As the big Presidential election rolls around I am dismayed by the number of people that I hear say something like “It doesn’t matter if I vote,” or ”One vote doesn’t make a difference.”
Because it does matter. Recently I read the book “The Greatest Stories Never Told” by Rick Beyer. It’s a collection of unusual, and absolutely true, anecdotes that have been swept of the pages of history for more unusual, and false, fare like Washington chopping down the Cherry tree and Bill Clinton not inhaling Monica Lewinsky.
One of the chapters in the books is about the importance of voting, and the power of a vote. Since I am to lazy to paraphrase it I will simply tell it like it is in the book:
“On a sweltering summer afternoon in 1842, Henry Shoemaker was toiling as a hired hand on a farm in Indiana. Suddenly he remembered he had forgotten to vote. He had personally promised his vote to one of the candidates running for state representative, a Democrat named Madison Marsh.
Shoemaker might be forgiven if he had ducked out on his civic duty and broken his promise. But he didn’t. He saddled his horse, rode to the polling place, and cast his ballot. As a result, Madison Marsh was elected…by one vote.
At that time, state legislators elected U.S. senators. In January of 1843, Marsh and his fellow Indiana lawmakers convened for just such an election. After much maneuvering, Marsh changed his vote on the sixth ballot, electing Democrat Edward Hannegan to the United States Senate…by one vote.
Fast forward to 1846. A sharply divided U.S. Senate was debating over whether or not to go to war with Mexico. A caucus vote was deadlocked until the absent Senator Hannegan was called. He cast his vote in favor of the war. One of the results of that war was that California changed hands from Mexico to the United States*.
Henry Shoemaker had no idea what he was setting in motion that day he went to the polls, never thought that his one vote would make the difference between peace and war. But now that you know, never assume that your one vote doesn’t count.
* Senator Hannegan also cast the deciding vote to give statehood to Texas.”
[Beyer gathered this information from Brad King, co-general council of the Indiana lection Commission. Original source material is found in "The Importance of a Single Vote" by Harry S. New, Indiana Magazine of History June 1935 and "Edward A. Hannegan" by John Wesley Whicker, Indiana Magazine of History December 1918.]
