The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Errata—vol. III.
• Defence of Usury; Showing the Impolicy of the Present Legal Restraints On the Terms of Pecuniary Bargains; In Letters to a Friend.
• Letter I.: Introduction.
• Letter II.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Usury.
• Letter III.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Prodigality.
• Letter IV.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Indigence.
• Letter V.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Simplicity.
• Letter VI.: Mischiefs of the Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VII.: Efficacy of Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VIII.: Virtual Usury Allowed.
• Letter IX.: Blackstone Considered.
• Letter X.: Grounds of the Prejudices Against Usury.
• Letter XI.: Compound Interest.
• Letter XII.: Maintenance and Champerty.
• Letter XIII.: To Dr. Smith, On Projects In Arts, &c.
• A Manual of Political Economy: Now First Edited From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: Introduction. *
• Chapter II.: Analytical Survey of the Field of Political Economy.
• Chapter III.: Of Wealth.
• Chapter IV.: Of Population.
• Chapter V.: Of Finance.
• Chapter VI.: Operation of a Sinking Fund On the Production of Wealth.
• Chapter VII.: Noscenda.
• Observations On the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System; Especially With a Reference to the Decree of the Spanish Cortes of July 1820.
• Preface.: Observations, &c.
• Section I.: Nature of the Prohibitory System.
• Section II.: Mischiefs of the Prohibitory System.
• Section III.: Causes of the Prohibitory System.
• A Plan For Saving All Trouble and Expense In the Transfer of Stock, and For Enabling the Proprietors to Receive Their Dividends Without Powers of Attorney, Or Attendance At the Bank of England, By the Conversion of Stock Into Note Annuities.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Plan For the Creation, Emission, Payment, and Eventual Extension, of a Proposed New Species of Government Paper, Under the Name of Annuity Notes.
• Chapter II.: Form of an Annuity Note. (see Table II.)
• Chapter III.: Comparison of the Proposed, With the Existing Government Securities, &c.
• Chapter IV.: Grounds of Expectation, In Regard to the Proposed Measure.
• Chapter V.: Financial Advantages.
• Chapter VI.: Advantage By Addition to National Capital.
• Chapter VII.: Advantage By Addition to Commercial Security.
• Chapter VIII.: Particular Interests Concerned.
• Chapter IX.: Rise of Prices—how to Obviate.
• Chapter X.: Reduction of Interest—proposed Mode Compared With Mr. Pelham’s.
• Chapter XI.: Moral Advantages.
• Chapter XII.: Constitutional Advantages.
• Chapter XIII.: Recapitulation and Conclusion.
• Appendix A.: Government Ought to Have the Monopoly of Paper Money, As Well As of Metallic Money.
• Appendix B.: Paper Money—causes Why Not Circulated By Government Without Interest, As Well As By Individuals.
• General View of a Complete Code of Laws.
• Chapter I.: General Division.
• Chapter II.: Relations Between the Laws Concerning Offences, Rights, Obligations, and Services.
• Chapter III.: Relation Between the Penal and Civil Code.
• Chapter IV.: Of Method.
• Chapter V.: Plan of the Penal Code.
• Chapter VI.: Of the Division of Offences.
• Chapter VIII. Titles of the Penal Code.
• Chapter IX.: First General Title of the Civil Code, * of Things.
• Chapter X.: Second General Title of the Civil Code. of Places.
• Chapter XI.: Third General Title of the Civil Code. of Times.
• Chapter XII.: Fourth General Title of the Civil Code. of Services.
• Chapter XIII.: Fifth General Title of the Civil Code. of Obligations.
• Chapter XIV.: Sixth General Title of the Civil Code. of Rights.
• Chapter XV.: Seventh General Title of the Civil Code. of Collative and Ablative Events.
• Chapter XVI.: Eighth General Title of the Civil Code. of Contracts.
• Chapter XVII.: Ninth General Title of the Civil Code. of the Domestic and Civil States.
• Chapter XVIII.: Tenth General Title of the Civil Code. of Persons Capable of Acquiring and of Contracting.
• Chapter XIX.: Of the Particular Titles of the Civil Code.
• Chapter XX.: Of Elementary Political Powers.
• Chapter XXI.: Of Elementary Political Powers— Subject Continued.
• Chapter XXII.: Plan of the Political Code.
• Chapter XXIII.: Plan of the International Code.
• Chapter XXIV.: Plan of the Maritime Code.
• Chapter XXV.: Plan of the Military Code.
