Tab. ISuffragium Hereditas, sive Censor Singulos Recensens. Tabula Actis Mundi more veterum picta (a machina).The Vote an Inheritance, or The Censor Counting Man by Man. Painted for Acta Mundi in the classical manner (AI-generated).
Epistulae Matris · De suffragio civiumA Mother's Letters · On the Citizen's Vote
Suffragium hereditas est, non praeda
The Vote Is an Inheritance, Not Plunder
Ministerium Iustitiae Americanorum, ut Washington Examiner, NPR et The Gateway Pundit nuntiant, Californiam lite et minis urget ne tabellae eorum numerentur qui non cives esse putantur; praeses Trump magistratibus carcerem minatur. Cornelia censet suffragium civibus solis deberi, sed censoris more, viritim, probandum esse, non edicto factionis.
The American Department of Justice, as the Washington Examiner, NPR and The Gateway Pundit report, is pressing California with a lawsuit and with threats not to count the ballots of those suspected of not being citizens; President Trump threatens officials with prison. Cornelia holds that the vote belongs to citizens alone, but that it must be proved as a censor proves it, man by man, not by the edict of a faction.
Cur hoc legimusWhy we read this Quia civitas et comitia non sunt factionum munera, sed liberorum hereditas.Because citizenship and assemblies are not gifts of factions, but the inheritance of our children.
Cornelia filio suo salutem.
Cornelia to her son, greetings.
Quaeris ex me, mi fili, quid de comitiis sentiam quae trans Oceanum mox habebuntur. Audi primum quae nuntiantur. Ut acta Washington Examiner narrant, Donaldus Trump, praeses Civitatum Foederatarum, die Veneris scripsit magistratus Californiae qui tabellas peregrinorum sciens numeravissent omnes diu in carcere futuros esse; subiecit epistulam Ministerii Iustitiae ad comitatum Angelopolitanum missam, qua moniti sunt ne tabellas eorum numerarent qui verisimiliter cives non essent. Idibus Octobribus, ut NPR et The Gateway Pundit tradunt, Ministerium litem apud iudices foederales intendit ut tabellae notatae seponerentur donec de civitate cognitum esset. Bill Essayli, accusatoris publici legatus, ut The Gateway Pundit solus refert, affirmat plus viginti milia hominum qui cives esse non putantur in tabulas relata esse et tabellas iam accepisse; lege enim Californiae tabellae omnibus qui in tabulis sunt ultro mittuntur. Quo modo illa viginti milia inventa sint, acta non dicunt; quid magistratus Californiae responderint, item tacent.
You ask me, my son, what I think of the elections soon to be held across the Ocean. Hear first what is reported. As the Washington Examiner tells it, Donald Trump, President of the United States, wrote on Friday that the officials of California who knowingly counted the ballots of foreigners would all go to prison for a long time; beneath it he set a letter from the Department of Justice to Los Angeles County, warning officials not to count the ballots of those who were likely not citizens. On the Ides of October, as NPR and The Gateway Pundit relate, the Department brought suit before the federal judges to have the flagged ballots set aside until citizenship could be determined. Bill Essayli, deputy to the public prosecutor, asserts, as The Gateway Pundit alone reports, that more than twenty thousand people thought not to be citizens have been entered on the rolls and have already received ballots; for under California law ballots are mailed unasked to everyone on the rolls. How those twenty thousand were found, the reports do not say; what the officials of California answered, they are likewise silent.
Nunc audi matrem. Suffragium non donum est quod quilibet in via sumat, sed hereditas. Matres pepererunt, nutriverunt, docuerunt filios qui pro patria starent; ex eo labore ius ferendi suffragii nascitur. Qui tabellam hospitis inter tabellas civium numerat, non hospitem honorat sed matres fraudat. «Fundamentum autem est iustitiae fides»: fides comitiorum est ut sciamus quis suffragium tulerit.
