date

[131a-013] 1818 March 22 +
[131a-013]

1818 March 22 +

Parl Reform. Answer to Antiballotists

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In regard to this distinction of honour – in regard to the punishment that would be inflicted by it – what (it must be confessed) requires here to be considered, is – that the only persons to whom it applies are the Candidates themselves: the Candidates, by whom, or to or for whose benefit it would be exercised. – {the candidates themselves to wit such of them and no other as at the time in question will feel /concur/ themselves unpopular to such a degree its[?] thought of by the people /electors/ to such an extent – as to stand in need of the said tyranny then exercised.} But the Candidates themselves (it will be observed) {all Candidates popular and unpopular together} are but a minute portion of the whole number of persons, by whom, but for such preventive as the open mode does not present, and the secret mode does present, this tyranny would – for the benefit of Candidates or even without a view to such benefit – be exercised: exercised, perhaps without its being known to the Candidate, at any rate without its being known that he knows it. By how unlimited a multitude of persons – agents, private friends, or neither agents nor friends, but merely man of the same party, or in the same interest – in support of one and the same candidates – may not the tyranny be – for continually, and to a prodigious extent is it not – actually exercised?
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  • 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.
  • Title: [[131a-011] 1818 March 22 +]
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    1818 March 22 +

    Parl Reform Answer to Antiballotists

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    But this insincerity, such as it has been /is/ shewn to be, the argument assumes that it will be habitually committed. If I do not misconcur[?] the matter habitually is here put for extensively. By it is meant – not, or not merely, that the insincerity will be frequently committed by the same person, but that, with more or less frequency, it will be committed by each one of a great number of persons. For this sense, it seems to me it is, that the train of the argument requires.

    Now, will it be committed thus extensively? No: in my view of the matter { that} it will not. It will not be committed, to an extent, approaching to any thing like equality, to that to which as above it would be committed under the open mode.

    In regard to the extent, note this much in the first place. The insincerity can not have place – for there will be no motive for it – any further than the law proves inefficacious: – the law, which, by the supposition, will have for its object, and sole object, the prevention of the combination of tyranny, servility, and imposture as above described.

    Now it does not appear to me, that a law for this purpose, framed as I should propose to frame it, would be in any danger of proving inefficacious.

    The insincerity can not have place, but in so far as there exists a human tyrant, or would-be tyrant, of whom it is known, that, having it in his power to do evil to the voter for the purpose of compelling the voter to practice the imposture in question, he is prepared and determined, in the event of the voters not practising it,, to do to him such evil accordingly: in the event of the voters not practicing it: – add – and being, by the tyrant known not to have practised it: for unless either this is known, or he punishes without knowing why, no motive will he have for punishing.