date

2 April 1805 Evidence Securities
2 April 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Technical

Punishment

Thus it is, that in every country, to the extent to /in/ which the technical system has been admitted /reigns/ /governs/ /bears sway/, and remains as a compleat /an effectual/ tyranny has been established /organized/ the tyranny of the opulent over the indigent: a sort of partnership tyranny, the profit of which, in an infinite[?] variety of unascertainable proportions, is divided between the oppressor and the contriver of the system, the man of law.

In every system of organization, physical or psychological, a capital principle of efficiency is simplicity. Accordingly in the present instance, nothing can be more simple than the fundamental principle: it consists in more inaction: in the [...?] to apply any check to mendacity in this shape.
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    Though in the character of defendant, or rather /to speak/ strictly of a person prepared to become defendant, injury where the state of the law /legal arrangements/ is as /still more/ easily and securely operated thence /and that for the purpose /in the view/ of oppression/ in the character of plaintiff, it is not in any such /that precise/ view it is not by men occupying any such commanding station of an oppressor, that under a system of procedure favourable to injustice, mischief unjust defense is produced in greatest and most deplorable abundance. Of the mischief /injuries/ then[?] in this character, not overbearing opulence but its opposite poverty is by much the most frequent cause. To stem /put/ off as far as possible the evil day, to prepare for chance /flight/ of place, and in the mean time to remove out of the reach of justice that portion of the matter of wealth that ought to be /should be/ employed in satisfying the demands of justice, these /such/ are the natural objects /aims/ of the improbity, the too natural accompaniment but too naturally associated with falling fortune /fortunes/. In this state of things, whatever means of procrastination are afforded by the weakness of the law /defects of the legal system/, natural or fictitious, are purchased of course at the price set upon them by the vendors: and stock /means of payment/ /assets/ which should have gone into the pocket of the plaintiff /to the plaintiff/ to satisfy his demands, is shared by /between/ the dishonest defendant and the men of law: between the weak author of the inequity /unjust/ the various classes of its protectors.

    Such is the tyranny that takes place of course wheresoever this characteristic feature /essential arrangement/ of the natural mode of procedure is departed from and dispensed with: the tyranny of the rich over the poor /indigent/. Such is the short description of it, but by this short /so short a/ description it is not as yet placed in the darkest[?] which is at the same time the justest point of view. A tyranny of class over class would be bad enough: but the tyranny thus established is the tyranny of individual over individual in each class. Comparing class with class, it is of advantage that superiority of power is professed by one class over another should be professed by the [...?] - Why? not because in opulence /superior/ taken by itself there is any [...?], in inferior any domestic but because between superiority of wealth on one hand and superiority in probity as well as understanding on the other there is a natural connection. Superiority in both respects is the work of education and comparing class with class the means of education are abundant in proportion to the degree of opulence. But in the tyranny here in question the oppressed being unlikely to be of the same /equal/ rank (not to speak of superior) with the oppressor, the subjection thus established is unmixed /purely/ evil, uncompensated /unaccompanied/ by the least particle of advantage.
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    In the Roman nation as in every other, the natural system must have been /preceded/ in use before the technical: for the technical system supposes writing, and the art so common as to have been converted into a trade.

    Accordingly, for a long time down to a considerably advanced period of Roman history, the presence of the parties, of the plff at least was indispensable. At one time justice was the object, and then the Judge would + do nothing unless the parties were present: in process of time the profit of trade became the object: and then he would not hear them so much as suffer them to come into his presence /in his presence/.
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    In every nation in which law has been considered as a science, men of law /the man of law/, with their eyes open, have organized this tyranny. The profit to be obtained by selling their services to the [...?], and on these terms rendering themselves the willing /blinded/ instruments of oppression, has been on this occasion their evident /as incontestably their manifest/ object, as well as their sure reward /it has been certainly their reward/. In this way, by means of real power, screened from odium /protected against odium/ by a covering of pretended science, they have in the bosom of every empire established /created/ an empire of their own and fore their own benefit. In what way the profit /plunder/ is shared by men of law of all shapes and all ranks, official as well as professional, and how compleat the [...?] is of Sinister /intimate the connexion is in point of sinister/ interest, are questions /inquiries/ that belong not to the present purpose.