131a-006.xml

Title: [[131a-006] 1818 March 22 +]

Description: [131a-006]

1818 March 22 +

Parl Reform Answer to Antiballot Observations

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2. By the evils, which, in contradistinction to the above political evil, I would in conformity with the Antiballotists distinguish by the appellation of moral evils, I understand the morally evil effects of those causes, by which, under the open mode, the political evil abovementioned would as it seems to me be produced.

That which, for the purpose in question, I assume, and as above, can not but assume, is – that under the open mode the suffrages given would to an incalculable extent, be productive of an effect opposite to the wishes and thence to the interest of the voters. If not free the votes are not genuine[?], and if not secret, they can not in general be free.

1. But in so far, as it would be productive of an effect opposite to the wishes and interests of the voters themselves, it would thence be an injury done to the voters themselves: if on this occasion the word right is to be employed it would be productive of a violation of their rights.

2 Moreover, under the most extensive system capable of being included under the denomination of universal suffrage, each voter will, in respect of his vote, be acting in two distinguishable capacities: viz. that of a principal, possessor of a personal right of his own, directed and properly directed in its exercise to the advancement of his own personal interest; and that of the possessor of a trust-right; to which, as to every trust right, is attached a duty: a duty to be performed for the advancement of the interest of those for whom the trustee is in trust.

131a-004.xml

Title: [[131a-004] 1818 March 22 +]

Description: [131a-004]

1818 March 22 +

Parl Reform Answer to Antiballot Observations

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{1. You don’t get /can have no assurance of getting/ the real wishes: you get spurious ones

2. The spurious ones you get by a breach of trust

3 The breach of trust you produce[?] by compulsion, compulsion employed to produce sacrifice of personal interest as well as of the universal interest, such compulsion[?] is arranged[?]}

As to the moral acts stated by the antiballotists as attached to the secret mode, they will not afford matter of conclusive objection any otherwise than in as far as they are preponderant over the evils attached to the opposite, viz. to the open mode. This consideration renders it necessary to begin with bringing to view these last mentioned evils.

1. The grand evil is that which may be distinguished by the name of the political evil: the radical and all embracing political evil. I mean the substituting, to an extent beyond the power of calculation, to the elections produced by the wishes of the majority of the people elections produced by the wishes of a comparatively minute minority. Such an effect, in so far as it has place, I can but place in my own mind to the account of evil. Why? because, in my view of the matter as given in my book, the wishes of the majority of the people would be produced by the conceptions entertained by that same majority in relation to their own interests, and those conceptions would, to the purpose of procuring those same interests and thus accomplishing those same wishes be sufficiently correct; whereas on the other hand the wishes of the small minority in question would be produced by the conception entertained by that same small minority in relation to the interests of that same small minority; while the interests of that same small minority are in a state of constant and irremediable opposition to the interests of the majority, and their conception of this their particular and sinister interest, would to the purpose of promoting that same sinister interest and accomplishing those same sinister wishes be sufficiently correct.

131a-009.xml

Title: [[131a-009] 1818 March 22 +]

Description: [131a-009]

1818 March 22 +

Parl Reform Answer to Antiballot Observations

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Now as to the moral evils:- in any[?] view of the matter they will not be far to seek.

1. In the first place, if there be any such thing as an evil, the exercise of tyranny – the exercise of power to a bad end – is an evil: and, where the power is all-comprehensive, it is the sum and substance of all evils, not political only but moral likewise

2. In the next place, comes the opposite but correspondent and necessarily concomitant evil, the evil of servility: the exercise of obsequiousness to a bad end.

3. In the third place comes the falshood, the imposture. As often as, on this occasion, and in this way, a man gives[?] as and for his own wish, that which in truth is not his own wish but the wish of another man; – a wish, which, though contrary to his own, he gives as and for his own, – an act of imposture is committed. The Election- tyrant commands the imposture: the Election slave obeys and executes it.

The first mentioned and chief of the effects imputed by the antiballotists, in the character of moral evils, to the secret mode, is insincerity. But if on the part of the Election slave, as above defined, insincerity has not place, I must confess myself at a loss where else to look for it.

The antiballotists whose moral sense is so much hurt by the insincerity which in their view would be produced by any law made for relief against Election tyranny, how comes it that they are so insensible to the insincerity which can not but be produced by the Election tyranny, in every instance in which it operates with its effect?

As to the tyranny, unquestionably it has its limits: in respect of the suffering produced by it, it is not to be put in comparison with any such tyranny, to the exercise of which the tyrant causes innocent men to expire in torture. But to the extent of it, and as far as it goes, the one of these two modes of exercising power is with no less propriety termed tyranny than the other. And so as to the slavery.