These
electoral districts are marked out by the legislature, and the division
is apt to be made by the preponderating party with an unfairness that is
at once shameful and ridiculous. The aim, of course, is so to lay out
the districts as to secure in the greatest possible number of them a
majority for the party which conducts the operation. This is done
sometimes by throwing the greatest possible number of hostile voters
into a district which is anyhow certain to be hostile, sometimes by
adding to a district where parties are equally divided some place in
which the majority of friendly voters is sufficient to turn the scale.
There is a district in Mississippi (the so-called Shoe String district)
250 miles long by 30 broad, and another in Pennsylvania resembling a
dumb-bell.... In Missouri a district has been contrived longer, if
measured along its windings, than the state itself, into which as large
a number as possible of the negro voters have been thrown.[8] This
trick is called "gerrymandering," from Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts,
who was vice-president of the United States from 1813 to 1817. It seems
to have been first devised in 1788 by the enemies of the Federal
Constitution in Virginia, in order to prevent the election of James
Madison to the first Congress, and fortunately it was unsuccessful.
Pages:
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352