Now hear your mother. The vote is not a gift that anyone may pick up in the street; it is an inheritance. Mothers bore, nursed and taught the sons who would stand for the fatherland, and from that labour the right of suffrage is born. Whoever counts a guest's ballot among the ballots of citizens does not honour the guest; he cheats the mothers. "The foundation of justice is good faith": and the good faith of an election is that we know who cast the vote.
Qui tabellam hospitis inter tabellas civium numerat, non hospitem honorat sed matres fraudat.
Whoever counts a guest's ballot among the ballots of citizens does not honour the guest; he cheats the mothers.
Pater tuus censor fuit, et memini quanta cura ille cum collega libertinos in tribus discriberet, ne suffragia rem publicam mutarent nemine animadvertente. Censor non universos aestimabat, sed singulos: nomen, patrem, tribum, censum. Domus quae cellam penariam cuivis ad ianuam pulsanti aperit, cito inops fit; civitas quae tabellas omnibus in tabulis scriptis ultro mittit neque prius inquirit, idem patitur. Haec culpa legis est, non peregrinorum.
Your father was censor, and I remember with what care he and his colleague distributed the freedmen among the tribes, so that their votes should not change the commonwealth without anyone noticing. A censor did not assess men in the mass, but one by one: name, father, tribe, property. A house that opens its storeroom to whoever knocks at the door soon grows poor; a city that mails ballots unasked to all whose names are written on the rolls, and makes no inquiry first, suffers the same. The fault here lies with the law, not with the foreigners.
Sed cave, mi fili, ne ira matris tuae factionis ira fiat. Suspicio probatio non est. Viginti milia unius nuntii verbum sunt; quot inter ea cives perperam notati sint, nemo dicit. Et quod praeses carcerem minatur antequam iudex cognoverit, id mihi non placet. Vidi ego quo res publica perveniat cum factio inimicos punire malit quam rem publicam servare; duos filios ita amisi. Nemo minis puniendus est, sed omnes iudicio.
But take care, my son, that your mother's anger does not become the anger of a faction. Suspicion is not proof. The twenty thousand rest on the word of a single report; how many citizens among them have been wrongly flagged, no one says. And that the President threatens prison before a judge has heard the case does not please me. I have seen where a commonwealth comes to when a faction would rather punish its enemies than save the state; that is how I lost two sons. No one should be punished by threats; everyone should be punished by judgment.
Remedium igitur antiquum est. Tabellae notatae seponantur, ut Ministerium postulat; singuli vocentur, civitatem probent; qui probaverint, numerentur, neque fraudetur civis quia peregrinus suspectus est; qui non probaverint, excludantur; magistratus qui sciens fraudem admiserit, apud iudicem accusetur, non in foro clamore damnetur. Sic et ius civium servatur et fides legum. Memento suffragium, ut filium, diligentia custodiri, non clamore. Vale.
The remedy, then, is an old one. Let the flagged ballots be set aside, as the Department asks; let each person be summoned and prove his citizenship; let those who prove it be counted, and let no citizen be cheated because a foreigner is suspected; let those who do not prove it be excluded; let any official who knowingly permitted fraud be accused before a judge, not condemned by shouting in the forum. So both the right of citizens and the good faith of the laws are preserved. Remember that the vote, like a son, is guarded by diligence, not by clamour. Farewell.
FONTES ANTIQVIANCIENT SOURCES
- Cic. Off. 1.23Fundamentum autem est iustitiae fides
FONTES HODIERNITODAY’S SOURCES
- Washington ExaminerTrump vows jail time for California election officials counting ballots from noncitizens
- NPRTeen kills 4 at Oregon school. And, DOJ sues California over alleged noncitizens
- The Gateway Pundit“They Will All Go to Jail For a Long Period of Time!!!” – Trump and DOJ Vow to Jail Los Angeles County Election Officials Who Tabulate Ballots of Non-Citizens
Res ex fontibus; sententia Romani.Facts from the sources; the opinion is the Roman’s.
Scribe ad Cornelia: tabellarius epistulam tuam per vias Romanas feret, et responsum post dies aliquot redibit.Write to Cornelia: the courier carries your letter along the Roman roads, and a reply comes back after a few days.
