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[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.
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Title: [1820 Sept. 24 Emancipation Spanish]Description: 1820 Sept. 24 Emancipation Spanish '. 5. Corruptive influence Beginning '. 5. To the subject many the dominion would in a Constitutional view be still more hurtful, by its corruptive influence on the ruling few Here, my friends, here I find myself in a perplexing /distressing/ straight. I cna not bring to view that mischief /evil/ which is the greatest without speaking of the injury /mischief to you/ with which the dominion is seen to be pregnant, when contemplated /viewed/ in the constitutional point of view: I mean that mischief which is the result of the matter of corruptive influence /quanitity of corruptive matter/ with which it loads and [...?] the body of the state /politic/: nor can any tolerably adequate or clear conception be given of the nature and magnitude of this part of the mischief /evil/, without bringing /calling/ to view the true view in nature of man the universal the unalterable the unquestionable yet never confessed nature of man, and the destructive nature of those forms of government purely monarchical despotism /pure and despotic monarchy/, pure represnetative democracy, both /each/ in a state of purity and those infinitely diversifiable instances which are a compound of both, not to speak of aristocracy Be the constitution on all point ever so excellent this one load upon it - the ultramarian dominion - suffices to render all its excellence of no effect: and suffices sooner or later to drag /replunge/ the natives back into the gulph of monarchical despotism that scene of torment from which it so lately, and by such prodigies of true wisdom and true valour it has emerged Seeing this how can I avoid the endeavour to lead /conduct/ you into the region of abstractions, seeing that but /without the contemplation of/ for these abstractions the nature of the case affords not many people means of affording you a conception of the destruction which eventually awaits you, nor consequently of the [...?] or your falling into it unless you can bring yourselves to forego the poisonous fruit, with the prospect of which you have so long been tempted and deluded.
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Title: [[lxxxiv. 105] 1822 Jany 16]Description: [lxxxiv. 105] 1822 Jany 16 ?.5 Admisn So long as they keep on foot any such restrictive /repressive/ /suppressive/ measures the representatives of the people demonstrate that their intention is with or without the concurrence of the Monarch to possess and exercise power altogether despotic and arbitrary Sooner or later Sooner or later the Constitution under which such measures have place is sure to terminate either in a Monarchical /pure/ despotism or in a representative /pure/ democracy: in the despotism if the people continue under subjection to it /the yoke/: in a /the/ representative democracy, if they rise and throw it off. For a time, shorter or longer according to the degree of maturity in the public mind the leaders, under whose guidance the change was made from the pure to the mixt Monarchy, will set bounds to the sinister sacrifice: while the memory of past sufferings is recent /sufferings are fresh in memory/, they will be content to barter power for security - for that security in which /they share with/ the subject many share with them: while the universal indigence will oppose to rapacity a considerable efficient check and even sympathy for the subject-many in quality of fellow-sufferers and fellow-actors will contribute its share in softening the harshness of the oppression they exercise /moderating the weight of their yoke/. But as in the lapse of time, the image of the former sufferings grows fainter and fainter, wealth under /in/ the comparative state of general security accumulates, and in a proportion more or less considerable the patience of the subject many changes into impatience from being fellow-sufferers and fellow-actors, become critics, censors and remonstrants, the quantity of the matter of wealth operating in the hands of the executive in the character of matter of corruption being at the same time continually upon the encrease and along with it, on the part of the peoples representatives the habit of receiving it and being governed by it, the Monarch instead of an adversary being all the while a confederate, the appetite for power and money bears sway in each breast without controul, and being [...?] by the matter of corruptive influence /with the matter of corruptive influence for a [...?...?]/, the result is a Monarchico Aristocratical yoke more afflictive because more difficult to shake off, than even a purely Monarchical one.
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Title: [[clxvii. 86] 1821 March 22]Description: [clxvii. 86] 1821 March 22 Rid Yourselves Anti Constitut. Corruptive influence Public Credit has mitigated despotism: but promotes the establishment of it by corruption In a word in every Government in which in addition to a set of functionaries dependent on the people, there is another set not dependent on but independent of the people, the power of the people over those Agents who were originally their dependents will be nullified /overpowered/ /overborne/ by that power which is out of their dependence A government thus mixt of this mixt kind has therefore within its texture the seeds of certain dissolution. Pure Monarchy and pure representative democracy, these are the only forms of government which in their texture and barring accidents are capable of maintaining /continuing/ their existence to the end of time: pure monarchy if the light of [...?] /[...?] improvement/ be effectually excluded from it: pure representative democracy under and by the virtue of such light. Spaniards the government which in virtue of the auspicious change is yours is still of the mixt kind: and, purification apart, is doomed to perish, and to perish by the means of corruptive influence. I shall not on the present occasion enter into those details which would be necessary to the giving /presenting/ to you /bringing to your view/ a compleat as well as correct and clear account of the nature and irresistible force of this same political poison corruptive influence. On the present occasion this topic comes in only as it were by a side wind: since the effect of the Ultramarian claim is - not to give existence to this political poison, but only to give encrease /addition/ to the quantity and efficiency of it, and acceleration to the destructive effect of it.
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