The Online Library of Liberty

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• Principles of Judicial Procedure, With the Outlines of a Procedure Code.
• Note By the Editor.
• Preface.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: General View—ends of Judicature.
• Chapter II.: Ends Apt and Unapt.
• Chapter III.: Procedure—its Relation to the Rest of the Law.
• Chapter IV.: Judiciary Establishment.
• Chapter V.: Procedure—its Subject-matters.
• Chapter VI.: All-comprehensive Arrangements.
• Chapter VII.: Practical General Rules.
• Chapter VIII.: Judicial Application.
• Chapter IX.: Proxies.
• Chapter X.: Judicial Communication.
• Chapter XI.: Evidence.
• Chapter XII.: Initiatory Hearing.
• Chapter XIII.: Defence, How Elicited.
• Chapter XIV.: Suits, Their Sorts.
• Chapter XV.: Suits, Continuance Of.
• Chapter XVI.: Suits—termination.
• Chapter XVII.: Suits, Their Stages.
• Chapter XVIII.: Means of Execution.
• Chapter XIX.: Counter-security.
• Chapter XX.: Remedies,—compensation.
• Chapter XXI.: Judicial Transfer.
• Chapter XXII.: Prehension.
• Chapter XXIII.: Jury-trial.
• Chapter XXIV.: Special Juries.
• Chapter XXV.: Grand Juries.
• Chapter XXVI.: Quasi-jury.
• Chapter XXVII.: Recapitulatory Examination, Or Quasi-trial.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Appeal and Quasi-appeal.
• Chapter XXIX.: Natural and Technical Systems Compared.
• Appendix A.: Initial Sketch of the Procedure Code.
• Appendix B.: Account-taking Judicatories.
• Appendix C.: British India—jury System.
• From the Right Honourable Sir Alexander Johnston, to the Right Honourable Charles W. Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Controul.
• The Rationale of Reward.
• Advertisement By the Editor.
• Remarks By Mr. Bentham.
• Preliminary Observations.
• Book I.—: Of Rewards In General.
• Chapter I.: Definitions.
• Chapter II.: Matter of Reward—sources.
• Chapter III.: Of Reward and Punishment Combined.
• Chapter IV.: Of the Union of Interest With Duty, and of Self-executing Laws.
• Chapter V.: Matter of Reward—reasons For Husbanding.
• Chapter VI.: Remuneration Ex Post Facto.
• Chapter VII.: Punition and Remuneration—their Relations.
• Chapter VIII.: Remuneration—where Hurtful.
• Chapter IX.: Remuneration—where Needless.
• Chapter X.: Proportion As to Rewards.
• Chapter XI.: Choice As to Rewards.
• Chapter XII.: Procedure As to Rewards.
• Chapter XIII.: Rewards to Informers.
• Chapter XIV.: Rewards to Accomplices.
• Chapter XV.: Competition As to Rewards.
• Chapter XVI.: Rewards For Virtue.
• Chapter XVII.: Accompaniments to Remuneration.
• Book II.—: Rewards Applied to Offices.
• Chapter I.: Salary—how a Reward.
• Chapter II.: Rules As to Emoluments.
• Chapter III.: Fees and Perquisites—none.
• Chapter IV.: Minimize Emolument.
• Chapter V.: No More Nominal Than Real.
• Chapter VI.: Couple Burthen With Benefit.
• Chapter VII.: By Emoluments Exclude Corruption.
• Chapter VIII.: Give Pensions of Retreat.
• Chapter IX.: Of the Sale of Offices.
• Chapter X.: Of Qualifications.
• Chapter XI.: Of Trust and Contract Management.
• Chapter XII.: Of Reforms.
• Book III.—: Reward Applied to Art and Science.
• Chapter I.: Art and Science—divisions.
• Chapter II.: Art and Science—advancement.
• Chapter III.: Art and Science—diffusion.
• Appendix.
• Leading Principles of a Constitutional Code, For Any State.
• Section I.: Ends Aimed At.
• Section II.: Principal Means Employed For the Attainment of the Above Ends.
• Liberty of the Press, and Public Discussion.
• Advertisement.
• Jeremy Bentham to the Spanish People.
