Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow SECTION VIII.: VIRTUAL UNIVERSALITY OF SUFFRAGE—ITS UNDANGEROUSNESS. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3

Return to Title Page for The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

SECTION VIII.: VIRTUAL UNIVERSALITY OF SUFFRAGE—ITS UNDANGEROUSNESS. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


SECTION VIII.

VIRTUAL UNIVERSALITY OF SUFFRAGE—ITS UNDANGEROUSNESS.

On the topic of supposed or imputed dangerousness, after what has been seen already, accept the following observations, compressed to that degree of compression which time and place necessitate.

Objection:—Universal suffrage, universal hostility and anarchy.—Answer: No, not the smallest approach to any such evils.

Hostility?—under what provocation, and against what object? Provocation now, alas! but too abundant: in that case, absolutely none. Provocation, say you?—say, instead of it, its exact opposite. Yes: in place of provocation, and that inveterate,—fresh and never before experienced beneficence. Provocation—where should it find its object? In a branch of government, now for the first time, at the instance of the people themselves, repaired and improved for their benefit, and then placed in their own hands?

Suppose mischievous activity, on what occasion or in what shape should it exert itself? The sort of power which they would be called upon to exercise, what is it? Is it,—as in legislation and command, as well civil as military,—directly, immediately, imperatively, impressively, and coercively acting power?—No, but a mere exercise of the unimperative faculty of deputation—an exercise performed under the veil of the most tranquil and silent, and absolutely impenetrable and imperturbable secresy,—performed by a mere turn of the hand,—and, in the instance of each individual, in the same moment begun and ended:—a power which, if such it must be called, is but the fraction of a fraction: the power of making one of a vast multitude, the majority of which must join, ere they can seat so much as one man in an assembly,—one man, with whom another large majority must join, and with that large majority, the majority of another assembly, ere he can give effect to any power by which command is issued, and obedience produced.

Be the mischief what it may,—suppose the people, in any considerable number, inclined to effect it. In their eyes, or in any eyes, what sort of prospect of accomplishing the supposed obnoxious purpose could the nature of the case afford? How deep, as well as at the same time how hollow, must not the scheme of speculation be supposed to be, that is thus supposed to be entertained by the supposed precipitate and unthinking multitude? Of himself, not one of them could, so much as in expectation, have any the least part in it: if accomplished, the persons by whom it is accomplished must be the majority of a set of persons, all different from these voters; yet this majority composed of individuals, all of them without exception bent upon the execution of this same pernicious scheme:—and what could they hope to get by it? When, by the passions of a populace, mischief has been perpetrated or aimed at, is it by any such telescopic and deep-laid schemes that it has ever been aimed at?

No: it is not in the dangerousness and mischievousness—it is in the undangerousness and beneficialness of this and the other elements of reform, that, in the minds of the ruling and influential few, the opposition made to it has its real ground. Not in the want of light—pure and instructive light—in the political hemisphere—not in the want of it, but in the abundance of it, look for the true object of their fears. The increase of light—were that any part of their object, how to compass that object is no secret to them. Confined to the quarter in which, when it is of use to them—applied to the accomplishment of the grand object—the openly avowed object—the “prostration of understanding and will” at the feet of a priesthood, itself by original institution prostrate—and so lately so much more profoundly prostrated,* —at the feet of a prelacy, itself in a state of everlasting prostration at the foot of the throne—applied to this object, never can there be any want of anxiously directed activity. In regard to appropriate intellectual aptitude, what is the real, the everlasting fear?—lest it be deficient? No: but lest it be abundant. Yes: on the hemisphere of religion, to delude them with false and political lights—on the political hemisphere, to keep them plunged in the thickest darkness: such, in their “high situation,” is the policy of “great characters;” such, in the very nature of things, it is ever destined to be, when vouchsafing to determine the lot of the swinish multitude.

Of this supposed dangerous and mischievous right, by what mode and form of instruction would the exercise be prefaced and prepared? On the one part, would it be, as now, by haranguing—(by haranguing—loud, and, till the present state of things be replaced by a better, how can it be other than impassioned?)—on the other part, by thronging: by thronging, if not actually tumultuous, continually, by the naturally and incessantly increasing tyranny, expected or pretended to be expected to be found,—and for the sake of the thus manufactured pretext, always wished to be found—tumultuous? Oh no. On the one part, by a course of writing, on the other part by a corresponding course of reading? Oh yes:—the pen in hand—behold in this the true organ for administering sound, dispassionate, and undelusive information:—in the eye—in the stillness and leisure of the closet, applied to the silent paper, behold in this the true organ for the reception of the matchless blessing. Lips on the one part, ears on the other part:—behold in these the so imperfectly adapted—the only originally employable organs, in the fugitive, the ever questionable, the ever delusive information—the only information capable of being communicated and received by such organs,—the sole and sadly imperfect resource of immature, unlettered, and unenlightened times.†

