date

[clxvii. 252] 1821 Aug. 6.
[clxvii. 252]

1821 Aug. 6.

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 5 Continued Submission impossible

4. Adopters justified.

4. The adopters of the Code every where justified. On no occasion could they have taken a better course: their choice was that or none. The foundations /roots/ were /are/ the best possible: in theory Fundamental /Radical/ theory - fundamental maxim - sole defensible end of government the greatest happiness of the greatest number: radical /correspondent/ arrangement: constitutive power - the root /basis/ of all operative power lodged in the hands of the greatest number: this power lodged in the /those/ hands by those by where obedience all operative power is comprized /constituted/ in the hands of those to the securing of whose greatest happiness the exercise of it ought to /should/ be directed. The foundations were /Those were/ the best possible: and on these foundations preserved no bad arrangements that should be inserted into the edifice - no arrangements adverse to that all-comprehensive end can be of long continuance. Not in the multitude of words only but in extent of import depends the extent of the effect produced by a discourse. In detail the Code swarms with imperfections: it could not have been otherwise: a sample, and no more than a sample has on this occasion been held up to view. But from these imperfections had they been still more numerous and still more important than they are, the whole taken together would not have been divested of its beneficial quality, /rendered either bad in itself/ or unfit to be adopted in Monarchical States /any Monarchical State/ seeking relief from despotism.
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  • Title: [[clxvii. 256] 1821 Aug. 6 Rid]
    Description: [clxvii. 256]

    1821 Aug. 6

    Rid Yourselves

    Lett. 5. Adopters justified

    3. Codifiers apologized for The task imposed by circumstances and national prejudice on the framers of the Code was a task the execution /performance/ of which was physically impossible. As soon could the Moon and the Earth be comprized under a government, as the greatest happiness of the greatest number in both or either be effected by a government comprizing Spain and her Ultramaria. Those constituents would not endure the thought of separation, and under the new lights no human power could give continuance to union. Under the former darkness, yes: to the oppression and torment of both the union could be and was continued: and but for the weakness /weakness/ which was however at the same time the inevitable consequence of that darkness, might no one can say how long been continued: but under that darkness that weakness was inevitable. Under the new lights no. In that one phrase the greatest happiness of the greatest number behold the Sun.
  • Title: [[clxvii. 253] 1821 Aug. 6.]
    Description: [clxvii. 253]

    1821 Aug. 6.

    Rid Yourselves

    Lett. 5. Adopters justified

    In form otherwise than Monarchical the regenerated Government could not have been: /Democratical it could not have been in readiness/ for there were no hands in readiness in which the powers belonging to a democracy could have been placed: no hands already in possession of an adequate degree of public confidence. Democratical it could not /easily/ /scarcely/ have been for another reason for by democracy by any thing short of democracy the shock from popular prejudice would have been too great to be endured.

    Not that in its present form it can remain uncharged. Mixt up of democracy on the one hand and Monarchy with /supported by/ an Official authority for its support on the other, it will either go on to /made up of such irreconcileable/ representative democracy, or fall back to despotism: fall back to despotism, that is to say in the first instance: for in democracy sooner of later, either directly or through the medium of depotism, the new lights, the sun abovementioned with all its vivifying power will make it end /cause it to terminate/. To the absurdity of Monarchy considered in the light of a means towards the greatest happiness of the greatest number - of any number greater than the ruling one, all eyes /every eye/ will be open. Goodness is - not as pretended - in the direct but in the inverse ratio of the power which a man has over others. By the absurdity of the contrary doctrine, by the immorality the insincerity and the baseness involved in every preachment of it, sooner or later every stomach will be sickened. Under a Monarchy the whole population is composed of sycophants and traitors: the sycophants again of deceivers and dupes: dupes then on whom the language of the idolatory passes for truth: deceivers those by whom the language of the idolatry passes for truth: deceives those by whom it is seen to be what it is. Obey the King is to say in other words assist him in exercising the power of oppression and depredation over the people. Absolute or limited the Monarch is every where a living idol: a God upon earth as He is Emmanuel, God with us. Such by the express declaration of Blackstone was the God by whom for this theology he was so richly rewarded.

    In its very cradle from its very origin the force of the matter of corruptive influence (and by the practice of the hands in which it is lodged the whole mass of official emolument is converted as will soon be seen into the matter of corruptive influence the force of the makers of corruptive influence is at work urging /pressing/ it back on the road to pristine despotism /misery/, lodged in irremovable hands, this whole mass goes on accumulating and accumulating like an avalanche.
  • Title: [1821 Sept. 30 + D ┴ 2 o or 3 o]
    Description: 1821 Sept. 30 + D ┴

    2 o or 3 o

    Letter VII Religion

    Religion

    Priesthoods opposition to God

    19

    7

    1

    An observation I had occasion to make above is that it is not without some limitation that the effects of the opposition made to the existing temporal Government by the priesthood in the present state of things are purely mischievous. In the present state of things I see resulting from it a portion of good to the quantity of which I know not how to attach any precise limit. The good I have to view is that which is done by reducing the strength of that part of existing government which is in the hands of the Representatives of the people, reducing it in such sort as to strengthen their dependence on that whole body of the subject many in which their constituents are included. The case is this.

    Whatever may have been the design, the tendency of the Constitution as established by the Code is—to establish not a government consulting the interest /having for its object the greatest happiness/ of the greatest number but a government having for its object the greatest happiness of that portion of the community amongst whom is shared the whole of the operative power /branch/ of the government: to substitute to the monarchical despotism, a despotism by which the power with the fruits of it instead of being engrossed by a Monarch shall be shared by a Monarchy and an Aristocracy, the people being […?] and gained by the firm share of a supreme constitutive power lodged in appearance in their hands but which by a mixture of corruptive influence in the hands of the Monarch and the Aristocracy and a corrupt judicature applied to Election cases, all is reduced to a show, being divested of real influence.