[131a-010]

1818 March 22 +

Parl Reform Answer to Antiballotists

2 o

9

9

Argum {for continuing[?] tyranny the insincerity produced by the endeavour to escape from it.}

Such being the evils, moral as well as political, attached to the open mode, what are those which by the Antiballotists have been imputed to the secret mode?

1. In the first place stands the alledged insincerity. What is this insincerity? It is the insincerity, practiced by him, who, under the proposed secret mode, anxious to escape from the tyranny, his deliverance from which is the object aimed at by the secret mode, finds or fears it to be out of his power so to do, any otherwise than at this unpleasant price. To preserve him from this tyranny is the object of the secret mode: of that mode which by the supposition is for that very purpose established by law.

But, so close and adhesive is the gripe of this tyranny, all that the law has regarded itself as able to do for his […?], has not of itself been found sufficient. To supply the deficiency in what the law has been able to do for his emancipation, what, according to the supposition, does the destined slave? Giving effect to the known wishes and endeavours of the law, he accomplishes his own […?]: he fulfills the law; he fulfills it though at this degrading and unpleasant price.

Such is the state of things, and so distressing is his situation under it, he is reduced to make his option between immorality and immorality. He sees before him immorality in two shapes: one, in which it is productive of ulterior evils in addition to itself, and operates in opposition to the known wishes of the law: the other, in which it is productive of no such evils, and operates in conformity to and to the accomplishment of, the known wishes of the law. He produces the lesser evil it is true: but by doing so he excludes the greater evil: and that an evil which could not otherwise be excluded.