"Thank God there are no free schools … for learning has brought disobedience and heresy … into the world." . -- Virginia Gov. William Berkeley, 1660

19. A very modest proposal from former Gov. Wm. Berkeley  

Dear students,

Perchance you are tempted to register to vote in elections forthcoming this November.  Allow me to urge that you refrain. Likewise, should you be already registered, I recommend you defer the performance of your civic duties.

Indeed, I have every hope that you and your fellow students will remain completely passive. And I am not alone. You may have noticed that nobody is making it easy for you to vote. The registration procedure, the absentee ballot, and all the rest of the red tape is hardly designed to make it easy for you, is it?

You can't vote close to your college because that's not your "domicile."  Your "domicile" is where the voting registrar says it is, and were it left to me, it would be located in Hy-Brazil or Cathay. You’ll never  see polling places at universities, those dens of sedition and usurpation against rightful authority.

In fact , local voting registrars have threatened your professors with criminal charges should they, in some dismal wise, provide some minor academic favor, such as "extra credit," simply for voting.

After all, there are more than enough of you students to affect the outcome of state and local elections. And you probably think colleges and schools don't have enough money. Fools that you are, you would sell your vote cheaply to any candidate who supported education, environment and economy.

We have a magnificent plan for Virginia and you ordinary people have no place in it. Nay, I will goe further, and state without hesitation that we hope to return Virginia to a golden era of aristocracy, to a time when we enjoyed a one-plantation, one-vote system. Before the Civil War, even before the Revolution, back to the halcyon years of total government. Back to my time -- the 1640s.

You won't like it, but once you taste the lash, you'll get used to it. If not, I can showe an hundred examples where brave and great men have beene putt to death for gaineing Victorys against the Comand of their Superiors.

So the more you students ignore your right to vote, the easier is our task to mold a better future and carry us all the way back to old, old Virginia. 

A hurricane of ignorance is howling at your shores, and, praise God, the shelters of knowledge are collapsing.  But some colleges have not yet fallen to their knees. Some students can still find the necessarie classes. And some of you students still conjure hope with an education that could make a difference in a troubled world.

But these conceits are not for ordinary people, and those who would rise up against their masters must be stopped. And so, as you value the grand traditions from 17th century Viriginia  – do NOT register to vote.   

Now if only we could get the rest of the population to follow your fine example...  

Sincerely yours, the once and future governor,

Wm. Berkeley
1606 -1677