JB_172_412.xml

Title: [1822 Apr. 17 Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1822 Apr. 17

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 18. Relinquisht. Plan

' 6. Case V. Subjection uncontested

2. Buyers inhabitants.

All democratic forms notwithstanding from all the accounts that have

reached this country - and public and private together I have seen numbers - numbers

more than you can have seen, in the least badly governed of those several states

every thing that in the Anglo-American United States or even in this country is

presented to the mind by the words good government is still in prospect only, at best

in hope, not in experience. By Solomon the sluggard was sent to the anvil to learn

industry: by every well-wisher every one of those

effects from the over-grown polype need /should/ be recommended to betake themselves

to those Anglo-American neighbours, and under them bind themselves as apprentices for

a few years to learn self-government.

Under these circumstances I see nothing in any degree extravagant

/romantic/ or considerably wide in practice in the idea that Well then suppose that

in pursuance of an invitation from your rulers, your as yet unemancipated kinsmen

between the Mississippi and the Pacific were to come to an agreement with the

Anglo-American Union, and for the present become members of it on terms the same in

principle with those other States which from the dominion of your rulers have been

added to it. In any such tripartite agreement what is there that can justly be

charged with extravagance? what is there of which it can ever be said that it would

stand considerably wide from /in/ practice.

In this at present I see such an opportunity as if not now embraced

never can so long as this orb turns round present itself anew /again/ a second time.

As to whether under existing /their/ circumstances the people in question would be

content to give any thing, and if any thing what on this head it would be altogether

useless for a man in mine to set himself to conjecture.

JB_172_408.xml

Title: [1822 Apr. 17 Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1822 Apr. 17

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 18. Relinquisht. Plan

' 6. Case V. Subjection uncontested

2. Buyers foreigners.

With relation to their interests, objections to any such transaction

are obvious: 1. distance from the central seat of government so vast: 2 thence,

tardiness of redress after complaint of grievance: 3. encrease given to patronage,

thence to corruptive influence: in a word mischiefs /evil/ in kind the same as those

which I have been as long labouring to represent to you as resulting from the claims

made by your rulers of the dominion over your Ultramarian kinsmen.

But to this there are two answers.

1. As to the distance it will be but a comparatively small part

between Spain and those her Ultramarian Provinces

2. As to redress there is /will be/ no demand for it where there is no

grievance. Many /Already/ are the new born States which have had for their nursing

mother the Anglo-American Columbia /for their nurse/: in no one of them, while it has

been in her leading strings, has there been grievance or complaint of grievance: in

the instance of no one of them has there been on her part any backwardness as to the

taking off the leading-strings.

As to the patronage and corruptive influence on the part of those who profit by

/draw profit from/ it true it is that a propensity /desire/ to give encrease to it

can not be reasonably doubted of: but on the part of those at whose expence it is

created and sustain loss from it /deserve loss and danger/ from it there will exist

/exists/ a counter desire to apply diminution to it: and that which they desire to do

is in their power to do. Though at no great distance from the pinnacle of perfection

their constitution is not yet in actual contact with it: ever since the Union changes

have accordingly been making: but they have always been from good to better: never

from better to less good: not to speak of the changes as are every day making in this

country: changes from bad to worse.

JB_172_404.xml

Title: [1822 April 15 Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1822 April 15

Rid Yourselves

Letter 18 Relinquisht. mode

' 4 Case III. Subjection contested.

Buyers foreigners

Case 3. Dominion /Subjection/ contested: hands looked to for payment,

the hands of a foreign power - the money - purchasers money.

In this case, on the part of the refractory province there must be a disposition to

subject itself /be subject/ to the dominion of the foreign power, though not to that

of your rulers: and to prefer that subjection in a state of quiet to the continuance

of the contest for independence. If a disposition to this effect is not thought to

have place, no foreign power will have to do with any such bargain: for no power will

pay money for a pretence for engaging in war: if disposed to engage in any such war

they will employ the money in carrying on the war rather than in the purchase of a

pretence for it. A pretence may be made by any body at any time for any thing: in

addition to the expence of printing, writing or speaking it costs but a few words. Be

the rulers in question who they may if it be too much trouble to them to make it

themselves any lawyer will make them a pretence for a few dollars. Pretence for

universal war and universal despotism are they not every day put on paper, put by men

whose names if put upon the paper would defile it Rulers who give such men offices

and pensions for such service do so from sympathy not from necessity: for as many

dollars as could be held between two fingers as good pretences might be had as are

got for as many offices or pensions.