167_090.xml

Title: [[clxvii. 90] 1821 March 23]

Description: [clxvii. 90]

1821 March 23

Rid Yourselves

Anti Constitut.

2. Corruptive influence

Such the transparency of the mask, by any other ingredient, could any addition be made to it? If there were, an Article such as the following might furnish it.

In the same manner says Article 130) they can not during the continuance of their deputation, nor for a year next ensuing the last instance of the exercise of their functions, obtain for themselves or solicit for another, either pension or dignity (condecoracion) which is conferred by the King. Now suppose the wording to have been thus - where would have been the difference this same meaning expressed in these other words. At the expiration of a year next after the last exercise of the functions of a Cortes, every Member may obtain for himself - ever Member may solicit for another any pension and any dignity which it belongs to the King to confer to the obtainment of which the signature /concurrence/ of the King is necessary the Kings grant or concurrence is necessary. What shall we /will you/ say of the discernment of the penner of this clause? what will you say of his sincerity? licence intended /granted/, prohibition pretended.

Here then is a supreme legislative body, composed of Members who may be every one of them on the point and with the assured expectation of being provided not only with lucrative offices to any amount held during the Kings absolute pleasure H but with pensions to any amount held likewise during the same Royal pleasure! And this political body is the Assembly by which the sole controul /check/ is to be applied, by which the government /nation/ can be prevented from running full speed into the gulph of despotism out of which it has so lately and by such extraordinary exertions been recovered! /drawn up!/

HQuere? [...?]

Note to p.5

"Empleo del Rey". What are they - the employments which by these words were meant to be understood /designated/? Those alone in the instance of which the manifestation of the Kings single will (as attested suppose by his signature is sufficient? or those likewise, in which the giving effect to such his will requires the concurrence of another /some/ other person, namely one of the seven Ministers? or those in the instance of which he does but choose one individual out of several those for instance presented to him by this or that other authority - say by the Council of State, as per Art. 171, 237 Say the Cortes, as per Article 233. For the purpose at present in hand an observation to this effect is /was/ hardly worth mentioning: but with a view to the logic of legislative penmanship it may perhaps be not altogether without its use.

JB_162_017.xml

Title: [1820. Aug 18 Emancipation Spanish]

Description: 1820. Aug 18

Emancipation Spanish  Discarded?

Summary

'.5 Corruptive influence

 Omitt what follows in these two sheets?

Observe now /As to/ the provision made against corruptive influence by the Constitution as it stands.

"During the period of his deputation" (says Art. 129) "no deputy can admit of for himself, or solicit for another any employment or grant from the King, nor any degree of increased rank, as there must be no step-ladder in his respective career."

"He can not" (says the next Art. 130) "during the period of his deputation, and one year afterwards, obtain for himself, nor solicit for another, any pension or dignity whatever, that may proceed from a grant of the King."

Spaniards I am no advocate for corrupt influence but as you see an enemy to it. An enemy to it: and in this character it appears to me that I am opposing /proposing/ no small obstacle to it, by humbly proposing as I venture to do, that these two articles should as soon as may be, be erased /repealed/. Why? Because in my view of them, instead of opposing the effect of them I do no say the design is to give license and establishment to this same influence.

What I had been expecting to have found was - that at no time of his life should any member of the Cortes be permitted to accept of any "employment" pension or dignity at such hands In that case, what would have been my remark?

of a provision to any such effect the object is to induce on the part of the people at large a persuasion that if in the instance of the minor functionary in question he has the obtainment or solicitation has not proved, his conduct as not at the /by the/ hands of the chief functionary been made to swerve from the path of duty by corruptive influence: in a word that such non-obtainment coupled with such non-solicitation is conclusive evidence of incorruption. If such evidence were justly conclusive, all suspicion would be needless and injurious. Unfortunately in the case in question so far from being conclusive, these circumstances are not worth a straw in the character of evidence of any such apparently purifying provisions, the only effect therefore is to lull suspicion asleep, and to cause a set of men who are perhaps every one of them corrupted, to be regarded every one of them pure.

The professed object of it is to prevent the effect of all such influence. The effect of which

167_089.xml

Title: [[clxvii. 89] 1821 March 23]

Description: [clxvii. 89]

1821 March 23

Rid Yourselves

Anti Constitut

Corruptive influence

.. "nor solicit for another. What? A Member of the Cortes would he have no means of giving the King or any person in his dependence to understand that the appointment of such or such a person a son of his suppose to such or such an employment would be agreable to him? no means other than solicitation performed by himself and in express words? A female to whom service in that shape in which sexual desire is ministered to is a source of subsistence, does she never employ any means of making /it/ known her readiness to render that service, other than by making the tender of it in express terms?

This a bar to corrupt obsequiousness? Is it not rather a mask? But if a mask, what a transparent one! Is there a child in leading-strings /school boy/ that ought not to be ashamed, if found to have been deceived by it /covered with shame if detected in having been deceived by it/?

What then is it that by this article is forbidden? yielding to corruptive influence /prostitution/ in this shape? Not it indeed: all that is forbidden is the express offer of his services to the corruptor's use.

Can not solicit - a Deputy can not solicit. And, suppose he does make any /some/ such /a/ solicitation of this kind /has solicited/, what is he /in what can he be/ the worse for it? Is the appointment void? This is not said. Nor could it have been without injustice and absurdity: for were such the consequence, supposing a man about to be appointed to any such situation, it would be the power of any adversary he had in the Cortes, by so easy an act as that of soliciting for him, to prevent his having it.

The solicitor is he, for such his solicitation, in any way punishable? /The act - the act of solicitation - is any punishment appointed for it? None whatever of no punishment on this occasion is any intimation to be found./