date

Jan y 1808 Letter V Power Session
Jan y 1808

Letter V

Power Session

[...?] single seated judicatories indirectly rejected

The backsliding on the part of Your learned Lordships is not the sole object of my fears: another is, that supposing the will no /whether //be// the will be present or/ wanting, the power it may be found it[?] grows legislating[?] on this ground, their hands it will be found are already tied [...?] by the three[?] first section. Divisions of the Court are: eight Judges for the first; no more than seven for the other. But in each of the two divisions, in the least one that contains but seven Judges, there is both an Outer[?] House and a Bill Chamber, each of which is to be furnished /stocked/ with a sufficient number of Ordinaries. When out of this number of seven the sufficient number of Ordinaries has been draughted out, still out of the /in/ remainder with whom /comprizing the population of/ the Inner House is to be a number to spare. For in /within/ this remainder there is to be a [...?] number that is a number that shall remain /be/ sufficiently to give legality to the business /transactions/ after the [...?] have withdrawn themselves. Section 7 has been already noticed as occupying itself in the fixation of this [...?]number: and as having ended at last in a blank[?].

In a considerable number of the other sections has this[?] same [...?] been undertaken, and in no one of them is there any blank[?]. In /on/ this section alone where the blank came to be filled up, the difficulty was found insufferable[?]: the [...?] fell out of the creative /legislative/ hand, that[?] the blank been filled [...?] by the [...?] number
Similar Items
  • Title: [[094-159v] 21 Jan y 1808 L]
    Description: [094-159v]

    21 Jan y 1808

    L d Eldons Bill

    3. To another set of Commissioners is attributed /committed/ the doings of enquiring into and reporting upon the expediency, and eventually the mode, of engrafting Jury Trial onto the Scottish system of procedure in civil: Then I call the Great Seat Commissioners.

    The part which stands first is that which occupies itself in the establishment of regulations outright: regulations to take effect immediately by authority of Parliament.

    But observing that the effect of it is liable to be modified, and the design in an word[?] counteracted, by the regulations which the Court of Session are [...?] to make, I shall take the liberty of so far changing the order of the matters as to take first into consideration the part which occupies itself in buying[?] a foundation as above for regulations to be framed in future.

    The whole number of Judges, at present 15 to be divided into two sections eight in one, seven in the other: in the eight-seated section the Lord President of the whole Court to preside; in the seven-seated, the Lord Justice Clerk: each section to contain an equal number of the Judges of the Court of Justitiary, reckoning the Lord Justice Clerk as two. This forms the principal matter of the [...?] first section of the Bill. Section 6 th gives to each of those two sections, except as excepted the powers, duties and functions of the whole: section 7 th undertakes to appoint for each section a quorum number, two finding the task not quite so easy perhaps as at first [...?],
  • Title: [[094-160v] 22 Jan y 1808 Transpose]
    Description: [094-160v]

    22 Jan y 1808

    Transpose[?]

    1 [...?] contents[?]

    III Contents of Part III [...?]

    Powers to [...?]

    II. Contents or Topics of Part II. Powers for subordinate legislation, enquiry and Initiation.

    I. Sections 5,4,11 in part, and 9, are the sections occupied in giving powers ofr subordinate legislation to the Court of Session, exercisible by its present Quorum of 9, the Court sitting all together, in its undivided state.

    1. In Section 5 are contained four distinguishable parts /clauses/ In[?] clause 1[?] gives them power/ is given/ to regulate the mode in which the "[...?] of ordinances" shall be performed. 2. In clause 2 power to determine "what number of Judges shall operate either separately or together in the Outer House or Bill Chamber: 3. In clause 3, power is proved "if it shall seem expedient...that some of the said Ordinary Judges shall constantly or usually perform the duties of Ordinances in the Outer House or Bill Chamber":... others ... constantly or usually officials in the Inner House: 4 clause in part 4 th. power to determine the "Rotation" in which in the Outer House and Bill Chamber these Ordinances shall officiate.

    5. In Section 4 th power is given to regulate the days of sitting in the [...?] sections of the Court.

    6. In Section 11 th, power is given to regulate concerning the "forms of proceeding and process and in particular the mode of conducting the pleading, as well in the Outer as of the Inner House, and whether carried on by writing or viva voce. /single-seated judicatores of the Ordinaries as in the many-seated judicatores/

    7. In Section 9 th power is given to regulate concerning the remittal[?] of causes from one division to another, on the ground of a connection between cause and cause.
  • Title: [1819 May 21 Objection III]
    Description: 1819 May 21

    Objection III

    Love of liberty extinguished

    Election meetings safe

    14

    Teeming with violence and absurdity, yes: but the more frequent, and the longer the frequency of them has continued, the less pregnant with these evils will they be Already in the United States there is less of them than here. The violence is produced by the two[?] with warranted indignation against constant and continually renewed tyranny.

    3. Election Meetings are the safest of all public meetings. By legality they confer importance.

    Observation. The safest, yes: viz as against the tyranny that seeks to suppress them: and spares no expence in the shape of false pretences for that purpose. In the United States all public meetings are safe: safe in both senses: safe as against tyrannical suppression by the ruling few: safe as against tumults and other disorders on the part of the subject many.

    By legality they confer importance. In this is not something like an insinuation contained that for the purpose of giving this importance to one meeting in seven years it would a measure of beneficence /good for liberty/ to suppress all others? Is not this something like the head or tail of the snake peeping out of the grass?

    4. They excite universal interest: as do for example the accounts given of battles.

    5. “In this manner is formed democratic ascendancy: which is most perfect when the greatest numbers of independent judgments influence the measures of government.”

    Bravo! democratic ascendancy! And so for the moment at least, and for the purpose of this part of the argument, the Reviewer adopts the expression, and approves the thing. Democratic ascendancy? and how to be obtained? By meetings of the people in not one third of the whole number of Election Districts by which seats are filled, and of those assembled while the greater part are excluded by distance and expence, one part brought together by intimidation another part by direct or virtual bribery, and only a minute part free.