date

[clx. 340] 1822 July 11 Constitut
[clx. 340]

1822 July 11

Constitut. Code

Securities

4 Moral responsibility

5 Legal responsibility

?. Expository matter

Responsibility in the sense /to the purpose/ 1. of exposure /liability/. 2. of sufficiency

Note

Note To the word responsibility the sense /import/ thus attributed /attached/ is common to all languages which have sprung out of or derived supplies from a Latin stock

In English attached to this same word is an /another/ import which requires to be distinguished from it. A person is said to be a responsible person not in virtue of his actual and effectual subjection to either tribunal, and in particular the legal, but in virtue of his being in such a situation, principally in respect of his pecuniary circumstances, that if it were the desire of government that by means of coercion he should be made to do or suffer so and so, he would accordingly be made to do so and so, namely by reason of his being in possession of benefits in particular either money or power or both, on which it would be in the power of government at large, and the judicial branch of it in particular to take hold, supposing it so disposed. /disposed to do so./

The distinction is a real and an important one In England the situation of King by the avowed state of the law is placed above the field of legal responsibility: to the purpose of exposure to punishment he can not be made to suffer nor consequently to do any thing that it does not please him to do or suffer

In the other sense however he is in an abundant degree responsible - he has money enough for example by the seizure of which could it be got at without his leave he could be brought to do any thing which by any one it was desired he should be seen doing

It is by the plenitude of his responsibility in this particular sense that he is eased of all responsibility in the general sense: so material it is that the two senses should be mutually distinguished.

In general, from the top of the scale to the bottom the more abundantly responsible a man is in respect of sufficiency, the less responsible he in respect of effectual exposure.

In respect of exposure to punishment the King is irresponsible by law. Other classes /situations/ there are that are so in effect, though by law and to outside shew responsible: witness the Lord Chancellor, his two immediate subordinates and the twelve paid Judges.
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  • Title: [[clx. 344] 1822 July 11 Constitut]
    Description: [clx. 344]

    1822 July 11

    Constitut. Code Rationale

    Securities Counterforce

    4 Legal responsibility

    5. Moral responsibility

    Moral Responsibility

    Thus stands the matter in regard to legal responsibility responsibility to punishment at the hands of the possessors /administrators/ of the power of the legal sanction.

    Look now to moral responsibility - responsibility to the purpose of eventual exposure to the punitive power of the Public Opinion Tribunal, administrators /possessors/ of the force and influence of the popular or say moral sanction: the power that is to say /and in particular the power/ of the democratical sanction of that same invisible yet not the less efficiently /effectively/ operative tribunal: a tribunal like the Vehmic invisible; but, like that not the less operative. To responsibility /punishment/ to not altogether ineffective responsibility in this shape /punishment in a certain shape/, not only in representative democracy the possessors but even in an absolute Monarchy, the possessor of the supreme operative power are capable of being responsible /standing exposed/. In fact In this shape in this sense is /are/ the most compleatly absolute Monarchy the Monarch is always to a certain degree responsible, and feels himself so to be: though in some Monarchies at some times so faint /feeble/ has /such has been the feebleness of/ this responsibility been in the character of a counterforce to the powers of government in the highest grade, that the effect of it in respect of a cause of mitigation to the evils of misrule - of depredation and oppression - in experience has hardly been perceptible. has seldom in any determinate degree or shape been perceptible.
  • Title: [[clx. 343] 1822 July 11 Constitut]
    Description: [clx. 343]

    1822 July 11

    Constitut. Code

    Securities

    4 Moral Counterforce

    5 Public Opinion Tribunal

    So much as to the case of a Monarchy.

    In /Now as to/ the case of a Representative Democracy. In this case at the charge of the Members of the supreme Operative power - of all of them without exception legal responsibility, may have place without difficulty: legal responsibility - not nominal /in name/ only, but effective /in effect/, namely to the purpose of exposure to punishment. During their continuance in that situation, and to the extent of the absolute majority of them, no: a proposition asserting the affirmative would be a self contradictory one. But even during their continuance in office, the minority remain, in the very nature of the case, in a state of legal responsibility as towards and under the majority: and from and after the expiration of their power /authority/ being on the /a/ /no other/ footing /no other than that/ of all the other members of the community they remain each and every of them responsible in the legal sense for whatsoever they may have done - whether in that situation or any other. An arrangement for that purpose has accordingly been proposed in the Text. See Articles
  • Title: [[clx. 341] 1822 July 11 Constitut]
    Description: [clx. 341]

    1822 July 11

    Constitut. Code Rationale

    Securities

    4 Legal responsibility

    5 Moral responsibility

    First calls for explanation legal responsibility, of moral responsibility any such clear conception not being obtainable by any other means as by its analogy to responsibility with reference to the power of the law.

    As to legal responsibility, to the purpose of exposure to punishment at the hands of the political including the legal sanction, in a Government the whole or any fractional share in the supreme operative power is in the hands of a single person, no such legal responsibility, it is sufficiently evident /manifest/, can in his instance and at his charge have place. The situation of an absolute Monarch is therefore one in which no such responsibility can have place. The situation of a limited Monarch, howsoever limited is therefore another - or at any rate /the least/ will want very little of being so

    Spanish King under

    Spanish Cortes

    Under an absolute Monarch, no such responsibility can in the instance of any /no other/ functionary under him whom the overgrown /head/ /supreme/ functionary is disposed to favour can any such responsibility have place, unless such should be the masters pleasure: and it will not be the Masters pleasure unless he be an object of the Masters personal displeasure whatsoever misdeeds he may have committed to the prejudice /detriment/ of the universal interest, and whatsoever may have been the defalcation made from the sum of public happiness.

    So far as this effective irresponsibility has place so far it is evident the power of the legal sanction can not be presented in the character of a counterforce to the power of government - the power of government in the hands of a supreme ruler or set of supreme rulers - to present it in this character would be a contradiction in terms.

    But, a case not altogether incapable of having place is - At the charge of one set of functionaries his subordinates and instruments, say his subordinates in the department of finance suffers the punishment to be administered by another set of his subordinates and instruments - say the functionaries belonging to the judicial department: here then the force of one of those sets operates /acts/ as a counterforce to another set his equally and assuredly obsequious instruments.