1822 July 4
Constitut. Code
In a representative Democracy, the Anglo-American United States for example, suppose a man partly by political situation, partly by individual frame of mind, seconded /partly/ by political situation /Office/ placed in a situation, capable of inspiring him with the hope /expectation/, and through the expectation with the effectual desire of putting himself in possession of some new mass of power, by means of which, at the expence of the greatest number of the members of the community, some great plan of depredation or oppression, or both might, for his benefit, be accomplished /carried into effect/. Take for example, the President: and let the desired mass of power pregnant with the faculty of exercising depredation and oppression in a manner gratifying to the oppressor be the acquisition of the power given by the Constitutional Code to the President to be exercised by him over a territory subject to the United States, and not as yet admitted to a share in the Supreme Operative power over the whole, by sending Representatives of its own to the Supreme Operative Assembly the Congress. Suppose him having /possessing/ the support of a party, each individual toiling to be a sharer with him in the expected benefit. By no such party under the existing Constitution could any such effect be produced, without its constituting a majority in the Supreme Operative body - the Congress, and that majority continuing /persevering/ to join with him the head in this same pursuit, and that for a length of time including in which several Elections would be But an enterprize of this sort could not be carried into effect nor present any means conducive to the purpose, other than that of a war - a war of aggression begun and continued and ended for that purpose. But of this war, all the Electors in the United States to the number of perhaps more than a million would have to share in the expence: while in the benefit if any /supposing it attended with any/ a very small proportion of that number could have any expectation of being sharers. By concurring in the Election of a Representative if any such there were disposed to concurr in the prosecution of this all-comprehensive /so extensively/ pernicious scheme each Elector would be concurring in the /a/ sacrifice of his own share in the universal interest: and this without any tolerably well grounded prospect of advancing /promoting/ to any thing like an equal amount, if to any amount any such supposed share of his in the particular and sinister interest.
1822 July 4
Constitut Code Rationale
Supreme Constitutive
Why in all
There seems not therefore any the smallest probability, that in the situation in question, and by means of the instrument and source of power in question, it should ever enter into the head of any man to accomplish by means of a majority of votes any /the acquisition of any/ power of depredation and oppression - any power of misrule any such power as that of carrying on government in the manner in which it is carried on elsewhere.
But if it could not in the situation of President, much less could it in any other situation. Much less could it in the situation for example of Governor in any one of those same United States For in comparison of the power of the President of all its States the power of Governor in that State in which he has most power is next to nothing /inconsiderable/.
By Colonel Burr, who had been Vice President, and if he is to be believed, had the option of being President, the Representative Democracy of the United States was to have been changed /improved/ into an absolute Monarchy; absolute Monarch, Colonel Burr. Changed /Improved/ Yes: but how? by free Votes? by the free Votes of those by whom he had been freely made President? Oh, no: in how so great a degree so ever conducive to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by any such means the change was hopeless even in that breast in which the desire was strongest, and as the endeavour proved not altogether without hope /far from hopeless/: Oh no, to the throne of the Anglo-American United States the road he had pitched upon passed through the throne of Mexico. In his view, Mexicans were sheep, his own country men, lions First he was to have been Emperor of Mexico. On the backs of the sheep he was to have been brought home to subdue and tame the lions
1822 July 7
Constitut Code Rationale
Established Religion none
Ch. or ? No system of belief on the subject of religion ought to be established.
Ch. or ? No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavour to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of Religion.
If any such power be thus employed, it will in respect of the immediate application made of it to the purpose of producing or confirming belief to the effect in question by furnishing appropriate inducement, be of the nature of remunerative power, or of the nature of punitive power, or a conjunction of both Power thus employed will be either remunerative or punitive or both
The belief thus endeavoured to be inculcated will be either true or false. This applies /The observation applies/ to the whole system taken in the aggregate and to each distinguishable article.
Consider in the first place the /every/ application that can be made of remunerative power to this purpose
First let the system be supposed true. In /On/ this case /supposition/ the application of remunerative power is needless. Say Establishment needless
But it is only by coercion applied in the way of taxation can the matter of reward whatever it be that is applied to this purpose be collected. Such application is therefore burthensome and as such pernicious. Say Establishment pernicious: viz. 1. by needless and useless burthen imposed in a pecuniary shape.
