158
ON THE CONSTITUTION
with accounts of election manœuvres practised by plotting Cardinals with the view of bringing about, by underhand tactics, some preconcerted result. The whole system of these proceedings bears the visible impress of that cautious and cunning temperament which never operates but under a mask, and never contemplates to work otherwise than by stratagem. Of these tricks the most common—indeed so common as to be an established feature in Papal elections—is the naming of sham candidates by the rival sections.[1] The general object of this device is to elicit the exercise of the veto vested in certain Catholic sovereigns, and which can be given but once. If it be intended to carry a Cardinal known to be obnoxious to
- ↑ It has been gravely discussed by canonists whether, with the oath sworn by each Cardinal, it can be lawful thus from strategy to give votes in behalf of one who in conscience is not deemed worthiest—secundum Deum eligi debere. At the end of the article 'Elezione' in Moroni's Encyclopædia, will be found the opinion of an anonymous divine that it is not lawful to give a vote at a Papal election for one of whom it is not inwardly believed that he is worthiest, unless it be for the sake of promoting harmony in the case where it is positive that a candidate of this inferior kind is actually sure of election. A vote given under such circumstances, it is laid down, would be a peace-offering on the part of him who recorded it.