As to speechifying and writing—and the comparative beneficialness and innoxiousness of the sort of information to be respectively looked for to the two sources. By speeches, many an assembly has been driven into precipitate and mischievous resolves: by writings, much fewer, not to say none. By speeches, followed on the spot by resolutions taken on the spot, falsehoods are asserted—means of detection excluded; in writings, scarce can falsehood be brought forward on one side, but time for detecting and refuting it has place on the other:—by speeches, imagination is fascinated,—passion in excess excited,—time for comprehensive conception and cool judgment denied;—substitute writing, no advantage can in any of these shapes be gained by any side, to the injury of any other. When tongues and ears are the organs of converse;—in an assembly, congregated under the notion of hearing speeches,—by its own clamours (and with what unhappy frequency is not this mischief exemplified!) by its own clamours—that is, by the clamours of a few impatient tongues,—on both sides of the question—or, what is so much worse, on one side only,—may not only all documents, but all argument, be excluded? whereas, in so far as pens and eyes are the organs,—by no power but that of a tyrant—of a tyrant about the throne, or on a bench—can any minds be deprived of the knowledge of whatsoever has been said, or can be said, on both sides.

Thus, not only in the first instance, but so long as the subject continued to be viewed no otherwise than at a distance,—that, in this state of mind, by the vastness and indeterminateness of the compound idea, produced by the combination of annuality of election with universality of suffrage,—conception should be at first bewildered, and the passion of fear kept in a state of excitation,—in this there is nothing strange: the strange thing would rather be, if the case were otherwise.*

Note here a little operation—an operation which may be performed by anybody who has leisure. Turn to the history of boroughs: pick out the most open ones: those in which the right has the extension indicated by the word householders, or by the word pot-wallers,—go back as far as recollection—recollection about individual character—can carry you,—say, to the commencement of the present reign. Under the head of each such borough, look over the list of the representatives, who from that time to this have sat for it:—this done, then it is that you may be in a condition to pronounce—whether, when compared with the seats, filled in the most generally approved and lauded mode, viz. the county seats (of which in the next section,) any distinctly-marked deficiency, in respect of any one of the three elements of appropriate aptitude, be to be found: appropriate aptitude, as divided into its never-to-be-forgotten three branches, viz. appropriate probity, appropriate intellectual aptitude, and appropriate active talent.

“Aptitude? elements?” cries a voice from Bond Street, “d—you and your three elements! No, no: property! property! that’s our sort! that’s the only element we know of—worth all your’s, and a hundred such put together.

“Oh no, d—e!” cries another from a four-in-hand, interrupting himself while in the establishment of a raw—“Oh no: you’ve forgot one—and that’s blood, d—e: look there, (pointing to the horse’s shoulder) look there,—there you have it, d—e. To be sure, to sit comfortably, a man should have both,—no doubt of that; but where one fails, t’other must serve instead of it. After all, blood’s our surest card: vingt-un runs off with property now and then—blood it can’t run off with: that sticks by us. Come, if you must have three elements, here’s an amendment for you,—Blood, Property, Connexion: these are our three elements—blood and property in ourselves; connexion in the good fellow we put in to think and speak for us. There now, you old fellow! off with your three elements—off with them to Utopia: ’twas there you got em from, d—e!”

Well, good gentlemen, look over the list I am speaking about:—look it well over—look at the seats—look at the sitting-parts they have been filled by—look at them well—and as little will you find any deficiency in the stock of your own legitimate elements—man and horse elements together—as of my swinish ones.

Look to the most populous of all populous boroughs! look to Westminster! Number of electors, even many years back, not fewer than 17,000: swine not all of them indeed—the Dean and Chapter being of the number—not to speak of Right Honourables and Honourables;—swine’s flesh, however, predominant—abundantly predominant: swinish the character, of the vast majority of that vast multitude.

Well then, look to Westminster—look first to time present—see now what you have there. See you not Lord Cochrane? What do you see there? See you not blood and property in one?—blood from ancestors—property from the source most prized—the source from whence all your oldest property sprung—enemies’ blood, with plunder for the fruit of it?—See you not Sir Francis Burdett?—have not you there blood enough and property enough? Look now a little back:—before you had either Cochrane or Burdett, had not you Charles Fox? had you him not as long as the country had him?

