LETTER XV - To the Same

Summary

The day after we had quitted Cooperstown, we saw a collection of people assembled in front of an inn, which was the principal edifice in a hamlet of perhaps a dozen houses. Cadwallader told me this was the first day of the state election, and that this spot was one of the polls, a name which answers in some degree to the English term, “hustings.” Fortunately, the stage changed horses at the inn, and I had an opportunity of examining the incipient step in that process which literally dictates all the national policy of this great republic.

Although each state controls its own forms, not only in the elections, but in every thing else, a description of the usages of one poll will be sufficiently near the truth to give a correct general idea of them all. I now speak literally only of the state of New York, though, generally, of the whole Union. The elections occur once a year.

They last three days. In the large towns, they are stationary, there being no inconvenience in such an arrangement where the population is dense, and the distances short. But in the country they are held on each successive day at a different place, in order to accommodate the voters. The state is divided into counties which cover, on an average, 900 square miles each. Some are however, larger, and some smaller.