date

1819 Oct. 3. Parl. Reform Bill
1819 Oct. 3.

Parl. Reform Bill

Reasons ult o

§.8 Election how

Art. Secrecy

4

If it be admitted that an Election is not properly performed any further than as the person wish declared by such vote is the uninfluenced wish of the person by whom the vote is given{and would be so independently of all external influence exercised by will on will as above} it follows that every Election in which if on all sides those votes were struck off which the direction given to which would not have been what it was were it not /had it not been/ for such external influence, is /has been/ in principle a Miselection: that the appellation Miselection belongs with propriety to the case thus exemplified: and that the conclusion /result/ in question is an evil, and as such a proper object of avoidance.

When in this particular the Constitution in its present state is defended, it is always on the supposition that /no such effect as/ the effect thus secretly produced is not the effect really produced /is produced/: and in a countless number of instances this supposition is compleatly and incontestably /and notoriously/ false: false in a number of instances so great but yet so countless that all that is known of the number of them is that it is such as to give to the constitution a real character and effect directly opposite to that which in form and pretence is nevertheless so continually attributed to it.
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    This being the case, {what follows is that} he who in the case in question advocates the system of open suffrage, advocates a system of fraud and imposture, a system of fraud analogous to ordinary forgery, but consideration had of the extent to which it operates, beyond comparison more pernicious than any forgery that ever was committed. His conduct in so doing is tainted with an insincerity altogether incontestable, which it is his professed desire to see each voter give a vote expressive of a wish of his own uninfluenced by any other will, his endeavour is to cause voters in a countless multitude to deliver each of them a vote expressive of a wish which is not his own: expressive of a wish which in the several instances is the wish of this or that individual of whom the advocate knows nothing except that the power he thus possesses contributes to /is part and parcel/ the system by which the evil effects above-mentioned are produced.

    {The pretence is /fact as pretended is/ /pretended state of the case is/ that in the choice /in the Election/ of the aggregate number of the Members by whom the aggregate number of the seats are respectively filled, the Election is the result of the real and genuine wishes of the majority of the Electors voting to each seat /towards the filling of the several seats/}

    {The real state of the case is that on that same reason[?] the Election is the result of the wishes not of those same Electors but of persons not declared nor ever exactly known, but of whom these[?] much is universally known namely that it ought not to be the result of their wishes and that in so far as it is so the Constitution is radically different from what it is pretended to be, and at the same time incontestably

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  • Title: [1819 Oct. 3 Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Oct. 3

    Parl Reform Bill

    Reasons penult

    §.5. Election Apparatus

    § Election how

    Art | | Secrecy

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    Question Suffrages why secret?

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    I. Avoidance of Miselection.

    By every vote given, a wish is declared: a wish on the part of him who gives it. By every vote given on the Election of a Member of Parliament, the wish declared is – a wish that the person in whose favour it is given, may be the occupant of the seat that is to be filled. In all discussions on this subject, the supposition proceeded upon – is – that the wish so declared is, by the person by whom it is declared really entertained:

    {Only on this supposition can the plan /system/ of Election whatever be the occasion, be justified: only on this supposition has it ever, it is believed been attempted to be justified.}

    If, in the declared opinion of any person, the person by whom the vote is given is not the person by whose wish, independently of such external influence, the direction given to the vote ought to be determined, it rests in each instance with such person to say what other person is the person by whose wish the vote, ought in his opinion to be determined.
  • Title: [1819 Oct. 3 Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Oct. 3

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    §.5. Election Apparatus

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    vote is gained by

    Miselection may be said to have place as often as any person less fit occupies a seat which had every thing been as it should be would have been occupied by a person more fit. Of the Election process employed, the design ought to be, and always is professed to be, the producing the good effect of which the evil thus denominated is the opposite. To a certain degree every Vote, by the direction given to it contributes either to the good or to the evil effect. Miselection being the bad effect tendency towards the production of it, is it is true, all the evil which in this shape can be produced by a single vote. But as often as, in an adequate number, votes having the same comparatively evil direction are given in favour of the same person, the tendency is then refined into act. Deny that an evil direction, given to a vote in the Election in question, though it be but a single vote, is an evil, you deny that Miselection is an evil: deny that Miselection is an evil, you deny that Misgovernment is an evil. For in the case of a seat clothed with such powers, suppose Miselection to have place, in the instance of a certain number of seats, and suppose that in the several instances unfitness to a certain degree has place, Misgovernment is a certain consequence, That the consequence /nor, without the aid of such unfitness can misgovernment in any degree have place. That no consequence of this sort has been the result of the cause/ in question, has unhappily been too amply proved by experience.