• Chapter XXVI.: Plan of the Ecclesiastical Code.
• Chapter XXVII.: Plan of Remuneratory Laws.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Of Political Economy.
• Chapter XXIX.: Plan of the Financial Code.
• Chapter XXX.: Plan of Procedure Code.
• Chapter XXXI.: Of the Integrality of the Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXII.: Of Purity In the Composition of a Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Of the Style of the Laws.
• Chapter XXXIV.: Of the Interpretation, Conservation, and Improvement of a Code.
• Pannomial Fragments.
• Chapter I.: General Observations.
• Chapter II.: Consideranda.
• Chapter III.: Expositions.
• Chapter IV.: Axioms.
• Nomography; Or the Art of Inditing Laws: Now First Published From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: The Subject Stated.
• Chapter II.: Relations.
• Chapter III.: Proper End In View.
• Chapter IV.: Imperfections Primary.
• Chapter V.: Explanations Relative to the Imperfections of the Second Order.
• Chapter VI.: Of Remedies. *
• Chapter VII.: Of Language.
• Chapter VIII.: Of the Perfections of Which the Legislative Style Is Susceptible.
• Chapter IX.: Of Forms of Enactment.
• Appendix. Logical Arrangements, Or Instruments of Invention and Discovery
• Equity Dispatch Court Proposal; Containing a Plan For the Speedy and Unexpensive Termination of the Suits Now Depending In Equity Courts. With the Form of a Petition, and Some Account of a Proposed Bill For That Purpose
• Section I.: Purpose Explained. Jeremy Bentham to the Honest and Afflicted Among Equity Suitors.
• Section II.: Equity Suitors’ Petition For Dispatch Court. to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, —
• Section III.: Dispatch Court Bill—some Account of It.
• Section IV.: Information Requisite From Petitioning Suitors.
• Equity Dispatch Court Bill: Being a Bill For the Institution of an Experimental Judicatory Under the Name of the Court of Dispatch, For Exemplifying In Practice the Manner In Which the Proposed Summary May Be Substituted to the So Called Regular Sy
• Editor’s Note.
• Preface.
• Preamble.
• Part I.—: Judiciary.
• Section I.: Judge Located, How.
• Section II.: Remuneration.
• Section III.: Registrar, &c.
• Section IV.: Eleemosynary Advocate.
• Section V.: Judges’, &c. Deputes.
• Section VI.: Judge’s Powers—exemptions—checks.
• Section VII.: Prehensors and Messengers.
• Section VIII.: Consignees; * Or Say, In-trust-holders.
• Section IX.: Grounds of Decision For the Dispatch Court Judge.
• Section X. ‡: Suits’ Comparative Suitableness; and Order of Cognizance.
• Section XI.: Auxiliary Judges and Accountants.
• Section XII.: Sittings, Times Of.
• Part II.—: Procedure.
• Section XIII.: Definitions. *
• Section XIV.: Examination of Solicitors.
• Section XV.: Initiatory Examination of Parties, &c.
• Section XVI.: Appropriate Intercourse, Constant and Universal, Secured.
• Section XVII.: Mutual Security For Forthcomingness of Persons and Things. ‡
• Section XVIII.: Evidence-procuring Money, How Provided.
• Section XIX.: Subsequential Evidence, How Elicited.
• Section XX.: Execution, How Performed.
• Section XXI.: Equity Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXII.: Dispatch Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXIII.: Eventual Retrotransference of a Suit to the Equity Court.
• Section XXIV.: Expense of the Court, How Provided For.
• Supplemental Sections:—
• Section I. Or XXV.: Bankruptcy and Insolvency.
• Section II. Or XXVI.: Henceforward Dispatch Court.
• Schedules to the Bill.
• Plan of Parliamentary Reform, In the Form of a Catechism, With Reasons For Each Article: With an Introduction, Showing the Necessity of Radical, and the Inadequacy of Moderate, Reform.
• Introduction.
• Section I.: History of the Ensuing Tract—alarming State of the Country and the Constitution.
• Section II.: Most Prominent Present Grievance, Gareisoning France.
• Section III.: Causes of the Above and All Other Mischiefs:—particular Interests Monarchical and Aristocratical, Adverse to the Universal—their Ascendency.
• Section IV.: Sole Remedy In Principle—democratic Ascendency.
• Section V.: Remedy In Detail: Radical Parliamentary Reform: Elementary Arrangements In This Edition of It—their Necessity.
• Section VI.: Differences Between This and the Original Editions of Radical Reform.
• Section VII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage Further Considered.
