them very little participation in public affairs. As a consequence, a large proportion of American Catholics have been, until quite recently, possessed of what has been happily characterized as “the psychology of persecution.” They have looked upon government with a certain measure of distrust, and, therefore, have been predisposed to ignore or to minimize their electoral responsibility. Many of them have easily and complacently accepted the cynical judgment that “politics is a rotten business,” and have either held aloof or permitted their political influence to be utilized by special and unworthy interests.

The Catholic teaching on the duty of exercising the voting franchise, as stated in the authoritative manuals of moral theology, may be summed up as follows:

The obligation of taking part in the election of candidates for civil offices, is an obligation of legal justice. The citizens are bound to promote the common good in all reasonable ways. The franchise enables them to further or to hinder the common weal greatly and fundamentally, inasmuch asthe quality of the government depends upon the kind of officials they elect. Not only questions of politics, but social, industrial, educational, moral and religious subjects are regulated by legislative bodies and administered by executives. Therefore, the matter is of grave importance, and the obligation of the citizen to participate in the election and to support fit candidates is correspondingly grave. According to Tanquerey, the elector cannot free himself from this obligation by any slight cause or reason, such as, going hunting, or criticism by his neighbors. The excusing cause needs to be of a grave nature, such as loss of one’s means of livelihood. A slight cause will relieve the citizen from the obligation of voting only when he is morally certain that he cannot affect the immediate result. Even then, he ought to take part in the election to show good example, and to hasten the day when the cause which he supports will command a majority of the voters.

Just as the official is obliged to refrain from promoting the interests of individuals as against the common good, so the elector is morally bound to cast his vote for the common welfare, instead of for the benefit of private persons or groups. This principle is very often forgotten by well-meaning citizens; for example, by giving their political support to a friend, or to a member of their own race or religion, when he has not the required moral or intellectual equipment, or when he is the upholder of socially harmful policies. Too often in such situations the honest citizen salves his conscience with the excuse that the opposing candidate “is just as bad.” Were this the fact one might legitimately determine one’s choice on the basis of personal friendship, or racial or religious affiliation, or other extrinsic considerations; but the general fact is that voters who adopt this course do not take adequate care to find out whether the candidate of the opposition is in reality “just as bad.”

They too easily decide the question on the basis of their inclinations and predilections.

Closely connected with this unjustifiable practice is that of ignoring principles and policies in the exercise of the franchise. “Vote for a good man, regardless of party,” is a plausible but essentially inadequate political rule. A distinction should be drawn between legislative offices and those which are merely administrative. In choosing a city treasurer or a county auditor, the only pertinent qualifications are honesty, intellectual capacity and technical equipment. There is involved no question of legislative policy. When the office to be filled is that of Governor of a State, President of the United States, member of a State legislature, or congressman, other qualifications are essential in addition to those just mentioned. The “good man” may have some very harmful views concerning political and industrial policies. He may sincerely favor national imperialism and jingoism, or legislation to promote the undue aggrandizement of one social class or the oppression of another social class. Obviously the citizen does not fulfil his duty of promoting the common good when he votes for a “good man” of this sort. Sometimes the common welfare will suffer less through the election of a man whose political policies are right but whose moral or intellectual equipment is deficient, than through the elevation of a “good man” who gives his adhesion to wrong policies.

It is sometimes said that the good man in other relations of life is always the best kind of a citizen. This statement is only a half truth. The unqualified propagation and acceptance of it is a serious obstacle to the improvement of citizenship. Fidelity to one’s duties as husband, father, son, brother, neighbor, employer, employee, buyer, seller, debtor, creditor, professional man, and client,—does, indeed, contribute very greatly toward the common welfare. Actions performed under the direction of the domestic and social virtues necessarily promote individual and social happiness, just as the opposite actions are an injury to the commonwealth. Nevertheless, these virtues are not a complete equipment for all the duties of citizenship. They do not of themselves provide the citizen with that specific knowledge which he requires as a voter, nor with that civic consciousness which is essential to good citizenship. Just as an honest employer may treat his employees unjustly because he is unacquainted with those moral principles which apply specifically to industrial relations, or because he has an insufficient knowledge of the living conditions and needs of the workers, so the virtuous citizen may fail in his duties to the State because he does not realize the importance of this particular responsibility, or because he lacks the specific political knowledge which would enable him to exercise his suffrage for the best interests of the commonwealth. In this category are the man who does not realize how fundamentally good government depends upon the electors, the man who lazily assumes that politics is necessarily corrupt, and the man who thinks it sufficient to vote for good men, without any reference to the helpfulness or harmfulness of their political principles and policies.