date

22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill
22 Oct r 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

Between two legislators, each having a favourite quorum of his own, nothing decisive being in the nature of the case capable of being and for either, I stated as a necessary consequence, dispute interminable. Here in the example[?] it may be said the dispute has terminated. But in the case I had in view being a /the/ general one the legislators were supposed to be equal in power: but /whereas/ in this particular case equality was out of the question: the consequence was a necessary one: the man /one/ /superior/ in authority being the one beside himself, all dispute was out of the question /dispute took flight /fled/: Doubt remained master of the field.
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  • Title: [22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 22 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldons Bill

    Another consequence of Quorum clauses: doubts in swarms and those doubts unsolvable: debates in multitudes, and those debates interminable. (As for example - )

    First take one legislator: and he, like our learned Advisor, one beside himself. The / One/ first proposes an number: one /the first/ proposes another. Between them they " break" the case together, till it is broken quite to pieces: when both combatants are tired out comes a section, such as section 7, composed of a blank.

    Next take two legislators, adding to the one beside himself, for example the Lord President. First comes /take/ his learned Lordships first Bill. Here in '.2 in which the problem concerning the bisection of the senate is first started he makes[?] two divisions quietly, saying nothing there about Quorums. But between his first Bill and his second Bill, it looks as if it had happened to his learned Lordship to have had /received/ the honour of an audience /interview/ with /from/ some person who (being one beside himself) was higher than himself, and by /from/ whom he was informed there was no doing without a Quorum /that a Quorum there must be/. In his second /amended/ Bill he accordingly goes to work: and not being one beside himself, experiences no difficulty. In his first Bill, though in '.2 in the case of the divided moiety of the Senate he had seen no reason for saying any thing about Quorums, yet in '.2., in the same first Bill in which he had contented himself in general terms with saying /announcing a distinction/ that the number of Judges sitting together in the Inner House at one time shall be diminished, calling to mind that under the existing regulation or practice nine in the whole Senate was a necessary number, he foresaw that supposing the diminution to proceed a certain length, if the same Quorum of nine continued to be exacted business could not be done: he thereupon saw the necessity of saying something about Quorums, were it only for the purpose of lessening them; and thereupon said five.
  • Title: [22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 22 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldon's Bill

    Take now the case of legislation: and for example take the Quorum of 9 out of 15 the Quorum in each instance required by the Bill /learned Advisor/ as often as the whole Senate is concerned.

    A Quorum of 9 out of the 15 is made requisite to the validity of the law. What is the consequence /follows/? In the first place Power to the /a/ minority to defeat the will of the majority. Nine are requisite: by staying away, seven leave but eight: by merely /simply/ not coming /a more negative act/, and without the trouble of opposition, without the shame of groundless opposition, prevent the business from being done.

    Oh, but we would not have things /regulations/ carried by any such bare majority, it is the very thing we wish to prevent. Well then if you do your expedient does not answer your purpose. Your Quorum of nine attends: but of that Quorum the majority, I take for granted is sufficient to give validity to the act. What follows? Even when you might have a majority you will not have it, because it is not large enough: the security it affords against male-practice is not sufficient to /calm the anxiety of/ your prudence. Eight vouchers are not sufficient in your reckoning to establish the expediency of a law: and have you authorize laws in any number, enacted by so small a number as five.
  • Title: [22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 22 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldons Bill

    Thus stands the matter which as yet there is but one in the case of one legislator, and he not being one beside himself, but one only.

    Unfortunately for in the /that/ House where every thing /if any thing/ that were to be done were to be done, for the learned but unennobled Lord, so far from a voice not so much as a seat, were to be found: it accordingly became matter of necessity to be of the same Opinion, so far as it might be found possible to come at the Opinion[?], if the learned and already ennobled Lord whom by this time he saw not only presiding in that most honourable House and taking the lead in its proceedings, but prepared, whensoever and wheresoever a hand[?] should be found for it to " sit at the head" of it.

    Here then a Union of legislators Scottish with English became necessary: and we see the result. The half of the two was something: the two together became equal to nothing: ([...?][...?][...?]:) As in algebra, so in legislation. If x be in both cases a positive quantity, x + x is equal to 2x, but while in one case the value of x is positive if in the other case it be negative, x + x is equal to 0. But ex nihilo[?] useful fit: and there /here/ it is that while from one x alone we had a fixed quorum, viz. a quorum of five enacted in the course of one section and as the phrase is amongst other things, in the learned Advisors Bill, we have a whole /an entire/ section consecrated and appropriated to the subject of Quorums only, and that entire section with a gap /hole/ in it, making the whole equal to 0.

    of the President of the Scottish College of Justice with the learned Advisor and Representative of the Head of the Law in both kingdoms.