132-173.xml

Title: [1819 July 9 To Erskine ult]

Description: 1819 July 9

To Erskine

ult o

Lett. 6. E. AntiReformist

§ 7.5. Petitions rely on

40

5

This being understood, when directed to the question in question the language of respect may be universally employed, and with as much facility /little difficulty/ / with no more words/ as the language of the opposite sentiment. The opposite sentiment is accordingly the sentiment which it will have the effect of spreading and inculcating. And this is the effect /sort of advantage/ which by those who think to force respect by the manufacturers of forced respect is at the long run gained at the hands of those who though not strong enough to save themselves from being oppressed are clearsighted enough to save themselves from being duped /they can not help being oppressed may help the being duped/.

{Had I a petition to draw for /at the instance of/ the friends of reform in the three kingdoms /a petition to draw/ for redress of grievance, whether it was to Royal Majesty, to Right Honourable House or to Honourable House for those three are one I would take care /it should be my care/ there should be respect enough: there should be as much as yea more than Royal Majesty Right Honourable House or Honourable House, with all their appetite for forced respect could well /easily/ swallow.}

{“Parliament changed or unchanged as to the general forms of election should have the habitual confidence” says Your Lordship (p. 32) “of all ranks and classes throughout the kingdom, so as that no disturbances could have their origin in any rash distrust of “ their” purity and wisdom, nor popularity be derived from, or impunity expected for, any indecent animadversions upon its character and conduct:}

“The security and confidence” of every country} depending {continues} /mainly says/ Your Lordship mainly upon the well-founded reverence in which the Legislature and the Laws are regarded by the great body of the people. Yes /Or/, my Lord, when (as Your Lordship says) well-founded.

132-176.xml

Title: [Marg ls revised 1819 June 7 + + ┴]

Description: Marg ls revised 1819 June 7 + + ┴

To Erskine

ult o

Lett. 7. E. AntiReformist

§ 7.5. Petitions rely on

1

42

1

To a man ever so little acquainted with parliamentary language, few tasks surely could be easier than that of laying over the inward sentiment, be it what it may, an outward covering of the opposite hue. So long as there remains any such thing as a King’s Speech neither a justification, nor a model can ever be wanting for such a work.

In the course of the debate on the Parliamentary Reform Resolutions, which, from a draught of mine, after such amendments as had been deemed expedient, Sir Francis Burdet did me the honour to propose to Honourable House, – of which Resolutions the basis was composed of the declaration made for these last three hundred years by the Monarchs of this country that the universal interest of the people was the object of their most anxious care – in the course of this Debate it was insisted that, Kings being the sort of persons by whom those things were said, they meant nothing, and ought not to be taken for true: at any rate to this or any other practical purpose. Such was the ground, on which It was the Resolutions were negatived: and, so palpable (it was intimated) was the falsity of all such declarations, that by my learned and Honourable friend M r Bingham, my Honourable friend Sir Francis as well as his obscure and unhonourable draughtsman were in the warmth of his eloquence, pointed to as if labouring under a sort of infantine weakness, as betrayed by the weakness of supposing, that any thing better than transparent hypocrisy had place in those most high and solemn of all high and solemn parliamentary declarations. Had it been such as could have stuck upon me, could I have been seriously suspected of having, at this time of life any the smallest tendency to regard them in any other light than that in which the Honourable House, following as above the lead set to it by my Honourable friend, testified its receiving them any such imputation would indeed have sufficed to call the blood into my cheeks.

104_303.xml

Title: [1819 Aug. 18 Fallacies 11 2]

Description: 1819 Aug. 18

Fallacies 11 2

Ch | | Logical Highfliers

Forms

For further and fuller assurance if it can be necessary or requisite of what by a lawyer of the English School is meant to be inculcated by an elogium on forms in general note the common law distinction between form and substance. By him who has substance in his side is universally understood to be he who has merits /the merits of his cause/ on his side: he in a word whose side of the case or the question is a just one: which by him who without having substance without having the merits on his side has form on his side, is as universally understood he whose side of the cause or of the question is an unjust one. They pronounce /Pronouncing/ to you a decision which by their own avowel shewing is against the merits, that is against justice, they call upon you to receive it not only with the same respect and even reverence as it is were agreeable to justice. Submission, yes: because if the civil power be unwilling or insufficient, there is the military to enforce it. Submission, yes: because it can be forced: but respect and reverence can not be forced@ outward and visible signs, yes: but the inward and spiritual feelings which in spite of all that despotism can do will ever and anon become productive of correspondent acts can not be forced /are never at the command of force/.

Howsoever it be with submission, respect not only ought to be but may be rendered dependent /kept in dependency/ upon the good behaviour of those who call for it: and to bestow it without regard to the goodness of that behaviour is to give effect to this very fallacy by which for the support of misrule, respect reverence and admiration is called for towards every thing that is bad in Government, in Law, in the Constitution, in the Institutions, and in the Forms.