• Letter I.: On the Liberty of the Press—the Approaching Eight Months’ Sleep of the Cortes—and the Exclusion of Experience From the Succeeding Cortes.
• Letter II.: On the Liberty of Public Discussion In Free Meetings.
• Letter III.: On the Liberty of Public Discussion In Free Meetings—continuation From Letter II.
• Letter IV.: On the Liberty of Public Discussion In Free Meetings—continuation of the Subject From Letter III.
• An Essay On Political Tactics, Or Inquiries Concerning the Discipline and Mode of Proceeding Proper to Be Observed In Political Assemblies: Principally Applied to the Practice of the British Parliament, and to the Constitution and Situation of the Nati
• Chapter I.: General Considerations.
• Chapter II.: Of Publicity.
• Chapter III.: Of the Place of Meeting and Its Dependencies.
• Chapter IV.: Of What Concerns the Members Present At a Legislative Assembly.
• Chapter V.: Of the Presidents and Vice-presidents Belonging to Political Assemblies.
• Chapter VI. *: of the Mode of Proceeding In a Political Assembly In the Formation of Its Decisions.
• Chapter VII.: Of the Proposal of Measures For Adoption.
• Chapter VIII.: Of the Different Acts Which Enter Into the Formation of a Decree.
• Chapter IX.: Of the Promulgation of Motions—of Bills—of Amendments, and Their Withdrawment.
• Chapter X.: Of the Drawing Up of Laws.
• Chapter XI.: Of Debates.
• Chapter XII.: Of Amendments.
• Chapter XIII.: Of Dilatory Motions, Or Motions of Adjournment.
• Chapter XIV.: Of Voting.
• Chapter XV.: Of Committees.
• Chapter XVI.: Of Formulas.
• The Book of Fallacies: From Unfinished Papers of Jeremy Bentham. Edited By a Friend.
• Preface By the Editor of the Original Edition.
• The Book of Fallacies.: Introduction.
• Section I.: A Fallacy, What.
• Section II.: Fallacies, By Whom Treated of Heretofore.
• Section III.: Relation of Fallacies to Vulgar Errors.
• Section IV.: Political Fallacies the Subject of This Work.
• Section V.: Division Or Classification of Fallacies
• Section VI.: Nomenclature of Political Fallacies.
• Section VII.: Contrast Between the Present Work and Hamilton’s “parliamentary Logic.”
• Part I.: Fallacies of Authority, the Subject of Which Is Authority In Various Shapes, and the Object to Repress All Exercise of the Reasoning Faculty.
• Chapter I.
• Chapter II.: The Wisdom of Our Ancestors; Or Chinese Argument—( Ad Verecundiam. )
• Chapter III.: Fallacy of Irrevocable Laws.
• Chapter IV.: No-precedent Argument—( Ad Verecundiam. )
• Chapter V.
• Chapter VI.: Laudatory Personalities— (ad Amicitiam.)
• Part II.: Fallacies of Danger, the Subject-matter of Which Is Danger In Various Shapes, and the Object to Repress Discussion Altogether, By Exciting Alarm.
• Chapter I.: Vituperative Personalities— (ad Odium.)
• Chapter II.
• Chapter III.: Fallacy of Distrust, Or, What’s At the Bottom?—( Ad Metum. )
• Chapter IV.: Official Malefactor’s Screen—( Ad Metum. )
• Chapter V.: Accusation-scarer’s Device—( Ad Metum. )
• Part III.: Fallacies of Delay, the Subject-matter of Which Is Delay In Various Shapes—and the Object, to Postpone Discussion, With a View of Eluding It.
• Chapter I.: The Quietist, Or “no Complaint”—( Ad Quietem )
• Chapter II.: Fallacy of False Consolation— (ad Quietem.)
• Chapter III.: Procrastinator’s Argument ( Ad Socordiam. )
• Chapter IV.: Snail’s-pace Argument.—( Ad Socordiam. )
• Chapter V.: Fallacy of Artful Diversion—( Ad Verecundiam. )
• Part IV.: Fallacies of Confusion, the Object of Which Is, to Perplex, When Discussion Can No Longer Be Avoided.
• Chapter I.: Question-begging Appellatives—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter II.: Impostor Terms—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter III.: Vague Generalities—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter IV.: Allegorical Idols—( Ad Imaginationem. )
