Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Birth into one of the ruling families was almost essential to the making of a
political career in eighteenth-century Virginia. A man inherited local prominence
from his father or uncle in much the same way that he inherited land
and slaves and social position. It is difficult to recall the name of any Virginian
of the Revolutionary generation who rose to high office without the aid of
influential relatives.*
In contrast to the other offices that were appointive, the powerful House of
Burgesses was elected democratically by the citizens. But various not-too-subtle
devices were employed to ensure oligarchic control of the results. For one
thing, the voting, as was usual in that era, was by open oral declaration in
front of the oligarchically selected sheriff and not by secret ballot. One
common device was for the leading planters of the locality to be called upon
first to declare their votes; the lesser folk of the county well understood their
role. In addition, the sheriff, an appointee of the oligarchic county court, had
complete power to set the dates and times of the poll and to open or close it
at his whim. Furthermore, he had the power to decide which voter was properly
qualified. As an extra lagniappe for the large planters, everyone could
vote in any county in which he held a sufficient amount of land.
In addition to these devices, which wrapped the rule of oligarchy in a cloak
of democratic procedure, there applied the general truths of the rule of oligarchy
within the democratic form, such truths as were analyzed by the great
political theorist Gaetano Mosca. As Mosca wrote:
In all societies . .. two classes of people appear—a class that rules and a class
that is ruled. The first class always is the less numerous, performs all political
functions, monopolizes power and enjoys the advantages that power brings,
whereas the second, the more numerous class, is directed and controlled by
the first in a manner that is now more or less legal, now more or less arbitrary
and violent, and supplies the first, in appearance at least, with material means
of subsistence and with the instrumentalities that are essential to the vitality
of the political organism
What happens in other forms of government—namely that an organized
minority imposes its will on the disorganized majority—happens also and to
perfection but under the appearances of the contrary under a representative
system. When we say that the voters "choose" their representatives, we are
using a language that is very inexact. The truth is that the representative has
himself elected by the voters and if that phrase should seem too inflexible and
too harsh to fit some cases, we might qualify it by saying that his friends have
him elected....
The political mandate has been likened to the power of attorney that is familiar
in private law. But in private relationships delegations of power and capacities
always presuppose that the principal has the broadest freedom in choosing
his representative. Now in practice in popular elections that freedom of
choice, though complete theoretically, necessarily becomes null not to say
*lbii., p. 74.
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