JB_022_186.xml

Title: [1820 Octr. 19 Spanish liberticide measures]

Description: 1820 Octr. 19 Spanish liberticide measures 17 Letter 2. Public Discussion 17

Mr Goreli makes no distinctions: at one crush he suppresses and for ever all

free meetings of the people howsoever modified. Mr Goreli acts consistently –

the government his endeavours are employed to organize and support is a despotic

one: he will have no eventual faculty of resistance no possibility of resistance

to misrule be it ever so consummate no relief to misery from misrule be it ever

so excruciating: he will have no free communication of ideas on political

subjects he will have no instruction no excitation no concert between man and

man any where for any such purpose.

Mr Goreli acts consistently; consistently with his principles in regard to

government: whether with any that he avows I know not: assuredly with the

principles he acts upon: assuredly consistently with the attainment of the

object towards which this measure of his tends, the establishment of despotism:

principles directly the reverse /the direct reverse/ of those which the

Constitutional Code has set up, and to the giving effect to which the system of

representation ordained by it is directed.

Mr Goreli has not yet proposed a law abolishing the whole system of Election

meetings. He need not: should this proposed law of his be established and be

productive of its declaredly intended effect, they will be of no use to the

people of whom those meetings if held will be composed, and whose interests they

were intended to support and serve: in those meetings there will be neither

excitation nor instruction: and to the production of any good effect both are

necessary: at the meeting itself there will be no time for any thing like

adequate instruction: indeed by the Constitutional Code itself (Article | |) all

such use of the time appointed for Election is prohibited: at the time of such

meeting there can not be any such instruction: and it is Mr Goreli’s care that

there shall not be any at any other time.

JB_022_182.xml

Title: [1820. Octr 19 Spanish liberticide measures]

Description: 1820. Octr 19 Spanish liberticide measures 15 Letter 2. Public Discussion 15

To the keeping up this disposition to eventual resistance partly by instruction

partly by excitation, the unrestrained communication of all ideas belonging to

the field of government is necessary. It is therefore the characteristic of an

undespotic government to give not only toleration but favour to such

unrestrained communication: and this with a view not only to instruction but

excitation: for without correspondent excitation all the instruction imaginable

would not be productive of any effect. Instruction applies to the understanding;

excitation to the will: both must be in a suitable state or no effect can be

produced.

In /Of/ popular meetings various sorts or modifications might in this view be

distinguished: instruction and excitation can not in any case be altogether

separated: of every such meeting it is the tendency to be in some degree or

other conducive /contributory/ to both those effects: some however are in a

greater degree /more particularly/ conducive to the one of these two instruments

of political security, others to the other.

A meeting in an open space /and unlimited space such as an unenclosed field/ is

more particularly conducive /suitable/ to excitation than to instruction: a

meeting within a limited space such as a room public or private is more

conducive /suitable/ to instruction than to excitation.

A meeting open to all /once for all/ without distinction, or even to all who at

each time pay a small sum for admittance, is more suitable to the purpose of

excitation than to that of instruction: a meeting held as one of a fixt and

permanent series of meetings is more suitable to the purpose of instruction than

excitation. A select meeting or meeting of a Society with which in addition to

those by whom it was first formed none are admitted but by election is more

suitable to the purpose of instruction than of excitation: in regard to

excitation it is more suitable to the purpose of maintaining a constant and

ordinary degree, than any such extraordinary degree as on extraordinary

occasions may become necessary to the proposed end.

JB_022_179.xml

Title: [1820. Octr 18 Spanish liberticide measures]

Description: 1820. Octr 18 Spanish liberticide measures 10 Letter 2. Public Discussion 10

Where there is no ignorance there is no […?]

In secresy in this case there is danger. True, but is that reason sufficient for

prohibiting it? By no means. Throughout the whole field of government throughout

the whole field of thought and action, look where you will you may see. Do what

is proposed there is danger forbear doing it there is still danger. Do any thing

or do nothing to avoid danger is impossible. The uncertain mischief with which

the supposed danger is pregnant is it greater in value than the certain mischief

of the proposed remedy? behold in this a question which should not ever be out

of mind.

Looking to the United States, where you may meet and form political schemes and

be all the while as secret as you please, I see all this supposed danger at its

height for forty years and not a grain of mischief from it in all that time: if

forty years if this experience be not enough for you, look at any one of the

original thirteen States or of the […?] two and twenty states, and see whether

from the very birth of them the case has not been every where the same.

True it is that if upon this part of the field of thought and action I were to

feel myself under the weight of introducing regulation coercion and prohibition,

this circumstance of secresy would be the first subject I should be for applying

them.