About a week later, Hanks apologized for the remark, saying that nothing is more American than voting one's conscience.

Despite the lip service paid to the notion of voting one's conscience, the biggest benefit for marginal members is the privilege of voting against their own party's position on unpopular bills.

As Alexander Hamilton noted, economic institutions do teach civic lessons, and the experience of voting one's shares as opposed to voting one's conscience has affected the mind-set and the rhetoric of American politics.

Some focused their comments on the next legislative elections, now only 11 months away, or on the broad philosophical issues of taxation, representative government and whether it is nobler to vote one's conscience or to mirror the will of one's constituents.

MPs are more likely than Peers to "vote the party line," but the tradition of "voting one's conscience" is the Manticoran ideal, and most of the Star Kingdom's political parties have their own distinct "left," "right," and "center" wings.

There, in an elevated style more common to Roman public address than to newspaperese, was the argument for voting one's conscience rather than one's poll numbers: "Greatness and transcendence are why people join political parties, and why they go to war.