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1819 May 14 C § 3[?].
To {Erskine}
Disfranchisement
§.2 Evil 2. Quere[?] not permitted[?]
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Along /Together/ with those who are stiled guilty /legally proved to have done the obnoxious /forbidden/ act and on that account are legally stild guilty/, it punishes a number of others who not having been proved guilty, can not consistently with the rules of justice, for any such purpose as that of punishment be concluded to be guilty; and perhaps have not really been so, any of them.
Not regarding the receiver in this case any more than the giver, as instrumental in the production of evil in any shape – {pathological, moral at large, or political} evil /in any shape whatsoever – sensible evil, moral evil/ in my eyes even where the forbidden act is /has been/ committed by him /the law has actually been contravened,/ no such person is a fit object of punishment.
But of the evil resulting from such punishment it can not be denied to be an aggravation that along with those by whom the law, such as it is, has not been contravened /offended/ are punished /punished[?]/: perhaps in superior numbers /in such numbers/: others by whom neither that nor any other law has been contravened: and who have not been either in a legal sense or in any imaginable sense guilty. For instance whatever be the offence, and whatever be the punishment, if he who is punished has a family his /the/ family is punished with him. For be the offence /transgression/ what it may, if /where/ to those who have not been guilty the punishment is extended, who is there that can /on sufficient grounds can/ justly regard himself as safe! No one: unless he belong to the confederacy of the ruling few, who having secured to one another impunity for transgression in every shape, are, whatever may have been their transgression, safe.
For the making of this objection, the occasion presents itself but too frequently in Honourable House. When it does present itself, and it is thought advisable to encounter it by an answer, a /the/ common course is to bring to view this or that measure which upon the whole is not unpopular, but in which it can not be denied but to a greater or less extent this effect has place. No doubt that where the opposite good preponderates, by evil in any shape or to any amount in so far as it necessarily and unavoidably has place, no sufficient objection is /can be/ constituted. But in so far as it is proposed to give admittance to it, its unavoidableness ought always to be /always/ proved, never taken for granted.
It is among the axioms of the logic of tyrant {– without or even against our will} evil has place, therefore on each occasion by our will may as much as we please may be added to it.
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