• Section VIII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage—its Undangerousness.
• Section IX.: Freedom of Suffrage Further Explained—seductive Influence—its Forms, Instruments, &c.
• Section X.: Bribery and Terrorism Compared.
• Section XI.: Purchase of Seats—in What Cases Mischievous—in What Beneficial.
• Section XII.: Secresy of Suffrage—its Importance Further Developed.
• Section XIII.: Exclusion of Placemen, &c. From the Right of Voting—mischievousness and Profligacy of the Opposite Arrangement.
• Section XIV.: Universal Constancy of Attendance—its Importance.
• Section XV.: Representatives—impermanence of Their Situation—its Importance:—objections—their Groundlessness.
• Section XVI.: Moderate Reform—its Arrangements—their Inadequacy.
• Section XVII.: Trienniality Inadequate;—annuality Necessary.
• Section XVIII.: Interests Adverse to Adequate Reform—support Given By Them to Moderate, to the Exclusion of Radical: Tories—whigs—people’s Men.
• Catechism of Parliamentary Reform; Or, Outline of a Plan of Parliamentary Reform; In the Form of Question and Answer; With Reasons to Each Article.
• Section I.: Ends to Be Aimed At On the Occasion of Parliamentary Reform.
• Section II.: Means, Conducive Towards These Ends.
• Section III.: Means—their Uses, With Reference to Their Respective Ends.
• Section IV.: Means Conducive to Aptitude In Members: I. Placemen Not to Vote, Nor to Be Seated By Election.
• Section V.: Means, &c. Continued.—ii. Placemen Seated By the King, With Speech and Motion, Without Vote.
• Section VI.: Means, &c. Continued.—iii. Elections Frequent—annual.
• Section VII.: Means, &c. Continued.—iv. Speeches Authentically and Promptly Published.
• Section VIII.: Means, &c. Continued.—v. Attendance, Punctual and General, Secured.
• Section IX.: Inconveniences Incident to Elections, and Election Judicature.
• Section X.: Election Inconveniences—means For Their Removal.
• Section XI.: Collateral Advantages, Referable to the Situations of Electors, Placemen, Lords, &c.
• A Sketch of the Various Proposals For a Constitutional Reform In the Representation of the People, Introduced Into the Parliament of Great Britain, From 1770 to 1812.
• Radical Reform Bill, With Extracts From the Reasons.
• Preliminary Explanations.
• Title of the Proposed Act.
• Preamble.
• Section 1.—: Seats and Districts.
• Section 2.—: Electors, Who.
• Section 3.—: Eligible, Who.
• Section 4.—: Election Offices.
• Section 5.: Election Apparatus.
• Section 6.—: Promulgation of Recommendations In Favour of Proposed Members.
• Section 7.—: Voters’ Titles Pre-established.
• Section 8.—: Election, How.
• Section 9.: Election Districts and Polling Districts, How Marked Out.
• Section 10.—: Vote-making Habitations, How Defined.
• Section 11.—: Members’ Continuance.
• Section 12.—: Vacancies Supplied.
• Section 13.—: Security For the House Against Disturbance By Members. †
• Section 14.—: Indisposition of Speakers Obviated.
• Appendix, Including General Explanations.
• Radicalism Not Dangerous. Extracted From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham. *
• Part I.—: Introduction.
• Section I.: Radical Reform Bill Recapitulated.
• Section II.: Persuasion of the Dangerousness of Radicalism—cause of It, and of the Vituperative Expression Given to It.
• Section III.: Terms of the Accusation,—speeches From the Throne, 16 Th July and 21 St November 1819.
• Section IV.: The Accusation In General Terms—counter-averment.
• Section V.: Plan of This Defence.
• Part II.—: Deference From the General Nature of the Case.
• Section I.: Conditions Necessary to a Man’s Embarking In Such a Design.
• Section VII.: Concurrence In Any Other Extensive Plan of Spoliation Impossible.
• Section VIII.: Concurrence of Any Constituted Authorities Impossible.
• Section IX.: Accomplishment Impossible—design Impossible.
• Section X.: The Talked-of Spunge No Proof of the Design.
• Part III.—: Defence From Experience In the Case of the United States.
• Part IV.: Defence From Particular Experience In the Case of Ireland: Years 1777 Or 1778, to 1783.
• Section I.: Analogy Between This and the Previous Case.
• Section II.: Democratic Ascendency, How Produced.
• Section III.: Fruit of Democratic Ascendency a Golden Age.
• Section IV.: Coincidence of Its Characters With Those of Radicalism.
• Section VI.: Extinction of Democratic Ascendency and Reform—restoration of Monarchico-aristocratical Ascendency, and Its Consequences.
• Conclusion.

