date

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

1818 March 22 +

Parl Reform Answer to Antiballot Observations

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8

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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.
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  • Title: [[131a-010] 1818 March 22 +]
    Description: [131a-010]

    1818 March 22 +

    Parl Reform Answer to Antiballotists

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    Argum {for continuing[?] tyranny the insincerity produced by the endeavour to escape from it.}

    Such being the evils, moral as well as political, attached to the open mode, what are those which by the Antiballotists have been imputed to the secret mode?

    1. In the first place stands the alledged insincerity. What is this insincerity? It is the insincerity, practiced by him, who, under the proposed secret mode, anxious to escape from the tyranny, his deliverance from which is the object aimed at by the secret mode, finds or fears it to be out of his power so to do, any otherwise than at this unpleasant price. To preserve him from this tyranny is the object of the secret mode: of that mode which by the supposition is for that very purpose established by law.

    But, so close and adhesive is the gripe of this tyranny, all that the law has regarded itself as able to do for his […?], has not of itself been found sufficient. To supply the deficiency in what the law has been able to do for his emancipation, what, according to the supposition, does the destined slave? Giving effect to the known wishes and endeavours of the law, he accomplishes his own […?]: he fulfills the law; he fulfills it though at this degrading and unpleasant price.

    Such is the state of things, and so distressing is his situation under it, he is reduced to make his option between immorality and immorality. He sees before him immorality in two shapes: one, in which it is productive of ulterior evils in addition to itself, and operates in opposition to the known wishes of the law: the other, in which it is productive of no such evils, and operates in conformity to and to the accomplishment of, the known wishes of the law. He produces the lesser evil it is true: but by doing so he excludes the greater evil: and that an evil which could not otherwise be excluded.
  • Title: [[131a-012] 1818 March 22 +]
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    1818 March 22 +

    Parl Reform. Answer to Antiballotists

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    But if I do not greatly deceive myself, the nature of the case furnishes sufficient means for preventing /precluding/ men to any considerable extent from engaging in the practising or the attempting to practise this tyranny: and only in proportion as the tyranny has place, can there be any room for that insincerity, which has for it sole object the escaping from the tyrant gripe.

    Unless the abovementioned appellatives Election-tyranny and Election-tyrant will be manifestly, and according to general opinion, altogether misapplied, then so it is, that by the very act of attaching to them these appellatives by the authority of the law, a preventative remedy of no small force will by so simple an expedient have been applied.

    Even without the assistance of any such impressive instrument – even under that open mode which they propose – the honour attached to the possession of a seat would {say the Antiballotists themselves} “ be effectually destroyed by any known exercise of sinister influence”: by sinister influence meaning here, with or without the addition of bribery, what is here denominated Election tyranny. But if without any such stigma as is here proposed, such would probably be the result, how much more probably, not to say certainly, would not this same result be produced by the additional force of this same stigma? I mean that appellative, in the application of which, the Antiballotists, unless in this particular they contradict themselves, can not but expect the people at large to join?
  • Title: [[131a-015] 1818 March 22 +]
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    1818 March 22 +

    Parl Reform Answer to Antiballotists

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    Now then, whatsoever be the insincerity add, if the Antiballotists please, the perfidy – apprehended to be attached to the secret mode, it can not have place but in so far as there exists a determinate person known and seen to be engaged in the endeavour to exercise the tyranny. But, while the insincerity can not have place, in any number of instances, greater than that of those in which the tyrant is by the person on whom he acts seen and known to act, it will not assuredly have place in the whole number of those same instances. No such false declarations will be made in any other instance, than those in which they are either expressly called for or plainly shewn to be expected. Under the apprehension of the above proposed system, they are not likely to be very explicitly or frequently called for: and when not pretty explicitly called for, the person whose suffrage it is thus endeavoured to enslave will not be very forward to make them: he will not, so long as he thinks it is possible otherwise to escape the apprehended evil, purchase his escape at the price of the necessary insincerity, although at that price the escape would be perfectly secure.