1822 July 7.
Constitut Code Rationale
Established Religion none
Now as to the vitiation of the intellectual part of the mental frame /intellectual corruption/: and first as to the teacher of that which to him seems /in his eyes is/ falshood. So long as he believes to be false that which he asserts to be true, the poison remains in his moral frame and goes no further. But what may happen, and to a certain extent probably does happen is - that finding this state of mind more or less irksome, he uses his endeavours to get out of it. That which he believes to be false he endeavours to believe to be true For this purpose there is one and but one course. This on every occasion is to call off his attention from all considerations tending to cause the belief in question to be regarded as false, and at the same time to apply his attention to all considerations tending to cause it to be believed to be true: not omitting to set and keep his invention at work in the search of /after/ new ones. /additional ones./ Call this the self-deceptive process. In the here supposed case by the supposition the system is true: therefore as the particular /individual/ /one/ system or subject matter in question, no error, no vitiation of the intellectual frame is among the consequence. But in the mean time a habit has been acquired by him, a habit by which the intellectual frame is vitiated in its application to all subjects: the habit of partiality: the habit of artful blindness the habit by /from/ which a man derives a propensity to embrace falshood and error in preference to truth whatsoever be the subject.
Look once more to the Westminster Hall witness with the straw in his shoe. The side on which he has been engaged has happened to be the right side - in this there is nothing extraordinary: for a fact which in itself is true is not rendered false by the death of a witness who if alive would have proved it. The side on /in favour of/ which he has given his testimony has been /is/ the right side: but the immorality /vices/ by which his moral character has been stained is not the less gross. So is it with the priest who of the true religion in the case of the true system in regard to religion so is it with the priest who having when first hired believed it to be false, by the use made of that process which in its general effects is the self-deceptive process, came to believe it to be true, the difference and only difference that in this case the seat of the disease is not /no longer/ in the moral but in the intellectual part of man's frame: it has shifted from the one to the other.
1822 July 7
Constitut. Code Rationale
Established Religion none
Meantime by those by whom /whose power/ the religion has been thus established or continued to be thus supported a sort of certificate /an /a virtual/ assurance/ has been given and continues to be given that in their eyes the system thus supported is false. The side on which the witness with the straw in his shoe has been hired is the right side: but subornation of perjury is not the less the act by which the hiring has been performed: suborners of perjury the actors - and of such subornation the natural tendency and natural effect is to cause those to whom the side though by the supposition the right are to be in the eyes of those to whom the fact of the hiring is known, the wrong one. In vain would the hirers exclaim - Our side is the right one - we know it to be so: and the fear lest the Judge should be deceived into the contrary opinion is the cause why we take this method to keep him undeceived. The answer in every mouth would be were this allowed, the wrong side if it laid money enough on its side would in every case be the gainer.
Of no direct testimony /assurance/ given by the hiring /[...?]/ individual could the probable force given of his belief be rendered so great as the disprobative force of the circumstantial evidence of unbelief afforded by this hiring: by no protestations oral or written public or private: by no tears, by no turning up of the whites of eyes to the ceiling, as if to heaven.
In no case where it is men's real wish to inculcate the truth in no case do they take this method /course/ for the inculcating it. In no case in which it is a mans interest that truth /the truth on whatever side it be/ should be embraced does he take this method for the discovery of it, for causing discovery to be made of it, and the belief of it when discovered, entertained. In no case if it be a mans desire that a true and correct map of a country should be made and purchased in no case does he without having ever seen the country draw a map of his own and say copy and publish this map you shall have so much money - make and publish a map of the country from a survey of it made by yourself, you shall have nothing.
1822 July 7
Constitut. Code Rationale
Established Religion none
In vain would any one /the Monarch/ say - of such importance is the matter /subject/ in our eyes and such the danger /sad probability/ that notwithstanding its importance it will unless the course in question be taken, be unattended to or unbelief or false belief in relation to it be inculcated and embraced, that to avert so great an evil it is in our judgments /eyes/ necessary to take this course
Happiness you yourselves insist upon it is at stake: happiness not in this life only but in another: in another life, the difference between the extreme of happiness /felicity/, and the extreme of misery, the happiness and misery not of this or that individual only, but of all without exception. What? [...?] are we then to believe - to believe one and all - and upon no other proof /evidence/ than your own assertion contradicted by your own practice that there are so many individuals to no one of whom is his own happiness so dear to himself as it is to you? his own happiness in this life his own happiness in another life? in another life the difference between happiness in the extreme and misery in the extreme [...? ...?]
Oh but he will be deceived: if the matter be not laid before him no notion on the subject will he entertain in relation to the subject: if it be not laid before him in the manner we prescribe, the notions entertained by him on the subject will be erroneous, and in such sort erroneous as to be noxious: noxious to himself and in an indefinite number to others.
