The election or suffrage of the people is most free, where it
is made or given in such a manner that it can neither oblige nor
disoblige another, nor through fear of an enemy, or bashfulness
toward a friend, impair a man's liberty.

Wherefore, says Cicero, the tablet or ballot of the people of
Rome (who gave their votes by throwing tablets or little pieces
of wood secretly into urns marked for the negative or
affirmative) was a welcome constitution to the people, as that
which, not impairing the assurance of their brows, increased the
freedom of their judgment. I have not stood upon a more
particular description of this ballot, because that of Venice
exemplified in the model is of all others the most perfect.

An equal commonwealth (by that which has been said) is a
government established upon an equal agrarian, arising into the
superstructures or three orders, the Senate debating and
proposing, the people resolving, and the magistracy executing, by
an equal rotation through the suffrage of the people given by the
ballot. For though rotation may be without the ballot, and the
ballot without rotation, yet the ballot not only as to the
ensuing model includes both, but is by far the most equal way;
for which cause under the name of the ballot I shall hereafter
understand both that and rotation too.

Now having reasoned the principles of an equal commonwealth,
I should come to give an instance of such a one in experience, if
I could find it; but if this work be of any value, it lies in
that it is the first example of a commonwealth that is perfectly