Reading the Florida Supreme Court's opinion on my state's electoral absurdism (the theatrical adaptation might be entitled Six Firms in Search of a Chad), I came upon this curious passage:

"The right of suffrage is the preeminent right contained in the [Florida Constitution's] Declaration of Rights, for without this basic freedom all others would be diminished. The importance of this right was acknowledged by the authors of the Constitution, who placed it first in the Declaration. The very first words in the body of the constitution are as follows:

SECTION 1. Political power – All political power is inherent in the people. The enunciation herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or impair others retained by the people."

Suffrage is the sine qua non of freedom? My first thought is that Emma Goldman was right: In America, voting is the opiate of the masses.

Section 1 in fact affirms the preeminence of popular sovereignty. Suffrage is an instrumentality of popular sovereignty, not its essence.

The essence of popular sovereignty is emigration. (Call it the ultimate suffrage: voting with your feet.) Indeed, without this basic freedom, all others would be diminished.

While living disenfranchised is certainly undesirable, it pales in comparison to a regime that prohibits emigration. As Walter Block observes, "A country which will not allow its citizens to leave is nothing better than a vast jail." Disenfranchisement is nothing to treat lightly, but imprisonment it is not.

Consider the assumptions behind the respective deprivations in the following hypotheticals:

1. The State of Florida sends Citizen K a letter reading, "Your suffrage is hereby revoked." It has assumed the power to abolish his formal political participation. Citizen K can exercise his sovereignty and move elsewhere.
2. The State of Florida sends Citizen K a letter reading, "You are hereby restricted from leaving the State of Florida." It has assumed the power to abolish his elemental property rights, i.e., proprietorship. Citizen K cannot exercise his sovereignty (well, not without risking physical harm).

These scenarios illustrate the difference between caste and totalitarianism: second-class citizenship versus chattel.

I doubt the Florida Supreme Court is alone in misattributing the supremacy of suffrage. Its comment in the opinion at hand reflects a ballot-deification likely shared by many. Speculatively speaking, Jim Crow perturbs more people than the Berlin Wall.

November 25, 2000

Myles Kantor lives in Boynton Beach, Florida.

The Best of Myles Kantor

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