date

[clxvii. 257] 1821 March 20
[clxvii. 257]

1821 March 20

Rid Yourselves

Part I

To Ultramarians share in

Spanish Cortes worthless

Lett Representation no security

Five if in a Preface. In regard to matters of fact the nature of my situation can not but have led me into error to an amount more or less considerable. Your evidence will make such allowance as shall be found due.

'. Representation no security. By no share that is or can be given to them in the composition of a body of representatives of the people sitting in Spain, can the Ultramarians be brought to a willing and permanent submission to the dominion.

Spaniards!

By the Constitution, as it stands, an effectual security is given to the Ultramarians against the being taxed for money to be sent to Spain to contribute to the opulence or force of the peninsular, or to bestow it upon Spaniards sent from thence. This, I flatter myself I have rendered sufficiently manifest to you: an effectual security, namely that under the Constitution, unless the latent despotism has to be deduced from it, be considered as a part of it, no pecuniary contribution can be received from them without their own free consent: This /which/ consent, no adequate inducement being before them, they will not continue, any of them, if ever they begin, to give.

But having already in their hands this security, and this so effectual one, against all taxation, no security which by a share in the composition of the Spanish Cortes is, or could be given to them, would be of any value in the eye of an uninterested observer, still less would it be in their eyes.
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    '.6. Anti Constitutional Evil

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    '. By the share given to Ultramarians in the representation real injury is done to the really Spanish people Ultramarian representation hurts Spain.

    Spaniards!

    You have seen how real and how heavy is the injury done by this claim to the people of Ultramaria: how heavy, and thence and therefore how intolerable to them: how intolerable to them, and thence and therefore how ruinous to you if you suffer your Representatives to persist in so hopeless an enterprise as that of forcing their submission to it how ruinous to yourselves. You have seen that, /A moment's patience, and you shall see,/ against this injury to them, no real security is afforded by the share given to them in the Representation - in the composition of the Cortes, by which in conjunction with the King, the Kings Ministers, and the Council of State, your affairs are managed.

    But while to them that share in the composition of your supreme legislative assembly affords no security no advantage in any shape, to you it can not fail to work the most serious injury. Applied to your case it is a violation of the first /fundamental/ principle of the Constitution:- a weakening of the principal security provided/ /afforded/ by it: that of not being taxed or in other respects legislated upon but by Representatives /Agents/ chosen by yourselves.
  • Title: [[clxvii. 260] 1821 March 20]
    Description: [clxvii. 260]

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    ' Representation no security

    Thus much even on the supposition of their /the Ultramarians/ having a secure majority in the Cortes. But they have no such secure majority: and you Spaniards would be displeased and justly displeased if they had
  • Title: [[clxvii. 258] 1821 March 20]
    Description: [clxvii. 258]

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    ' Representation no security

    To purchase this security, they would have to submitt to be governed on all points this not excepted, by a body of men of whom the majority at least would be strangers to them, /actuated by interests opposite to theirs, and/ acting at various distances, but the least of them of itself an effectual bar to good government acting in a word under those insuperable disadvantages some of which have already been submitted to your view.

    Thus, to purchase an alledged benefit of no value, they would have to pay an immense price: the burthen of the price would fall in their view and be felt by them: the beneficialness of the alledged benefit, not being real would not be perceptible.

    Under those disadvantages supposing even that the majority of the body of the national representatives sitting in Spain was /were/ composed of men sent by free fair and full election from Ultramaria sent from Ultramaria by universality, secresy, equality and annuality or biannuality of suffrage, even this state of things would not under the Constitution as it stands constitute in favour of to the Ultramarians any adequate or effectual security against misrule.

    1. In the first place neither by this nor any other political arrangement could the the irremovable and inflexible physical bar opposed by distance to good government be overcome.