• Chapter V.: Sweeping Classifications—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter VI.: Sham Distinctions—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter VII.: Popular Corruption—( Ad Superbiam. )
• Chapter VIII.: Observations On the Seven Preceding Fallacies.
• Chapter IX.: Anti-rational Fallacies—( Ad Verecundiam. )
• Chapter X.: Paradoxical Assertion—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter XI. :non-causa Pro Causa: Or, Cause and Obstacle Confounded—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter XII.: Partiality-preacher’s Argument—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter XIII.: The End Justifies the Means—( Ad Judicium. )
• Chapter XIV.: Opposer-general’s Justification:—not Measures But Men; Or, Not Men But Measures—( Ad Invidiam. )
• Chapter XV.: Rejection Instead of Amendment—( Ad Judicium. )
• Part V
• Chapter I.: Characters Common to All These Fallacies.
• Chapter II.: Of the Mischief Producible By Fallacies.
• Chapter III.: Causes of the Utterance of These Fallacies.
• Chapter IV.: Second Cause—interest Begotten-prejudice.
• Chapter V.: Third Cause—authority-begotten Prejudice.
• Chapter VI.: Fourth Cause—self-defence Against Counter-fallacies.
• Chapter VII.: Use of These Fallacies to the Utterers and Acceptors of Them.
• Chapter VIII.: Particular Demand For Fallacies Under the English Constitution.
• Chapter IX.: The Demand For Political Fallacies:—how Created By the State of Interests.
• Chapter X.: Different Parts Which May Be Borne In Relation to Fallacies.
• Chapter XI.: Uses of the Preceding Exposure.
• Anarchical Fallacies; Being an Examination of the Declarations of Rights Issued During the French Revolution.
• Advertisement.
• An Examination of the Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen Decreed By the Constituent Assembly In France.
• Preamble.
• A Critical Examination of the Declaration of Rights.
• Declaration of the Rights and Duties of the Man and the Citizen, Anno 1795.
• Observations On Parts of the Declaration of Rights, As Proposed By Citizen Sieyes.
• Principles of International Law.
• Essay I.: Objects of International Law.
• Essay II.: Of Subjects, Or of the Personal Extent of the Dominion of the Laws.
• Essay III.: Of War, Considered In Respect of Its Causes and Consequences.
• Essay IV.: A Plan For an Universal and Perpetual Peace.
• Appendix. * —junctiana Proposal.
• A Protest Against Law-taxes, Showing the Peculiar Mischievousness of All Such Impositions As Add to the Expense of Appeal to Justice.
• Supply Without Burden; Or Escheat Vice Taxation: Being a Proposal For a Saving of Taxes By an Extension of the Law of Escheat, Including Strictures On the Taxes On Collateral Succession Comprised In the Budget of 7 Th December 1795.
• Preface.
• Section I.: General Idea.
• Section II.: Order of the Details.
• Section III.: Advantages.
• Section IV.: Originality.
• Section V.: Produce.
• Section VI.: Application.
• Section VII.: Heads of Objection, With Answers. †
• Section VIII.: Existing Law.
• Section IX.: Ancient Law.
• Section X.: Blackstone.
• Tax With Monopoly; Or Hints of Certain Cases In Which, In Alleviation of the Burden of Taxation, Exclusive Privileges May Be Given As Against Future Competitors, Without Producing Any of the Ill Effects, Which In Most Cases Are Inseparable From Everyth
• I.: Stock-brokers.
• II.: Bankers.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS BELONGING TO POLITICAL ASSEMBLIES.

