date

1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures
1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures. 15 §. 2. I. Press violation

Reasons against libel laws

1. If such things were allowed of, no government could stand. Persuasive or no,

till the government of the Anglo-American United States had risen, and stood a

certain length of time this argument was impregnable. For, as till then, no

government in which such things were allowed of had ever been in existence, the

prophecy had been constantly and universally made, and had never been

disfulfilled. But now, such things having for so many years been allowed of, and

all the time a government standing and that such a government – a government in

comparison of which the least bad of all other governments is a compound

/mixture/ of tyranny and anarchy, the prophecy stands disfulfilled. But the

being disfulfilled is no hindrance to the pretence of a belief in it on the part

of those who see their interest in such a pretence.

2. By Such an allowance order would be disturbed /would be contrary to order/.

In point of fact this argument may be true enough: but in so far as it is true

it is nothing to the purpose. The order established by tyranny is order: and in

proportion to the extent given to such allowance would be the disturbance or at

any rate the risk of disturbance to the order established by tyranny.

3. By Such an allowance good order would be disturbed. In a certain sense this

is /There are certain means by which this may be rendered/ unquestionably true.

Good order is the order which it is our pleasure to maintain, whatsoever it be.

Let there on the one part be asserted or assumed, and on the other assented to,

the proposition is demonstrated. It passes for such among all such as under the

name of good order are occupied in the support of any system of misrule.
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  • Title: [1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures]
    Description: 1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures. 15 §. 2. I. Press violation

    Reasons against libel laws

    4. If such things were allowed, no honest no honourable no honest man no man who

    had any regard for his honour for his reputation, would be found to take upon

    himself any such situation: and the consequence is that all such situations

    would fall into the hands of men who had neither honour nor honesty, and thus

    the country would be involved in certain and compleat destruction. So says the

    argument

    But of all this the contrary has been shewn already. Honest or dishonest,

    honourable or dishonourable, every man will be ready to take upon himself any

    /and to continue to occupy and to maintain himself a/ situation the evil of

    which is outweighed by the good. In England to a vast extent so prodigious is

    this preponderance, that to obtain these situations there is nothing so

    dishonourable that to obtain them men of all ranks from the highest to the

    lowest are not ready and eager to do, and do accordingly and are not the less

    stiled not only honest but honourable. Falshood solemn and deliberate falshood

    has been shewn to be a necessary step, perjury – perjury acknowledged by

    themselves to be such a commonly employed step /among the most frequent steps/

    to the most richly endowed, the most powerful and most highly dignified

    situations in the Ecclesiastical and self-stiled religious establishment. In

    England no situation is in want of candidates: numerous and eager candidates: of

    whom in the instance of each such situation one /in each vacancy/ is succesful

    and when thus admitted ask any one of them, whether with a few accidental

    exceptions, of which his case does not form one, they are not, all of them

    honest and honourable. But in England though no such things as the things in

    question have ever been allowed allowed by law, yet such in that part of the law

    is the happy and useful weakness, so happily applied in that instance is the

    anarchy or the mixture of anarchy and tyranny of which so large a portion of the

    whole mass of law in that country is composed that the reputations of men in

    office are little less exposed to the sort of impuations of the sort in question

    than if they were allowed: and accordingly, and in the highest and most richly

    endowed and most powerful situations men may be seen wallowing and triumphing in

    profligacy, […?] in infamy, and yet as fondly attached to and as firmly fixt in

    their respective situations as if virtue in them were consummate.

    Commanders of torture spectators of torture encouragers and promoters of torture

    by refusing to hear and preventing the disclosure of it

    Commanders of the murder of the innocent rewarders of the murder of the innocent,

    commanders of torture, spectators of torture, forgers /fabricators/ of rules of

    pretended law to justify the murder of the innocent
  • Title: [1 Aug 1815 Jug. True No foundation]
    Description: 1 Aug 1815

    Jug. True

    No foundation in fact [...?] the period

    6

    Ch Preliminary Period

    4

    For the accomplishment of this his prediction, the prophet by those words of his—for those and those alone were all the words that bear upon this point, had taken time enough: for as long as the world lasted it could not be disfulfilled. From some consideration however, which the Biographer has not handed down to us, this was the very point of time MS alt. ‘or [...?] [...?] time’. at which the prophecy in question was expected to be, at the same time, fulfilled and disfulfilled, was at once they feared to receive its accomplishment and by it was hoped its refutation. The prophet and his prophecy was supposed by them to be a true one, or it could not have afforded a ground for the answer which they gave, and for the measures which were taken in consequence: at that same time it was moreover supposed by them to be false, or the measures could not be productive of the effect they aimed at of the security the production of which was the sole object which they had in view.
  • Title: [1820. Octr 19 Spanish liberticide measures]
    Description: 1820. Octr 19 Spanish liberticide measures 13 Letter 2. Public Discussion 13

     These pages 13. 14, 15. 16. 17. were not employed in terminis in the Letter

    (2) sent. In the letter were contained Substituted paragraphs written from the

    marginals. Of the original brouillon one sheet is a sheet of marginals by J.C

    with amendments by J.B.

    The distinction between the principles of an undespotic and a despotic government

    is simply this: – that according to the principles of an undespotic government

    some eventual faculty of resistance and consequent change in government should

    purposely be left to the body of the people. Nor is this faculty by any means

    inconsistent with the existence of a government: on the contrary it is

    indispensably necessary to good government. For, by the force of habit

    commencing with birth and strengthened by continual observation of the direction

    taken by all rewards and punishments, the natural disposition of the people

    every where is to contiune at all times in a state of obsequiousness to the will

    of all persons sharing in the exercise of the powers of government. In every

    country but that of the United States misrule in all shapes has at all times had

    place to an enormous extent and in every country it has never the less with

    extremely few exceptions continued its course without resistance.

    In this state of things, nothing less than the extremity of misrule can ever

    excite as towards the government any such degree of disaffection as shall be

    productive either of the subversion of it, or of any such endeavours at

    subversion or effectual resistance to particular measures, as can be followed by

    any considerable mischief to the person or property of individuals.