Even within this twelvemonth, when a vacancy was apprehended, what sort of man was it that was looked to for the filling of it? Was it a man of and from the people? Was it the Cobbett, with his penmanship, his 60,000 purchasers, and his ten times 60,000 readers? Was it the Henry Hunt, with his oratory? Was it not Cartwright, of the Cartwrights of Northamptonshire?—was it not Brougham, of Brougham?—and howsoever by these men the plea of Ulysses might be put in—“Neve mihi noceat quod vobis semper Achivi profuit ingenium,”* not the less were there the genus et proavi;† —and whether sitting for Westminster, or looked to for Westminster, the case of a man who had neither the blood element nor the property element, remains still without example.

Look at Bristol, the next most populous city. When a man was looked for, who should, if possible, stem the tide of corruption—that tide which so naturally flows so strong in maritime and commercial cities—who is it that was looked for? Was it the Spa Fields orator?—did he not try and fail there? Was it not Sir Samuel Romilly?—and though (from an irregularity, for which, by some country gentleman or other, whose aptitude was in his acres,—a Mr. Eyre, or a Mr. Frankland, which was it?—he was so consistently called to order,) the blood he had came from the wrong side of the channel, and with a something in it too nearly allied to puritanism to be relished by legitimacy,)—yet (not to speak of the swinish elements, which are of no value but in Utopia)—blood, such as it was, there was in him—blood?—yes; and property too,—though, whether then as now savouring of the realty, let others, who know, say,—to sanction it.

Look to the most populous among boroughs: look to Liverpool. When the same pestilential tide was hoped to be stemmed at Liverpool, who is it that great commercial port and borough called in to stem it? Was it the Cobbett?—was it the Spa Fields Orator? Here too, was it not Brougham, of Brougham?

Propensity to look wide of the true mark—to look to and to accept, in lieu of the only true and direct elements of appropriate aptitude, those supposed circumstantially but deceptiously evidentiary ones—blood—property—add if you please, connexion—this is not peculiar to English, it is common to human nature: yes, to human nature; and till that nature be transformed, never will the propensity—be it useful, be it mischievous—be rooted out of it.

Look to ancient, look to republican Rome. To protect them against the aristocracy, the people obtained a representative—a single representative—a representative whose style and title was, Tribune of the people: in the breast of this one individual was contained their Commons House. Well—this man—who to them was a host, and their only host—from what men, from what caste of men did they take him? From among themselves? Not they indeed. From whence then? Even from their oppressors—their very oppressors themselves—from the Patricians. Such (it has been observed by somebody, was it not Montesquieu?) such was their choice, for hundreds of years together.

Well;—in thus advocating virtually-universal suffrage—and as to absolutely-universal suffrage, though, preferably to the other, I do not, nor ever should advocate it—I should nevertheless, as Earl Grey did once, “prefer it to the present system;”—in thus advocating virtually, or though it were absolutely, universal suffrage,—what is given as above, is it all mere theory?—is it not practice to boot?—practice, or somewhat not very easily distinguishable from it?—is it not experience?

“Oh but,” says somebody, “this which you call practice—this, in support of which you are calling in experience—this is not any universal-suffrage plan—this is not even your own virtually universal-suffrage plan: this is but the householder plan.

Yes, to be sure, in name it is but the householder plan; though where a pot constitutes a house, how much narrower soever the ground of the right is, the right itself must be admitted to be a little more extensive. But, be that as it may, if so it be that what you insist on is, that, in the field of political arrangement, nothing should ever be tried, but what in the self-same shape has been tried already, then so it is that, on this part of the question, my pen is stopped. But, upon this principle, here or anywhere—at this time or at any other time—well or ill—can or could government ever be carried on?

On your side, for the future (not to speak of the past)—for the future, will you take it up, and steadily, and to the last, adhere to it? Vast as it is, and poisonous as it is vast, will you so much as pledge yourselves to be content with your existing stock of panaceas?—with your universal-personal-security-destroying acts?—with your universal gagging acts?—with your liberty-of-the-press-destroying statutes, and judge-made ex-post-facto laws?—with your universal-popular-communication-destroying acts?—with your acts for stopping up the ears of soldiers, and for engaging them, in the character of informers, to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brothers, their sisters, their fathers, and their mothers?—with your petition-rejecting and hope-extinguishing decisions and orders and resolutions?—with your resolves for rejecting petitions unheard, because, in aid of the pen, the press had been employed in giving the circulation to the matter of them?—with your sham precedents, brought forward for a colour to such liberticide resolves?

Well: if you shrink at this, remains still a possibility of your forbearing to insist here upon individual identity—of your listening to identity in principle and specie.