§ 1.

Of the office of President.*

RULES.

Rule 1. In every political assembly, there ought at all times to be some one person to preside.

Rule 2. In a permanent assembly, that function is best provided for by a permanent president in chief, with substitutes of equal permanency, in such number, that in case of absence or disability, the place of the chief may at the instant be supplied.

The president ought to be permanent, not only that the embarrassment arising from multiplied elections may be avoided, but especially for the good of his office. If permanent, he will possess more experience, he will know the assembly better, he will be more conversant with business, and will feel more interested in managing it well, than an occasional president. The occasional president, whether he execute his office well or ill, must lose it. The permanent president, who will only lose his office if he discharge it ill, has an additional motive for performing all his duties well.

Rule 3. In the character of president, no more than one person ought to officiate at a time.

If there are two, whenever there arises any difference of opinion between them, there will be no decision. If there are more than two, they will form a little assembly, which will have its debates, which will uselessly prolong the business in hand.

Rule 4. But two persons at least, capable of officiating, ought to be present at once.

This rule is necessary, in order to prevent the assembly from being reduced to a state of inaction from the sickness, death, or absence of its president. The omission of so simple and important a precaution, announces so great a want of foresight, that it could hardly be thought that men would be guilty of it, if a striking example were not exhibited by one of the greatest and most ancient of political assemblies.

§ 2.

Functions, competent and incompetent.

Rule 5. The functions that belong properly to a president, belong to him in one or other of two capacities: that of a judge, as between individual members; or that of agent of the whole assembly:—as judge, when there is a dispute for him to decide upon; as agent, where there is anything for him to do without dispute.*

Rule 6. As judge, a president ought in every instance, to be subordinate, in the way of appeal to the assembly itself, sitting under another presidence.

Rule 7. As agent, he ought in every instance to be subject to the controul of the assembly, and that instanter, as to everything transacted in the face of the assembly.

Rule 8. In neither capacity ought he to possess any power, the effect of which would be to give him a controul in any degree over the will of the assembly.

Rule 9. In a numerous assembly,† and in particular in a numerous legislative assembly, a president ought not to be a member; that is, he ought not to possess a right either to make motions, to take part in a debate, or to give a vote.

This exclusion is as much for his advantage as for that of the body over which he presides:—

1. It leaves him entirely at liberty to attend to his duties, and the cultivation of the particular talents which they require. If he be called to sustain the character and reputation of a member of the assembly, he will be often distracted from his principal occupation, and he will have a different kind of ambition from that which belongs to his office, without reckoning the danger of not succeeding, of offending, and of weakening his personal consideration by ill-sustained pretensions.

2. This exclusion is founded upon reasons of an elevated nature; it is designed to guarantee him from the seductions of partiality, and to raise him even above suspicion, by never exhibiting him as a partisan in the midst of the debates in which he is required to interfere as a judge—to leave him in possession of that consideration and confidence which alone can secure to his decisions the respect of all parties.

But it may be said, that the president, no more than any one else, can remain neuter with regard to questions which interest the whole nation—obliged especially as he is to be continually occupied with them, even as matter of duty; that it would therefore be better that he should be obliged to declare himself, and make known his real sentiments, and thus put the assembly upon its guard, rather than that he should enjoy, under a false appearance of impartiality, a confidence which he does not merit.

To this objection there is more than one answer: First, It cannot be denied, that so long as his internal sentiments have no undue influence upon his external conduct, they are of no consequence to the assembly, but that he cannot declare them without becoming less agreeable to one party—without exposing himself to a suspicion of partiality, which always more or less alters the degree of confidence.

Secondly, If you permit him to remain impartial, he will be so more easily than any one else. He will regard the debates under altogether a different point of view from that of the debaters themselves. His attention, principally directed to the maintenance of form and order, will be withdrawn from the principal subject. The ideas which occupy his mind during a debate, may differ from those which occupy the actors in it, as much as the thoughts of a botanist who looks at a field may differ from those of its owner.

