III - Absence of National Will

Nunes states as a logical consequence that Portugal lacks independent political will, setting up the central claim he will defend through electoral analysis.

He announces that recent electoral history (March 1870) will provide clear proof of this claim.

Nunes describes how the Historical party held elections in March 1870 and won an overwhelming majority, with only 10-12 opposition candidates succeeding.

The Progressive ministry fell, Saldanha took power, José Dias Ferreira became minister and dissolved the chamber, leading to a new election where opposition support collapsed to one-third.

In just 18 days, the shiny majority transformed into refuse when the Bishop of Vizeu entered government, demonstrating the electorate's fickleness.

Nunes asks rhetorically whether the country possesses its own will, inviting the reader to answer based on the electoral facts just narrated.

Nunes concedes that many citizens are honest and intelligent, voting conscientiously, and he personally knows this from experience, tempering his critique.

However, the rule is different: the electorate, numbering in tens of thousands, is not predominantly characterized by spontaneity and reason.

Nunes lists what Portugal truly wants: good administration, peace, public order, prosperous finances, independence, and morality.

The critical flaw is that Portugal does not know how to use legal means to obtain what it desires, despite the ancient wisdom of self-help.

Nunes identifies three groups that falsify elections: the indifferent, the fearful, and the corrupt, which prevent genuine political expression.

The indifferent treat all candidates as equals, confusing talent with stupidity, knowledge with ignorance, and voting based on favor, courtesy, and personal connection rather than public interest.

These voters respond to direct petitions, family connections, and official memoranda, voting for whoever appeals to them through these channels rather than merit.

For the indifferent, the electoral list requires no examination; the paper, stamp, mark, and carrier suffice to satisfy their curiosity.

If the indifferent are many, the fearful are even more numerous and constitute the raw material for parliamentary majorities.

Authority leads the fearful, harvesting votes by offering favors to the elected or those who nominated them, creating a constant pattern of submission to power.

Everything in nature and society changes, but the herd of voters who vote with those in power remains constant, submissively managed by local administrators and officials.

Nunes qualifies his critique, noting that not all officials participate in electoral shearing, though some are more forceful than others.

Some officials are harsh, restraining voters physically and psychologically, and voters sometimes emerge marked by these manipulations.

Political education in Portugal is so backward that without authority's collaboration in forming majorities, anarchic chambers emerge, leading parties to call themselves mere 'groups'.

Nunes argues it is urgent that authority cease electoral intervention and focus only on administration.

While authority's intervention might seem beneficial for creating organized parliamentary majorities, closer examination reveals this appearance is false.

A solid majority cannot exist when bound only by a vicious origin rather than shared principles, lacking the prestige needed to function properly.

It is safer to have an anarchic chamber serving as a lesson to the people than to accustom them to servitude that extinguishes their sense of rights and responsibility.

Beyond harming representation, administrative intervention in elections undermines the moral force and regularity of administration itself.

Officials who support different candidates within days or weeks lose moral force over their subordinates, as their inconsistency undermines their authority.

Officials lose prestige when forced to favor corrupt locals for electoral votes, compromising their dignity and word through impossible promises.

To escape consequences of electoral involvement, officials must increasingly employ violence or submission, damaging both service and institutional credibility.

Nunes introduces the topic of electoral corruption, acknowledging its repugnant nature while noting it must be examined as part of analyzing elections.

Vote trafficking is a commerce that has evolved from poverty-driven necessity to satisfying vanities and interests in places of plenty.

The worst corruption is not by those who sell votes for money, but by those who buy them, as the purchased diploma should correspond to a sold deputy.

Electoral corruption transforms from a sporadic disease into an epidemic, with increasingly brazen forms of vote-buying.

The most audacious corruption is when candidates buy votes using money from the seller's own pockets.

Those corrupted by penury are those who sell their vote for money, representing the poorest form of electoral manipulation.

The stupid are corrupted by promises; the vain by ribbons and honors, each group bought through appeals to their particular weakness.

The hateful sell for vengeance; the petty for courtesy; the sordid sell for small financial gains or exemptions from minor inconveniences.

A more dangerous but less cynical form of corruption occurs when entire districts, councils, and parishes sell votes for promised infrastructure and services.

Districts sell for roads, councils for telegraph wires, parishes for repairs, and localities for various public works—all forms of collective vote-selling.

While deputies should work to satisfy their districts' needs, this should be a duty, not a contract, as contracts reduce representation and degrade it.

If contracts for local benefits were extended to all regions, the resulting public budgets would be impossible to sustain, revealing the injustice of selective contracts.

When contracts are not universalized, independence and honesty pay the price, with costs defrayed from the common public fund.

Indifference, subservience, and corruption together betray friends, break faith, falsify elections, and dishonor the sacred right of suffrage.

Workers who sell votes for small sums ultimately lose more through unemployment caused by bad governance resulting from bad elections than they gained from selling.

Bad deputies create bad chambers, leading to bad governments, poor finances that scare capital, weakened labor, unemployment, and workers losing more than their vote was worth.

Unlike actual benefits, corruption offers workers no real compensation, only the illusion of gain.

This argument applies to all forms of electoral corruption, always resulting in fatal consequences for those who engage in it.

Nunes describes Lisbon in profound tranquility on May 19, 1870, with shops, work, and commerce proceeding normally despite political turmoil.

Businessmen work in offices, operatives labor in workshops, street vendors hawk goods—all continuing peacefully while political upheaval is imminent.

A reaction occurred but took weeks to translate into actual events, demonstrating the disconnect between political crisis and public manifestation.

The country undid in ten hours what had taken ten years to build, showing how fragile political order becomes under such electoral conditions.

Order, liberty, king, and law were all vulnerable to military sword, showing the fragility of institutions when the nation lacks genuine political will.

Nunes ends with a direct rhetorical question asking whether the country truly possesses its own will, his evidence implying a clear negative answer.