[clx. 347]

1822 July 12

Constitut. Code Rationale

Securities Counterforce

4. Legal

5. Moral

Evidence etc necessity of

Defamation necessity of

To save himself from being restrained in the commission of one evil act he renders himself an accomplice in /accessary to/ all others

Of every such indication - and of every such comment - the effect or tendency is defamation: defamation with reference to the party to whom the alleged pernicious act whatsoever it be is thereby imputed. To oppose defamation as such to oppose without exception or discrimination every act to which the term defamation can with propriety be applied is to act as an accomplice to all crimes as an instrument of all mischief of all misery, as above

Every such act is therefore a virtual confession of such complicity: of such hostility to the happiness of the greatest number

In the sinister interest by which they are engaged /led/ in the endeavour to effect such suppression, functionaries engaged in giving execution and effect to the acts of a bad government and functionaries engaged in misdeeds for their own benefit in disobedience to the good acts of a good government are naturally joined by individuals concerned or meaning to be concerned in such pernicious acts to the repression of which the power of the legal sanction is not applicable.

Proportioned every where to the hostility of the form of government and of the practice under it to the greatest happiness of the greatest number will of course be the exertions made by the Governors to deprive the governed of this security to keep the governed for ever deprived of this their only security: the only security which the nature of the case admitts of.

To profess to be a supporter either of good government or of good morals and at the same time to profess to be desirous of seeing defamation suppressed or even restricted in the /a/ case in which the imputation conveyed by it is true, is little less than a contradiction in terms: put the two branches of it together the desire is a desire to see the same thing be and not be at the same place and the same time - a desire that the same thing shall and shall not have place at the same time.