Habit facilitates these sorts of abstraction. If it were not so, how could judges, full of humanity, fix their attention with a perfect impartiality upon a point of law, whilst a trembling family stood waiting beneath their eyes the issue of their judgment.

It follows from what has been said, that in a numerous political assembly, in which it is to be expected that passion and animosity may arise, that he who is called upon to moderate them, ought not to be obliged to enrol himself under the banners of a party, to make himself friends and enemies, to pass from the character of a combatant to that of an arbitrator, and to compromise by these opposite functions the respect due to his public character.

There have been assemblies which have only given a vote to the president when the votes have been found equal. This mode is more opposed to impartiality than that of allowing him to vote in all cases, and there is no reason which can be assigned in its favour. The most simple and natural plan to adopt in case of equality, is to consider that the proposition which has not had the majority of votes is rejected. In matters of election, it would be better to resort to lot, than to give the preponderant voice to the president. The lot offends nobody.

§ 3.

Sequel. Choice.

Rule 10. In a legislative assembly, or any other free and numerous political assembly, a president ought in every case to be chosen freely and exclusively by the assembly over which he is to preside.

Rule 11. In the choice of a president, the votes ought to be taken in the secret way, and the majority ought to be an absolute one.*

Rule 12. A president ought ever to remain removable by the assembly at its free pleasure, but not by any other authority.

Rule 13. In a permanent assembly, on the occasion of choosing a permanent president, if there be no other president in office, it may be better to accept a president pro re natâ from without doors, upon the ground of any claim, however slight, if single, than to stand in that instance upon its liberty of choice.†

Rule 14. So for all kinds of business in an assembly, which, however free, is but occasional.‡

§ 4.

General Observations.

A very simple observation will furnish a clue to all the reasons that can be produced or required in support of the propositions above laid down. Throughout the whole business, the grand problem is to obtain, in its most genuine purity, the real and enlightened will of the assembly. The solution of this problem is the end that ought everywhere to be had in view. To this end, everything that concerns the president ought of course to be subservient. It is for the sake of the assembly, and for their use alone, that the institution of this office is either necessary or proper. The duty and art of the president of a political assembly, is the duty and art of the accoucheur: ars obstetrix animorum, to use an expression of the first Encyclopedist and his not unworthy successors;—to assist nature, and not to force her—to soothe, upon occasion, the pangs of parturition—to produce, in the shortest time, the genuine offspring; but never to stifle it, much less to substitute a changeling in its room. It is only in as far as it may be conformable to the will of the assembly, that the will of this officer can, as such, have any claim to regard. If, in any instance, a person dignified with any such title as that of president of such or such an assembly, possess any independent influence, such influence, proper or improper, belongs to him, not in his quality of president, but in some foreign character. Any influence whatever that he possesses over the acts of the assembly, otherwise than subject to the immediate controul of the assembly, is just so much power taken from the assembly and thrown into the lap of this single individual.

It follows, that nothing ought to be permitted by the assembly to be done by a president, that the assembly itself could do in the same space of time.

In the case of an assembly and its president, we see judicial power in the simplest form in which it can exist, and in the simplest set of circumstances in which it can be placed. The judge single: the parties acting all the while under his eye. Complaint, judgment, execution, treading with instantaneous rapidity on the heels of contravention. Happy the suitor, if, in the other cases of procedure, instead of complication and delay, this simplicity of situation and celerity of dispatch had been taken for the standard of comparison and model of imitation, by the founders and expositors of law.

The regulations which have been proposed above appear so simple and so suitable, that it is natural to suppose that they would have presented themselves to all political assemblies.

But if we proceed to consider what has been practised among different nations, we shall find that almost all these rules have been forgotten. The English system, which most nearly approaches to them, differs in an essential point. It allows the president to deliberate and vote. All establishments have commenced in the times of ignorance: the first institutions could only be attempts more or less defective; but when experience renders their inconveniences sensible, the spirit of routine opposes itself to reform, and also prevents our perceiving the true sources of the evil.

[* ]The word President, I employ in preference to any other term which the English or any other European language offers as capable of being made to express the function I have in view.

