date

1821 Oct. 27 To Toreno 3 o
1821 Oct. 27

To Toreno

3 o

Letter VII

3

Here there is a class of persons /class of functionaries/ who under your Constitutional Code possess in effect the faculty of producing mischief to the subject many to any amount[?] with impunity

To /Along with/ this class exists /it has placed/ another which it has put in possession of the same faculty. I mean the lawyer class, the Members of the Judicial Establishment

In the case of this class of functionaries, a counter irremovability has place. To the King the faculty of removing them is not allowed No nor yet to the to the King and Council of State without conviction at the end of a judicial process In the […?] /the eyes/ of the Constitutional Code no small security for you between[?] was perhaps thought to have been provided. For the members of that Establishment, yes. But for the subject many no security: instead of security, artificial /factitious/ danger.

Here then to the alliance offensive and defensive against the interest of the subject many is is added another party. And thus you have in opposition to the interest of the subject many an alliance triple or tripartite. Of[?] parties three sets of functionaries all /each/ of them having an interest opposite to that of the people: no one of them, immediately or through any process how circuitous[?] so ever through any chain of operations how lengthy so ever removable by the people

Accordingly should any such accident ever happen to you as to have for your Monarch /King/ a person by whom his own particular interest or the interest of his own more particular corrulers comes to be preferred to the interest of the unknown and distant subject many, here are two bodies of men whose conduct in the exercise of their respective functions who by means of the good they placed at his disposal are placed at his disposal likewise.

Such then is your less immediate danger: and while[?] to my eyes it be not a severe one, you are in a condition, Sir, to judge. Happily the mischief threatened by it seems not to be at the same time so great and so immediate as that which is threatened by the danger first mentioned. The consideration of it may wait to another opportunity.
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  • Title: [1821 Oct. 31 + C To Toreno]
    Description: 1821 Oct. 31 + C

    To Toreno

    3 o

    Letter VII Religion

    1

    Discard?

    In regard to the priestly order, the part you have to act you must be still more acutely sensible of it than I can be, is an extremely difficult one. For the present your situation on this account /ground/ can now[?] not but be full of danger: nor can the danger easily be made to cease without giving place to {actual not to say fatal mischief} /a permanent and much more serious danger/. When on this occasion I speak of mischief, it is of mischief /this less immediate danger, the danger I meant is that/ to the subject many not to the rulers mischief to the people /subject many/ through the profit /subject many/ to their rulers.

    The immediate danger is from their hostility to government: and in so far as the interest of the government coincides with the interest of the people, from their hostility to the people But in proportion as their hostility to government ceases, which it will do as the present incumbents die off, and others nominated by the Government take their places, and alliance of the priesthood with the Government takes place: and an alliance between an established and richly beneficed priesthood on the one part and the Government on the other is an alliance offensive and defensive against the people.

    By /From/ no such alliance you will say can any mischief to the people be produced but in so far as the dispositions of the Government are hostile to the interests of the people. True: but the alliance circumstanced on the priestly order is, is of itself sufficient to place and keep the Government in a state of hostility to the people.
  • Title: [1821 Oct. 27 To Toreno 3 o]
    Description: 1821 Oct. 27

    To Toreno

    3 o

    Letter VII Religion

    2

    In the case of the priestly order I mean always the beneficed and especially the richly beneficed part of it, the great danger is produced by their immoveability for its cause. In the Military, the naval, the Financial, the Diplomatic Establishment the functionaries being removable by the Ministers, and the Ministers by the King; and the King though not removable except in extreme cases being in various ways subject in a certain way only[?]to the Cortes the Members of which are appointed, and at short intervals by the simple process of unreelection removable by the subject many, hence it is that for any branch of duty towards the subject many, a remedy more or less immediate and effectual has place. But the Ecclesiastical orders are not removable but by one another: nor by one another, without a tedious process of which the office[?] is essentially precarious.

    In case of provable and proved delinquency, by offences of a certain description which remain to be described they may indeed be made, and by the proposed Code are proposed to be made, and probably /I suppose/ will be made removable upon conviction at the end of a judicial process. But in your country Sir forgive me the remark it is a continually necessary one, judicial processes do not easily ever come[?] as[?] easily come to an end Nor does it seem to me that after any this has been done which it is in the power of words to do towards giving such a of opposition made to government by discourse, in which religious language is employed mischievous discourse must /will/ to such an extent left unpunishable that from the quality of mischief flowing from this source no sensible defalcation will have been effected.
  • Title: [1821 Sept. 29 + B ┴ To Toreno]
    Description: 1821 Sept. 29 + B ┴

    To Toreno

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    Letter VII Religion

    §.5 Mischievous people

    priestly support to Government

    Sole safe /[…?]/ […?] for the Defense

    7

    1

    As to the priesthood, the influence of the mischievous application of which you are apprehensive at the hands of that order of men[?] {has two causes} /is produced by the use made of two sorts of instruments; the quantity of the objects of general desire /the instruments of temporal felicity/ which they are in possession of /have at their immediate disposal/, and the faculty they possess of employing in the promoting of their own particular and sinister temporal interest the hopes and fears of men as derived from {superhuman} /rewards and/ punishment and rewards at the hands of an almighty being, principally in a future life. {As to the first} of these instruments, to deprive them of it /the first/ and that most compleatly and effectually is {altogether} /and by immediate means/ in your own power. to deprive them of the other is what can not be effected by any immediate exercise of your own or any other power. To this end all that can be done is by {the liberty of} public discussion directed to this end /and for this purpose pure liberty, liberty without reward would be sufficient: the pockets of those to whom the liberty would afford security against the person would afford a sufficient retribution for the antidote/. By this in the way of clearing mens minds of mischievous delusion whether applied to this particular purpose or any other there is no imaginable good that can not be done, there is no imaginable good but will be done, if the liberty of doing it be but allowed. At present the whole mass of the wealth possessed by the order of men in question is employed in the administering circulating and infecting the poison: were you {to} take half this wealth and employing /employ/ it in the administering of the antidote, you would thus free yourselves from the imputation of partiality. But what you would not free yourselves from, so long as you gave any such application either to such half of the whole mass of this misapplied wealth is the imputation of waste.