JB_162_051.xml

Title: [[clxii. 51] 1820 June 12th]

Description: [clxii. 51]

1820 June 12th

Emancipation Spanish

Rulers Arguments

Virtue no security

Cortes in Spain name representatives

Of the sort of virtues of the manifestation of which might in the situation in question an expectation might reasonably be entertained mention has been made above. Of these courage was one. Military courage was on that /known/ occasion more particularly in view. In the present instance now before us political courage rather than military ought to be /to be the specific name/ the species of courage said to be exemplified: and of this it must be confessed a more striking exemplification can scarely be imagined. But of what other virtue or virtues is any exemplification is to be seen /is here visible/ in this same case? Sincerity? no surely. Disinteredness? As little.

But be that as it may, the people whom it more particularly concerns - the people of the several provinces whose representatives are those chosen for them - chosen under the orders of the very men on whose proceedings the so stiled representatives were to make as if they applied a check - will they be satisfied at being told that men in whose appointment they had no share were by other persons appointed to act as /call themselves/ their representatives? If so, much /rather/ more conspicious than their wisdom will be their patience.

Mean time you the people /subject many/ of Spain think of the effects that this mode of representation can not but have upon the composition of that assembly in which all your hopes of political salvation have placed themselves! But thus to another head /topic/ 'The topic of corruption: a topic too important to be treated under any head to which it can not give its own name. (which will be spoken of under a seperate head.)

JB_162_071.xml

Title: [[clxii. 71] 1820 May 13 Emancipation]

Description: [clxii. 71]

1820 May 13

Emancipation Spanish

' 6. Rulers arguments

Virtue no security

In the case in question the object to which this virtue was directed was the overthrow of the existing pure despotism tyrannically exercised, and the substituting to it a mixt monarchy the powers of which were under the controul of a set of men in whose election the people at large had had, and wish to continue to have a share, by another set of men such as /among whom of course/ in the first instance would not be any who had not the appprobation of these same representatives of the people, but who /on the nomination of whom/ ultimately, and no one could well say how soon might be such as would have been the choice not only in name and appearance but in reality of the Monarch - of that same Monarch, under whom the so long and lately terminated time of suffering had place.

Well then, by means of those virtues of men of the military class the effect had been the placing the country under the government of those other men of the men of that other class - the functionaries belonging to the legislative department and under them the functionaries belonging to the executive department - the administrative and the judicial included.

Now then to making of the sacrifice in question the pursuing /promoting/ the true interest of the Spanish people at large, namely by the surrender of the burthensome dominion in question what is the sort of virtue which on the part of the functionaries in question would be requisite and necessary? It is no less than the sacrifice of the comparatively private interest the interest of the particular class of the personal interests of the several individuals belonging to it - to the public to the universal interest.

JB_162_070.xml

Title: [[clxii. 70] 1820 May 13 Emancipation]

Description: [clxii. 70]

1820 May 13

Emancipation Spanish

' 6. Rulers arguments

Virtues no security

Rulers continually cry Utopia! they fundatum /radically/ Utopians.

' 6,7. Rulers arguments continued - By no virtues that have been or can have been displayed is any security afforded against the compleat abuse of such power. These virtues good reason for trusting them with the maintenance of power over Spain: none for do. over Colonies.

In regard to these same virtues - all such of them as have manifested themselves - by no man can they be regarded with a sincerer pleasure than that with which they have been and continue to be regarded by me.

But by no virtues that have been manifested by them or any of them - even had the same virtues been manifested in the highest degree by all of them - is it rendered in any degree the more probable, that for the sake of the profit obtainable as above to themselves - whether individually or collectively taken they would not be at all times ready to subject the whole Spanish nation collectively, to loss to any amount, in the shapes above indicated, or any others, their own share in it being included as it could not but be.

Let us see what the virtues are that have been manifested, and what the persons by whom they have manifested and what the virtues that have respectively been manifested.

The persons of the ruling class by whom virtues have been manifested are 1. in the first place the army officers. 2. in the next place, members of the non-military part of the government, administration[?] department and legislature taken together.

1. As to the Army officers, the virtue most conspicuous and most transcendent is courage. In the ordinary state /case/ of military service, it is only from one source that military men expose themselves to danger of death and wounds and death namely that of ordinary military warfare: in the case in question in addition to danger from that source a danger which would only be occasional and temporary, they exposed themselves to death and /with/ pecuniary loss to their relatuives at the hands of a despotic government which on failure of the insurrection would have continued in encreased wrath as well as encreased power.