To an Englishman, whose view was confined to his own island, and to the chief governing bodies in that island, Speaker is the word which would naturally first present itself. But the term Speaker exhibits the office of president no otherwise than as an appendage to a very different, and now frivolous function, of which hereafter, and of which latter only an intimation is given by this name;—and in relation to the business of debate, it has an incorrigible tendency to produce confusion: it confounds the president with any member whom there is occasion to mention as speaking. In the instance in which it is most used, viz. to denote the president in ordinary of the House of Commons, it involves a contradiction; the original propriety of the appellation having in this instance slipped away, and left absurdity in its place. In that House the Speaker, while he officiates as such, is the only person present who neither makes those speeches which all the other members make, nor has any right to do so. In this point of view, it lends countenance to a principle of etymology, generally cited as a whimsical one: Speaker, from not speaking; ut lucus a non lucendo.

Orator (orateur) is the word by which the English word speaker has been usually rendered in the general language of Europe. It is by the same word that the presidency of the three inferior orders of the Swedish diet is rendered in the same language. To the innocent improprieties chargeable on the word speaker, this adds a dangerous one. Oration means supplication;—supplication implies pliancy as towards the person to be addressed: the pliancy of the Swedish presidents as towards the person they had to address, has justa consummated the ruin of everything that ought to be dear to Sweden.

The word Chairman is free from the inconvenience attached to the use of the words speaker and orator; but it draws the attention to an idea too confined; as if it were necessary to the function that the person who performs it should sit in a chair, and that nobody else should. At times it may even bring up an improper and ignoble idea: several committees being about to sit, a voice is heard in the purlieus of the House of Commons, Gentlemen, your chairmen wait for you. Does chairmen here mean presidents or porters?

Marshal is the appellation by which the president is designated in the Polish diet; in one of the four orders which compose the Swedish body of that name; and in the provincial assemblies of the noblesse, instituted within these few years, throughout the Russian empire. This term, besides being unexpressive, is liable to objections of a much more serious nature. In the original German, it signified neither more nor less than what we call a hostler or groom—a servant having horses under his care. A horse being an animal of great importance to a barbarian king, to have the care of the king’s horses was to be a great man. When not to be military was to be nobody, to be a man in the service of the king was to have a military command. Thus, by degrees, a command over horses has involved, as a matter of inferior consequence, a command over their riders; till at length the title of marshal, superior even to that of general, is come to denote, in most countries of Europe, the chief military command. But to command militarily, is to command despotically. Accordingly, in the Swedish diet, the nobles, sitting under the command of their marshal named by the king, are to speak or to hold their tongues, as a soldier is to turn to the right or to the left as the commander gives the word. Thus, as will be seen below, ordained Gustavus Adolphus a military king.

Hence, of all the words which ever were, or ever could be devised, to denote the president of an assembly, which is not meant for an army or a puppet-show, the word marshal is that which ought most studiously to be proscribed. France, therefore, in giving to the presidents of her national assemblies this simple and expressive name, instead of the swelling and so much coveted title of marshal, has had a fortunate escape.

The length of this note may demand justification, but needs no apology. While minds are led by sounds, and modes of thinking depend on association, names of office will never be of light importance. A king of Poland or Sweden looks upon himself as an injured being, so long as his will meets with any resistance that would not have been made to a king of Prussia or Denmark: and because a president is termed marshal, Sweden is destroyed.

[* ]For instance, putting the question; declaring the decision from the number of the votes; giving orders to subordinates; giving thanks or reprimands to individuals; or, in short, using, in the name of the assembly, any other discourse of any kind which is not deemed of sufficient importance to be penned by the assembly itself.

[† ]An assembly may in this point of view be deemed too numerous, when it is too numerous for the opinion of each member to be recorded distinctly in his own terms. This takes out of the rule such assemblies, for instance, as the boards of administration, and the principal courts of justice in Great Britain, and the boards established in the dominions of the English East-India Company.

