date

[lxxxiv. 104] 1822 Jayn. 16.
[lxxxiv. 104]

1822 Jayn. 16.

Codification Offer

?.5. Admission Universal

Applied to audible discourse - to discourse orally uttered /antecedently employed/ these preventive means /measures/ consist in the prevention of meeting, for the purpose of delivering and hearing such discourse

Applied to visible discourse discourse graphically delivered /uttered/ they consist in Censorship in the prevention of all use of the press without licence /permission/ first obtained at the hands of the possessors of the power thus /so/ subject to be abused, or what comes to the same thing appointed by them or subject to their influence, or linked with them by a community of sinister interest

By whomsoever appointed every person occupied in the sitting in judgment over any such discourse for the purpose of granting or refusing a licence stands exposed to corruptive influence influence of sinister interest and interest-begotten prejudice in the same manner as a Representative of the people is: and sooner or later, say rather from the first moment will be seen to be corrupted accordingly to be more or less subject /in a state of actual subjection more or less entire/ to such corruptive influence.

Of such suppression if carried into effect in both its branches, the effect will be to give a compleat licence to misrule in every possible shape. Of every act directed to the purpose of effecting such suppression in either of these branches, the tendency and obvious and incontestable object /design/ and end in view is to establish such licence. Every such act /endeavour/ is an endeavour to destroy whatsoever is good in the Constitution in question: it is an act demonstrative of the endeavour to convert the form of government into an unbridled despotism. In so far as it is successful, every such endeavour demonstrates the inefficiency of the Constitution in question with reference to its declaredly intended object - the greatest happiness of the greatest number: it demonstrates that the functionaries by whom the subject many are governed are their enemies and oppressors to demonstrate accordingly that it is the interest of the greatest number to change, if by any means it be in their power to substitute to the Constitution which admitts of such an abuse the only Constitution which does not admitt of such an abuse.

Thus it is, that by all the art of man the intentions of those by whom suppression or repression in any degree is endeavoured to be applied to the freedom of appropriate public discussion thus applied can not be represented as being more mischievous than they actually are.
Similar Items
  • Title: [[lxxxiv. 177] 1822 Feb. 14]
    Description: [lxxxiv. 177]

    1822 Feb. 14

    ?.5

    V

    2

    For the obtainment and reciprocal communication of this knowledge and of the judgments grounded on it the people have two distinguishable but intimately connected means or instruments written and visible discovery circulated by means of the press, and oral or /and/ audible discourse uttered and communicated at public meetings.

    On either occasion and in /through/ either way /channel/ if on the subject of matter of fact falshood be uttered with the intention to produce deception, or through rashness ie for want of that examination and caution which ought to have been exercised /bestowed/ whether the intention be /were/ or be /were/ not in existence the tendency of the falshood /assertion/ is to produce deception, and in respect of the mischief /diminution/ that may thus be produced in the greatest happiness of the greatest number presents a right and proper demand for punishment: for if such falshood be /were/ permitted they might be as effectually debarred from all salutary exercise of their constitutive power as they could be by being debarred from the faculty of receiving correct and appropriate information as above. True it is that the means /channels/ of counter[?] information would remain as open to the contradiction and refutation of the falshood as to the dissemination of it. But in many cases /it will often/ happen that the refutation will not be able to reach every ear or every eye that the falshood has reached: or if it /and when it/ does that it will not have reached it time enough to prevent /exclude/ the pernicious consequences.
  • Title: [[clx. 347] 1822 July 12 Constitut]
    Description: [clx. 347]

    1822 July 12

    Constitut. Code Rationale

    Securities Counterforce

    4. Legal

    5. Moral

    Evidence etc necessity of

    Defamation necessity of

    To save himself from being restrained in the commission of one evil act he renders himself an accomplice in /accessary to/ all others

    Of every such indication - and of every such comment - the effect or tendency is defamation: defamation with reference to the party to whom the alleged pernicious act whatsoever it be is thereby imputed. To oppose defamation as such to oppose without exception or discrimination every act to which the term defamation can with propriety be applied is to act as an accomplice to all crimes as an instrument of all mischief of all misery, as above

    Every such act is therefore a virtual confession of such complicity: of such hostility to the happiness of the greatest number

    In the sinister interest by which they are engaged /led/ in the endeavour to effect such suppression, functionaries engaged in giving execution and effect to the acts of a bad government and functionaries engaged in misdeeds for their own benefit in disobedience to the good acts of a good government are naturally joined by individuals concerned or meaning to be concerned in such pernicious acts to the repression of which the power of the legal sanction is not applicable.

    Proportioned every where to the hostility of the form of government and of the practice under it to the greatest happiness of the greatest number will of course be the exertions made by the Governors to deprive the governed of this security to keep the governed for ever deprived of this their only security: the only security which the nature of the case admitts of.

    To profess to be a supporter either of good government or of good morals and at the same time to profess to be desirous of seeing defamation suppressed or even restricted in the /a/ case in which the imputation conveyed by it is true, is little less than a contradiction in terms: put the two branches of it together the desire is a desire to see the same thing be and not be at the same place and the same time - a desire that the same thing shall and shall not have place at the same time.
  • Title: [ÁÁ[lxxxiv. 144] 1822 Feb. 5]
    Description: ÁÁ[lxxxiv. 144]

    1822 Feb. 5

    Codification Offer

    Appendix 4¼o or Separate

    ?.5. Admission Universal

    II Members unapt

    Such the constant ”tendency• © only by a particular and transient state of things or conjuncture can the effect of that tendency be suspended.

    No man or body of men other than the greatest number themselves ever took for the object of government the greatest happiness of the greatest number or no body of men /rulers/ other than the /that same/ greatest number or if a less number a number actually subject to their effectual influence

    Applied to different powers in the same state, the notion of /to different branches of aggregate political power, for the conveyance of which the phrase/ a balance of powers if considered as a means of /an efficient cause of/ production to the greatest happiness of the greatest number is a gross delusion a palpable absurdity a notion /an image /emblem/ altogether inapplicable. /is employed is compleatly misapplied. No sooner is the phrase understood than the notion meant to be conveyed by it is seen to be compleatly erroneous and delusive./

    Suppose the equiponderance to have place any one moment the next moment puts an end to it

    At the foot of every throne is a fountain of corruptive influence: and that fountain /the stream of it/ a perennial and ever encreasing one

    An equiponderance between two interests the universal interest and a particular interest naturally and materially opposite to that same universal interest. Of such a state of things supposing it capable of continuing what is /will be/ the result? that nothing will be done for the advantage of the particular interest that is prejudicial to the universal interest. True: but not less so that nothing will ever be done for the advantage of the universal interest that is prejudicial to its antagonist the particular interest its antagonist

    No such conceit could have been entertained by any one in the character of a means for the advancement of the greatest happiness of the greatest number: by the utterance of it sufficient proof is afforded that in the mind of the utterer no such desire as that of giving encrease to the greatest happiness of the greatest number in preference to an equal share of happiness to the several individuals composing the smaller number could with him have place.