CHAPTER XX.

OF ELEMENTARY POLITICAL POWERS.

The Constitutional Code is principally employed in conferring powers on particular classes of society, or on individuals, and in prescribing their duties.

Powers are constituted by exceptions to imperative laws. Let me explain myself.

Every complete law is in its own nature coercive or discoercive. The coercive law demands, or prohibits: it creates an offence, or in other terms, it converts an act into an offence:—“Thou shalt not kill,”—“Thou shalt not steal.” The discoercive law creates an exception: it takes away the offence; it authorises a certain person to do a thing contrary to the first law: “The judge shall cause such an individual to be put to death,”—“The collector of taxes shall exact such a sum.”

Duties are created by imperative laws addressed to those who possess powers: “The judge shall impose a certain punishment, according to certain prescribed forms.”

The constitutional code will include an explanatory part, serving to indicate those events by which certain individuals are invested with certain powers:—succession, nomination, presentation, concession, institution, election, purchase of place, &c. &c.; and the events by which such individuals are divested of such powers:—dismission, amotion, deposition, abdication, dereliction, resignation, &c.

To analyze, to enumerate all the possible political powers, is a metaphysical labour of the highest difficulty, but of the greatest importance. In general, these rights, these powers, will not much differ from domestic rights and powers. If they were placed in a single hand, they would only differ in extent; that is to say, in the multitude of persons and things over which they would be exercised. But their importance has ordinarily led to their being divided among many hands, in such manner, that for the exercise of a single kind of power, the concurrence of many wills is required.

Hitherto the political powers of one government have been, with regard to the political powers of another government, objects which have had no common measure. There has been no correspondency. There are only local names for expressing them: sometimes the names themselves differ—sometimes the same names are expressive of objects altogether different. There is no court-guide which would serve for every court—there is no universal political grammar.

The titles of offices are mixtures, dissimilar aggregates, which cannot be compared together, because no one has ever tried to decompose them—because no one has ever known their primordial elements. These elements, if any one shall ever discover them, will be the hitherto unknown key of every given political system; and the common measure of all actual and possible systems. But how shall I frame a uniform plan for the distribution of the political powers in any state?—from what language shall I borrow the vocabulary of offices? If I employ the French, it will only serve to express the distribution of powers in the French government. What relation is there between the consuls of France and the consuls of Rome, or the consuls of commerce?—between the king of England, the king of Sweden, the king of Prussia?—between the emperor of Germany and the emperor of Russia—between the ancient French peer and duke—the English duke and peer—the grand-duke of Russia and the grand-duke of Tuscany—between the mayor of Bordeaux and the mayor of London? &c. &c. A volume would not suffice to point out all these disproportions.

Such is the first difficulty. It has been the torment of those who have had to give an account of a foreign constitution. It is almost impossible to employ any denomination to which the readers shall not attach ideas different from those which it is intended to convey.

This confusion will cease, if it be possible to employ a new nomenclature, which shall not be composed of official names, but which shall express the elementary political powers exercised by those different offices.

Two methods may be employed for this decomposition:—1. By considering the end towards which they are directed:—end of interior or exterior security—end of security against crimes, or against calamities, &c.;—2. By considering the different methods by which these ends may be attained: the method of operating may have for its object persons or things. This method of analyzing political powers presents the following results:—

1. Immediate power over persons.—This is what is exercised over the passive faculties: it is the power of doing with one’s own hand acts whose effects terminate upon the person of another, whether upon his body or his mind. It is the power of doing acts which would be offences against the person, on the part of an individual who was not authorized. Directed to a certain end, it is the power of punishing: directed towards another end, it is the power of restraining and constraining. This power is the foundation of all others.

2. Immediate power over the property of others.—This is the power of making use for the public, of things the principal property in which belongs to individuals. For example, the power of a minister of justice to break open the house of a person not accused, that he may seek for an accused person there—the power of a public courier, in case of need, to make use of the horse of an individual.