[* ]In contradistinction to a comparative one: i. e. if there be a number of candidates, the having more votes than any other candidate ought not to determine the election, unless he who possesses such comparative majority have a majority of the whole number of the votes.

[† ]For instance, where a king or other chief magistrate in any state institutes a new assembly, or convokes one not already provided with one by ancient designation, it might be of use that he should name a president for this purpose only.

[‡ ]Thus, in an English county meeting, it may be better to accept of the presidency of the sheriff, though an officer of the king’s appointment, than to consume the time in debating who shall fill the chair.

[* ]The word President, I employ in preference to any other term which the English or any other European language offers as capable of being made to express the function I have in view.

To an Englishman, whose view was confined to his own island, and to the chief governing bodies in that island, Speaker is the word which would naturally first present itself. But the term Speaker exhibits the office of president no otherwise than as an appendage to a very different, and now frivolous function, of which hereafter, and of which latter only an intimation is given by this name;—and in relation to the business of debate, it has an incorrigible tendency to produce confusion: it confounds the president with any member whom there is occasion to mention as speaking. In the instance in which it is most used, viz. to denote the president in ordinary of the House of Commons, it involves a contradiction; the original propriety of the appellation having in this instance slipped away, and left absurdity in its place. In that House the Speaker, while he officiates as such, is the only person present who neither makes those speeches which all the other members make, nor has any right to do so. In this point of view, it lends countenance to a principle of etymology, generally cited as a whimsical one: Speaker, from not speaking; ut lucus a non lucendo.

Orator (orateur) is the word by which the English word speaker has been usually rendered in the general language of Europe. It is by the same word that the presidency of the three inferior orders of the Swedish diet is rendered in the same language. To the innocent improprieties chargeable on the word speaker, this adds a dangerous one. Oration means supplication;—supplication implies pliancy as towards the person to be addressed: the pliancy of the Swedish presidents as towards the person they had to address, has justa consummated the ruin of everything that ought to be dear to Sweden.

The word Chairman is free from the inconvenience attached to the use of the words speaker and orator; but it draws the attention to an idea too confined; as if it were necessary to the function that the person who performs it should sit in a chair, and that nobody else should. At times it may even bring up an improper and ignoble idea: several committees being about to sit, a voice is heard in the purlieus of the House of Commons, Gentlemen, your chairmen wait for you. Does chairmen here mean presidents or porters?

Marshal is the appellation by which the president is designated in the Polish diet; in one of the four orders which compose the Swedish body of that name; and in the provincial assemblies of the noblesse, instituted within these few years, throughout the Russian empire. This term, besides being unexpressive, is liable to objections of a much more serious nature. In the original German, it signified neither more nor less than what we call a hostler or groom—a servant having horses under his care. A horse being an animal of great importance to a barbarian king, to have the care of the king’s horses was to be a great man. When not to be military was to be nobody, to be a man in the service of the king was to have a military command. Thus, by degrees, a command over horses has involved, as a matter of inferior consequence, a command over their riders; till at length the title of marshal, superior even to that of general, is come to denote, in most countries of Europe, the chief military command. But to command militarily, is to command despotically. Accordingly, in the Swedish diet, the nobles, sitting under the command of their marshal named by the king, are to speak or to hold their tongues, as a soldier is to turn to the right or to the left as the commander gives the word. Thus, as will be seen below, ordained Gustavus Adolphus a military king.

Hence, of all the words which ever were, or ever could be devised, to denote the president of an assembly, which is not meant for an army or a puppet-show, the word marshal is that which ought most studiously to be proscribed. France, therefore, in giving to the presidents of her national assemblies this simple and expressive name, instead of the swelling and so much coveted title of marshal, has had a fortunate escape.

The length of this note may demand justification, but needs no apology. While minds are led by sounds, and modes of thinking depend on association, names of office will never be of light importance. A king of Poland or Sweden looks upon himself as an injured being, so long as his will meets with any resistance that would not have been made to a king of Prussia or Denmark: and because a president is termed marshal, Sweden is destroyed.

[a]Published 1791.