date

1819 Sept. 22 + Parl. Reform Bill
1819 Sept. 22 +

Parl. Reform Bill

ult o

§.4 Electors who

Beginning

3

1

3

In favour of virtually universal suffrage the ground in point of reason is not only /altogether/ simple, and uncontrovertible, but even universally acknowledged.

1. The only defensible end in view or object of government is the greatest happiness of the greatest number namely of the members of the community in question

2 The happiness of every member of the community is not only a part of the happiness of the whole community but as large a part, as is the happiness of any other member is.

3. The happiness of a community receives encrease by every lot of happiness possessed by any one of its members without the production of any equal or greater lot of unhappiness to that same member or any other.

On the occasion in question the possession of a right of suffrage is in several distinguishable points of view a means of happi-

1. It is a present source of enjoyment – a shield against contempt: a source of respect – of regard eventually of kindnesses and services in all imaginable shapes.

2. It is in itself and at any rate In the opinion of the individual it is with a view to the future a means of security against mischief in all shapes for the universal interest, and thence /thereby/ for his individual share in that universal interest. If by the misconduct of his representative for the time being that interest has in his opinion suffered or been in danger of suffering, at the next Election he may contribute his share towards the removal of the supposed unfit representative, and placing a fitter in his stead.
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    On the contrary, independently of usage and the associations attachments and expectations produced by it it is manifest beyond dispute that of the office of Monarch with the power belonging to it not only the tendency but the sure effect is to be detrimental to the universal interest – to diminish the net amount of the universal happiness.

    For from the very nature of man, it follows that the Monarch, who ever he is will at all times prefer his own personal interest according to his own conception of it to the interest of all his subjects put together whoever they are, that therefore on whatever occasion and in so far as between his interest and theirs any opposition /contrariety/ and incompatibility has place, it is their interests that he will sacrifice to his, not his to theirs: and there is scarce any occasion on which such contrariety and incompatibility have not place.

    As of /As[?] in/ every other situation, so it that of Monarch it is a man’s /his/ interest to have as much /large a portion/ as he can of the good things of this world whatever they are. It is in the power of the Monarch to have a much larger share of them than is or can be possessed by any other member of the community: and the greater the share he has, the less is the share left for all the other members of the community put together

    As it is in this respect with the Monarch so is it and for the same reason with the Members of the House of Lords.
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    It marks him out as a man who was by birth an enemy to the interest and happiness of the greatest number a member of the privileged class: namely of a class comprized of those whose common interest is a particular and sinister interest opposite to the universal interest.

    He who is at one time an enemy may at another time be a friend. But he who is by birth an enemy can not on any sufficient grounds be regarded as a friend, unless and until, and in so far as by such means as the nature of the case affords, he has made known the change. Of this change one conclusive sufficient and conclusive proof the nature of the case affords: and that is a surrender of the privilege.

    In this way and no other /means alone/ he renders it manifest that by him his interest is identified /in coincidence/ with the universal interest his affections with the affections of the greatest number of the members of the community in question - that in his eyes the affection esteem and respect which is the result of judgment unperverted by any cause /source/ of delusion from any source is preferred to that respect which is the joint offspring of sinister interest, caprice fraud imposture and chance.
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    But, under /on/ the here proposed system /plan/ of virtually universal suffrage no elector has any possible means of giving effect to this same propensity: he has no possible means of promoting in any case his self-regarding interest separately considered, and to the sacrifice or prejudice of the interest of any other individual or of that of the whole community: he has not any possible means of preventing self regarding interest in any shape other than that of his own share in the aggregate the universal interest.

    37. This then, with a degree of effect or at least of promise proportioned to that of his appropriate intellectual aptitude, is the interest and the only interest which in the exercise of the right in question it will be to his study and endeavour to promote.

    37. Thus then /under/ Monarchy and Aristocracy this predominance of personal /self-regarding/ over universal interest, and the consequently constant sacrifice of the universal to the particular interest, is altogether certain and impreventible: under Representative Democracy, in the situation of Representative, preventible; in the situation of Elector, impossible: that is to say the sacrifice of the universal interest notwithstanding the predominance of the self-regarding /personal/ interest.