3. Immediate power over public things;—that is, of those which have only government for their proprietor.

4. Power of command over persons, taken individually.—This operates upon the active qualities. It has commonly for its foundation immediate power over the person, without which he who commands would not be sure of finding motives for making himself obeyed. In the beginning of political societies, these two powers must have been united in the same hands, as they still are in domestic society. The habit of obedience being once established, we have almost lost sight of the dependence in which the more elevated power is found, in respect of that from which it springs. The first is only exercised by kings and their ministers; they have left the second to a baser sort of men. Ulysses chastised with his own hand the petulant Thersites. Peter I. was also the executor of his own decrees: he proudly struck off with his imperial hands, the head of the wretch whom he had condemned. The office of executioner does not degrade the emperors of Morocco; and their dexterity in these punishments is one of the pomps of their crown. In civilized states, the nobler power depends no less upon the ignoble power, than in barbarous countries;—but the disposition to obedience being once established, everything operates without our thinking of the constraint which is its first foundation.

5. Power of command over persons taken collectively.—A state must be very small, in which individuals could be governed one by one: this can only take place in a family. A company of soldiers can only be manœuvred when a head is given to the whole together. It is in the power of making men act by class, that the strength of government consists.

6. Power of specification.—I thus denominate the power of determining of what individuals particular classes shall be composed, over whom command may be exercised. This very extensive power is only, in respect to persons, the power of investment or divestment with regard to a certain class—class of nobles, class of judges, class of military, class of sailors, class of citizens, class of foreigners, class of offenders, class of allies, class of enemies.

The power of specification subdivides itself into two principal branches: specification of persons—specification of things.

Power over persons subdivides itself into the power of locating in a class, and the power of dislocating.

Power over things consists in setting them apart for a certain use, and making it a crime to employ them for any other.

To specify a time, a day as set apart for a religious festival, on which it is unlawful to work.

To specify a place as consecrated; for example, a church, an asylum.*

To specify a metal as the legal coin of the country.

To specify a dress as appropriated to a certain condition, &c. The right of specification over things embraces the totality of things.

It ought to be remembered, that each of these powers may be indefinitely subdivided, according to the number of hands in which it is placed, and the number of wills which may be required for its legitimate exercise. Hence the right of initiation, or right of proposing; right of negation or right of rejecting. The co-possessors may form only a single body, or many separate bodies. The concurrence of many bodies may be necessary to the validity of an act of command, as well as the concurrence of many individuals in a single body.

All these powers may be possessed in chief, or in a rank more or less subordinate.

The subordination of a political power to another, is established—1. By the cassability of its acts, or their liability to be abrogated; 2. By its subjection to the orders it receives.

7. Attractive power.—I thus call the power of rewarding or not rewarding.—Power of influence, which is partly remuneratory and partly penal. Influence is one source of motives. In Government, it is constituted—

1. By the power of locating in regard to desirable offices—Reward.

2. By the power of dislocating in regard to desirable offices—Punishment.

3. By the power of locating in regard to undesirable offices—Punishment.

4. By the power of dislocating in regard to undesirable offices—Reward.

There are three other sources of influence less direct:—

1. Free employment of wealth.

2. The power of rendering or not rendering all sorts of free services.

3. Influence founded upon the reputation of wisdom.

The attractive power which is exercised by means of reward, is more dangerous than the coercive power, because it is liable to be more arbitrary. Every rich man possesses a a portion of it in consequence of his wealth, without possessing any political power by name. It is only in a small number of cases that it has been possible to subject the exercise of this power to fixed rules. The laws against bribery and corruption are examples, and every one knows how difficult it is to execute the laws against the purchase of suffrages at an election, or against the venality of persons in official stations. Success is most easily attained by indirect rather than direct means:—by rendering the offence difficult of commission; by diminishing temptation, by taking away the means of its concealment; by the cultivation of sentiments of honour, &c.

Recapitulation—Analysis of Abstract Elementary Political Powers.

1. Immediate power over persons.

2. Immediate power over the things of another.

3. Immediate power over public things.

4. Power of command over persons taken individually.

5. Power of command over persons taken collectively, or over classes.

6. Power of specification or classification—

• 1. With regard to persons.
• 2. With regard to things.
• 3. With regard to places.
• 4. With regard to times.

7. Attractive power. Power of granting or not granting rewards.

[* ]When any such power exists without limits (that, for example, of specifying places as sanctuaries), nothing more is required for destroying the effect of all laws sanctioned by any considerably afflictive punishment.

The clergy in England once endeavoured to obtain possession of the landed property in England by converting it into burying grounds, until the legislature put a stop to the progress of such metamorphosis.