date

[clxvii. 67] 1821 March 25
[clxvii. 67]

1821 March 25

Rid Yourselves

'.6 Anti Constitut Evils

1 Foreigners in Cortes

With the laxity thus secretly manifested as to the choice /selection/ of representatives, compare the vigor declaredly manifested in the choice of their constituents.

The principle is that from the right of contributing by suffrage to the choice of a Member of the Cortes all foreigners - all non-Spaniards are to stand excluded. For the definition of a Spaniard, and thence of a non-Spaniard, I have no need to request /trouble you for/ your attention. Articles nine in number namely from 18 to 26 inclusive are bestowed upon it: labour in my humble apprehension /if I do not greatly err,/ much worse than useless. Useless: because taking notoriety or the equivalent of it for a test of correspondent interest and affection for in any one instance what ground of apprehension can there be that if the doors of all /in any one single instance/ the several Elective Offices were thrown open to all mankind in any one instance a foreigner hostility disposed or a native gained to foreign and hostile interests would be returned /sent/ to the Cortes?

Much worse than useless. For in the long list of disqualification in which all qualifications are to be returned, which article is there which is not a mine of disputes and law suits. The man who manfactured these means, was either a lawyer or had a lawyer for his familiar /at his elbow/

Spaniards! one would think these legislators of yours had been bred in England. Not to speak of such reformists, do what I can, I can not avert[?] our reformists from displaying their discernment by straining out gnats while they are swallowing camels.

But such has been the cause taken on this ground by Custom. Custom the offspring and servant of sinister interest: everywhere but in the Anglo-American United States nor were there any[?] eyes compleatly open to the uselessness and absurdity of these minute offspring of blind and narrow minded /groundless/ /senseless/ jealousy.
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    1. Foreigners in Cortes.

    Look to ends! Look to consequences! Oh no that they will not: custom is what it has been customary for them to look to: and so they will continue to do. To look to consequences /ends/ requires discernment /eyes/: to look to /follow/ custom none: to look to ends and consequences requires labour: to follow custom none. Custom has been the offspring and servant of sinister interest and it is by sinister interest that every where but in the Anglo American United States government has been created and conducted /led/.

    Number of Members of Cortes in the Cortes of 1812, by numeration 181, such at any rate the number mentioned in the Code as having signed. Out of those 181 number of those stated as Deputies from this or that Ultramarian Province by conjecturre about 58. +

    Now suppose these 58 Members elected every one of them by foreigners i.e. by the predominance of a foreign population in so many of the primary Elective Assemblies, and so on. What mischief could they have done, against the will of the 123 others. None: unless by addition made to the number of those in whose instance corrupt obsequiousness has been the offspring of corruptive influence: and upon natives it is quite as easy for corruptive influence to operate as upon foreigners.

    But so far from the 58, in no state of things there ever was exemplified or in any the slightest degree probable in any one of the Elective Districts population of each District per Article \ZS\ 70,000 or thereabouts that a Deputy should ever be returned /elected/ by foreign influence.

    Suppose even the majority of the Cortes composed of foreigners sent into the Cortes /that sovereign Assembly/ by so many majorities composed of foreigners in the several Electoral Districts: or to cut the matter short - suppose the population of Spain composed not of Spaniards but of foreigners: ascribe for suppositions' sake ascribe truth to this self-contradictory proposition let truth be ascribed. On the question whether the claim of Spanish rulers to govern their Ultramarian kinsmen shall be sustained, by what foreigners can any interest be possessed more decidedly or intensely advese to that claim than is the interest of the Ultramarians.

    + To J.B. Pray correct this number?
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