No notions? what on a subject on which in your own eyes or at least according to your own lips the difference between the extreme of happiness and the extreme of misery in every mans case /instance/ depends not only will he himself be indifferent but so will every one else? Is it then to be supposed that in this case no one will rise up to state to him the peril he is in, and with or without pay, offer to shew him how he may deliver himself from it. If by /in the/ night time in a dark street, a house is discovered or thought to be on fire, is there ever on the part of those who have discovered or think they have discovered it any want of the humanity or exertion sufficient to raise a cry of Fire, Fire! or of common sense on the part of those whom it concerns any want of the common sense necessary to their attending to it?
1822 July 7
Constitut. Code Rationale
Established religion none
In vain would it be said - the fire against which we warn now has never been as yet seen by any of them: and therefore it is that it is necessary the warning should be thus given to them. Never seen? why need it have been ever seen by them? The cry of fire /indication of the danger/ in the street, is no such cry ever attended to by any but by those who have already seen it?
All this notwithstanding, notwithstanding the proof thus afforded of your own disbelief of that which you inculcate, you pay to a set of men under the notion of their inculcating it, money in so immense a mass, imposing on the whole community poor as well as rich the correspondent burthen Of all this vast mass of the matter of wealth object of universal desire you yourself yourselves have the /at your/ disposal; they the immediate use you the [...?] received in the patronage. The hope of deriving benefit from such patronage is in vain would you deny it an inducement and that a most powerful one to do your will in all things and give their support to your power. Under these circumstances can any reasonable man look for the cause of the hire you pay in any other circumstance than the profit which in the shape of power and money you yourselves derive from it, in this and not in any belief on your part that that which you so cause to be inculcated is true /has any truth in it/, or that in /as to/ the inculcating it, or in its being imbibed there is any use in it?
1822 July 7
Constitut Code Rationale
Established Religion none
Care men take to cause it to be inculcated.
By Their believing it to be false the matter is not rendered false: agreed. Nor what is much more material, true or false does it render it useless or if it has any so much as diminish the usefulness of it.
In vain would it be said it is not merely because it is true, but because being so true it is so useful in so high a degree useful - this is the cause why we make such /all such/ exertions /such [...?] is [...?] such vast exertions made/ to cause it to be embraced and to that end to be inculcated.
For the purpose of the argument it has been allowed to be true: let it now be moreover allowed to be useful: useful and to the degree contended by you. Why then will you believing /seeing/ it to be true and seeing the usefulness of it thus depending upon its being believed to be true - why will you afford and persevere in affording this assurance on your part, that in your eyes it is not true? Why thus counteract what you declare to be your own persuasion and endeavours?
1822 July 7
Established
If such be the mischief avowed of punishment [...? ...?] where the religion is true and useful [...? ...?] in that is false and mischievous. Happily the supposition is not necessary.
Religion is in their eyes a meritorious imposture.
Another proof given to the world given by yourselves - that either it has no truth no usefulness in your eyes or that with reference to your subjects it is capable of having usefulness, it is no real object of your care or your endeavour or your care that the usefulness the benefit should be reaped. What is the course you take? The alledged service of which as you pretend /would have it thought/ the benefit is so great is any thing effectual done by you to cause it to be performed. The connection between the alledged service and the reward is any care taken by you to keep it up? the obvious course no service no pay - is it in any way applied by you to practice When it is really among your wishes to see the alledged service done effectual care on your part is not wanting /deficient/ witness your arrangements in regard to Soldiers.
1822 July 7
Established
If it be so clearly contrary to the greatest happiness of the greatest number even in the present life, that a system of opinions on the subject of religion, admitting it /it being admitted/ to be true be thus established, as clearly regard to the religion of Jesus in particular as clearly is it true that the affording such establishment to the religion of Jesus is inconsistent with his principles /will/ as evidenced by his own declarations as well as by his own practice. No where is he stated to have directed that to the religion preached /delivered/ by himself any such establishment should be given. No where either in [...?] or in substance no where has he said Give money to those who say they believe in what I have said or Give money to those who teach others to believe what I have said. No where has he said apply punishment to those who will not say they believe what I have said or to those who say they believe that that which I have said is false
Against /Repugnant/ the known will of the then constituted authorities was every thing done and said that was done and said by him
By argument so powerful /irresistible/ as to carry with it the effect of ridicule he opposed the sanctity of the sabbath as taught by the constituted authorities
By the Sidmouths and Castlereaghs of the time were set on him the Olivers and Castles by whom he was at length entrapped
To the corruptive effect of opulence as herein above displayed was no secret in his eyes neither unperceived by him nor unproclaimed. No denunciation more severe than those made by him against those who put their trust in riches. Wallowers in wealth and luxury greater than any to which he could ever have been witness men pretending to be preachers of his doctrine and enjoying their wealth on that false pretence never cease to say - take from our order any of the wealth they enjoy or may enjoy Limit set limits to our opulence /riches/, the religion of Jesus is at an end.