date

[lxxxiv. 123] 1822 Jany 24
[lxxxiv. 123]

1822 Jany 24

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?.5 Admission Universal

More favorable to the greatest happiness of the greatest number no ultimate state of things could reasonably be expected, under a Constitution the existence depends upon the hearty cooperation of an incensed Monarch in the business of forging shackles /manacles/ for his own hands: in which while no more than a share in the function of making laws is given to persons chosen /agents placeable and displaceable/ by the greatest number the appointment of all those on whose good will all the execution and effect can be given to them /those laws is left to depend/ is to left to him whose interest it is that no such execution and effect should be given to any of them except to those from which the share left to him of his former power will receive confirmation and encrease.

a form of government /a state of things in respect of government/ in which the government /constitution/ depends for its existence and for all the good effects expected from it depends on the existence at all times of a human being who, being of the class and name of those to whose desire no resistance is ever opposed from without and having power to engage all men in the giving fulfilment /accomplishment/ to his desires is expected to keep his conduct in a state /[...?]/ of constant opposition to the whole current of those desires to /by/ which in that situation restraint has /was/ never in any instance been found endurable, in a word in which the accomplishment of the declared end is made to /trusted to/ depend upon a state of things absolutely impossible upon a chain of events the continuance of which after the first few links is absolutely impossible.
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    In a settled /Except in a rare and shortlived/ state of things, under no form of government that of the Anglo©American United States excepted, or one not essentially different from it, is it possible that by the aggregate power of the body on whom the sanctionment of the work in question depends the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the object to the attainment of which the exercise of that power will have been directed, they are sure to be /to a certainty/ under the dominion of a particular and sinister interest: to the force of this sinister interest this open mode of legislation is /will act as/ the most efficient and indispensable bridle.

    Towards the directing the rule of action towards that exclusively justifiable end what is possible is that under /in/ a favorable conjuncture a body of law having for its end in view that same object may by means of this open system be presented to the universal notice of the greatest number /whole people/: in which case, those among whom the power of legislation is shared may, by fear of the ill opinion and resentment of the greatest number be engaged to adopt such universally beneficial measures, as if left to themselves no one of them would have originated.

    The favorable conjuncture in question is this.© When, after a long course of misrule under a government having for its object the greatest happiness of a ruling one, or a ruling few, or a mixt body composed of the ruling one with a coordinately or subordinately ruling few a new set of men by means of the support given to them or expected to be given to them by the great body of the subject many, have come into possession of the aggregate powers of government: exercising them at the same time in

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  • Title: [[lxxxiv. 163] 1822 Jany 23]
    Description: [lxxxiv. 163]

    1822 Jany 23

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    Not only by the matter, but even by the form of the original draught, the matter and form in a word the whole character of the Code in the state in which it receives the ”fiat• of the legislature is in a great degree determined. If in respect /relation/ either to matter or form the views /conceptions/ of those on whom the application, of the ”fiat• depends are to a certain degree at variance with the original draught, as the discussion proceeds it will ere long become generally perceptible that the only way by /course in/ which accomplishment can be given to these conceptions will be to put aside that draught and call for a new one. To any such new draught the name of an amendment to the old one may indeed be given: and in regard /as applied/ to ”motions•, in English Parliamentary Tactics this is not an altogether infrequent practice. But be the name what it will, the nature of the thing will not be changed by it.

    A rationale, as above described © a rationale in which, on the occasion of each distinguishable arrangement, the way in which it promises to be conducive to the greatest happiness of the greatest number is brought to view this being by the supposition an indispensable part of the proposed Code in question © let any one for example, take in hand the proposed Penal Code now /at this moment/ on the carpet in the Spanish Cortes and say whether it lies within the compass of human ingenuity to interweave with its several arrangements the correspondent portions of the sort of accompaniment so denominated and described.
  • Title: [[lxxxiv. 124] 1822 Jany 24]
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    1822 Jany 24

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    Great has been the evil produced by this weakness: but the evil excluded by it has been still /much/ greater. Much /Constant/ has been the operation of security as against punishable murderers: but a gain of security nowhere else exemplified /in existence/ has been gained as against unpunishable ones.

    Of the rabidness with which in the situation in question the appetite for power ought to be /should be/ expected to rage a more instructive example can not be seen /scarcely be conceived/ than that which while the pen is now moving is exhibited in and by the Spanish Cortes. The nation /people/ still suffering /smarting/ under the attacks of the partisans of the head of the government, and still the chosen five out of the Deputies of the people occupied in the endeavour to established a system of penal law such as the Duke of Alva might with confidence of approbation have offered to Philip the second to produce the establishment of: /might have been proud to establish /boasted to Philip the second// all faculty of discussion and interchange of opinion on the subject on which the difference between happiness and misery depends endeavoured to be torn from the people: all faculty of endeavouring to render their condition better /less miserable/ in any respect than that in which it strives to plunge them, endeavoured to be torn from them and /kept/ for ever interdicted to them /out of their reach/: death appointed for the portion /the appointed portion of/ all those by whom any such endeavours for their own security shall be made /used/ in any conversation held /discourse interchanged/ concerning the means: to secure the accomplishment of these designs, words of such unbounded generality employed that by every one of those Judges whose cooperation these same designs can not but be occupied in securing any man may upon the strength of them be put to death for any thing.

    The proposed Code or any thing like it /approach to it/ established should the province by which /intrepid Citizens by whom/ admittance to the Kings appointed Governors have been refused give admission to this Penal Code they will submitt /yield their necks/ to an everlasting tyranny after having refused them to a temporary one.