COBDEN, Richard.

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Autograph letter signed to Sir William Molesworth, proposing a national campaign for the secret ballot. In the aftermath of the July-August 1837 General Election, which weakened the parliamentary position of liberals and reformers, Richard Cobden (1804-1868) writes at length to the radical MP Sir William Molesworth (1810-1855), urging him to join a national campaign for the introduction of the secret ballot in response to widespread electoral abuses.Although Viscount Melbourne's liberal Whig government survived the contest, it lost a substantial number of seats, allowing Robert Peel's Conservatives to close the gap (Peel would prevail at the next election). The poll was conducted, as usual, by open voting, prompting renewed accusations of intimidation and bribery.Cobden argues that the election's outcome, and the misconduct exposed by the open ballot, rendered the case for secrecy unanswerable: "The result of the elections has brought to light such a mass of fraud, violence & degradation on the part of the electors, that it only requires to be collected & judiciously applied to place the majority of secret voting in an irresistible point of view … I am anxious to see a society organized in London for the express purpose of advocating the cause of the ballot."He then outlines how such a society should operate, proposing the appointment of a travelling advocate to promote secret voting throughout the country and to demonstrate how the system worked abroad. The secret ballot wou

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