date

1819 Dec r 4 Bentham’s Radical &c
1819 Dec r 4

Bentham’s Radical &c

Prelim

II. Necessity

6 - 2 those which oppose obstructions to the operations of the ruling few in their endeavours to wrest from the people the small number of sources[?] of security still remaining in their possession.
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    Description: 1819 Dec. 4

    Bentham’s Radical &c

    II Necessity

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    At the Revolution in 1688 the contest was between a great majority of the influential and customarily ruling few on the one part /hand/, and a very small portion of that body headed by the King on the other. At present the contest /conflict of interests/ is between the ruling and other influential few including many /a large portion/ of the middling orders on the one part and the great majority of the lower orders on the other.
  • Title: [1819 Dec r 4 Bentham’s Radical &c]
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    Bentham’s Radical &c

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    II. Necessity

    (a) (really existing constitution) But for the American United States Englishmen would not know /have known/ what a really existing Constitution is: nor therefore would they have understood clearly that they themselves have no such thing, and that therefore all those boasts which out[?] themselves in the cry of Glorious Constitution! Matchless Constitution! and so forth are either self-delusion or impostors.
  • Title: [1819 Dec. 4 Bentham’s Radical &c]
    Description: 1819 Dec. 4

    Bentham’s Radical &c

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    II Necessity

    2 Means

    5

    Thus much as to the end - namely Democratic ascendancy

    Now on to the means. The means by which if it depended on me I would wish to see it effected are those very means which after having in Ireland been employed with success as far as they were imposed, from 1778 to 1783 inclusive, were in 1794 evidently by M r Gray[?] referred to and recommended to the people of Great Britain namely by Revolution of the people meeting in bodies and acting on the prudence of the House.

    But the House, that is the ruling few do well choose to have their prudence acted upon in any such manner: no portion of the people can for any such purpose meet and act together without being destroyed.

    The consequence is, that as matters now stand the people know no other than this one option: either to suffer this country to sink through the condition of Germany into the condition of Spain, or to act upon the prudence of the Honourable House in a mode correspondent to that in which Honourable House &c acted upon their prudence so much to the satisfaction of M r Peele and so many other prudent men, upon the occasion of the Manchester tragedy: to copy /follow/ the example so set - to copy it with no other difference than that which will /in their eyes/ appear to them to be necessitated by the difference of position: to operate in detail instead of operating on them by wholesale.