Produced by C. St. Charleskindt and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE HONEST AMERICAN VOTER'S LITTLE CATECHISM FOR 1880. BY BLYTHE HARDING. Copyrighted, 1880. NEW YORK: John Polhemus, Publisher, 102 Nassau Street. PREFACE. I was invited the other day to take down, as Stenographer, what purported to be a discussion upon some general political topics, and more especially on the forthcoming presidential election. One of the disputants entrenched himself in what, I believe, scholars call the Socratic method, that is, he _pumped_ his supposed antagonist dry. Whether the world at large may think the dialogue as funny as I did myself, I can form no opinion. It is to solve this question that I give it to the public. BLYTHE HARDING. NEW YORK, _August 31st, 1880_. THE DIALOGUE. What is a republic? --A state, or Union of states, in which the people holds supreme power. How does the people exercise this power? --Through men elected for this purpose. What are these men called? --Senators and members of Congress or Congressmen. Is there a head or chief in a republic? --Certainly. What is he called? --The President. Must the President be elected? --Yes, by the people. Who declares the voice of the people in this matter? --The electors of the different states, appointed to do it by the people. Is it necessary that the whole people should agree on one man in order to elect him? --No; it only needs a majority of the nation, voting through the electors. Do the votes of the electors generally follow the voice of the people in the different states? --They ought to follow it. Are the electors considered bound to vote as the majority of the people in their different states direct? --Undoubtedly they are. Then it is fair to say that the vote of a majority of the electors show which way the majority of the people voted? --That's a simple question. Why, of course! What are the duties of the President? --To mind the business of the nation, and his own, too. Anything else? --Isn't that enough? Well, but what is that business? --The business of the nation? Yes. --He makes treaties, weeds out old political hacks, and sends them on embassies where they cannot annoy him, and have nothing to do; appoints Judges of the Supreme Court like Joe Bradley, when he wants to play eight-to-seven, commands the army and navy, gets fifty thousand dollars a year, takes all the presents he can get, lives in the White House, and does a kind of general housekeeping business for the country. I was not talking of Grant. Let that go. Does he do anything else?