But if identity of principle will satisfy you, how, so long as you admit the householder plan, how can you be at a loss for principle in support of virtually-universal suffrage? Take in hand the fellowship of householders: take in hand the fellowship of universal-suffrage men: apply to each of the two fellowships the two tests of appropriate aptitude—the tests of appropriate aptitude, in those two of its three branches which apply to the case in question—the case of electors. Apply to them the appropriate-probity test: say, have you a sufficiency of it in your householders? Well then, on what grounds can you look for any want of such sufficiency in my universal-suffrage men?—of universal-suffrage men, although, instead of being, as here proposed, virtual, the universality were absolute. Your householders—is it their interest to possess, to retain, and upon occasion acquire property?—to acquire it (which to do would not, unless they could retain it, be of any great use to them.) Well then—among my universal-suffrage men, how many will you find, who would fail in any respect of being partakers in that same interest? Apply to them next the appropriate intellectual aptitude test: your householders—the interest which they possess in regard to property—the interest they have in possessing, acquiring, and retaining of it—that source, that sole and indispensable source of subsistence, and continuation of existence,—are they in a sufficient degree sensible of its existence? Then in what less degree, think you, would my universal-suffrage men be sensible to a matter of fact, to which (infants in arms and persons insane excepted,) no human being sensible to anything ever failed of being sensible?

In your eyes, and with reference to your habits and your means, the all of the sort of men to which the great majority of them belong is as nothing. Think you, that therefore, in their eyes, it is no more? The all of A, how much less is it in the eye of A, than the all of B in the eye of B? When you have solved this problem,—then, and not before, say that universal confusion and universal destruction of property would be the results of universal suffrage.

For its success, true it is, that this reasoning supposes, with reference to the formation of a judgment on the subject of it, the existence of a competent qualification in the shape of appropriate intellectual aptitude. Unfortunately, just at this moment—such of you as are honest—you have no such aptitude. Spectres have stalked in, and planted terror and confusion in your minds. Cobbett, in the character of Apollyon, the Destroyer,—Cobbett, with a universal-levelling machine in his hand,—Cobbett, with the Spa-Fields Orator at his heels:—these are your bugbears. From the contemplation of these hobgoblins comes the spirit of wisdom with which you are inspired.

Well then, take them up—to give your theory its finish, take them up, and plant them in the House of Commons. Chosen by the swinish multitude, behold them seated on the Treasury Bench:—in that situation in which anything may be done, there is nothing they would not be ready to do, so long as in any shape they saw anything they could get by it. Yes: of course they would. Yes: but, according to this theory of yours, they are to level all property, and, of course, by levelling it, destroy it. Now, by so doing, what is it they could get, either of them? Some property they have, each of them: that one of them that has least, some number of times the amount of the utmost that could be expected to be put into his pocket by the operation of the universal-levelling machine.

“Oh, but these men, even these, are not the worst. The worst, to be sure, they are that we as yet know of. But what you perhaps don’t see, and we do see is—the mob which is still behind them. This mob, which would begin with pushing them on, do you think it would end there? Oh no. No sooner were they seated, than after them it would be continually pouring in others that would be worse and worse. For, with the exception of us and ours, this is the way with all men. Their object—their constant object is—to do, in every imaginable shape, as much mischief as they can continually contrive to do:—such is their end; and for their means and their instruments, how can they do otherwise than take up and employ, and be perpetually upon the look-out for, the most mischievous agents that are to be found. Such being their constant study and endeavour—the constant study and endeavour of this mob of yours—this mob, that you and all that think with you want to set upon us and destroy us—what will be the consequence? The men they will be finding out and pouring into the House will be—each of them worse than every other—men, the least mischievous of whom will be mischievous enough to out-Hunt Hunt, and to out-Cobbett Cobbett.”

The universal-suffrage plan being considered in the character of a cause,—for the effect on the monarchico-aristocratical theory, behold, in the above scheme of universal mischief and its consequence, universal destruction given—given, not merely as a probable effect, but as one that, in a practical sense, ought to be regarded as certain. And, for the accomplishment—not to speak of the commencement—of this same scheme, what are the sort of beings that are to have existence? Human beings? Oh no: so far from it, a set of creatures, such as no man ever saw: a set of beings, in respect of the features essentially requisite for so much as the commencement of any such scheme, as opposite to all known human beings as can be conceived. Without one of the motives that are known of, and against the bent of all the motives that are known of—such is to be their course of action. Of no such motive as social interest are they to have any the smallest spark. As little are they to have of that sort of motive, self-regarding interest, on which the human species is in a more especial and necessary manner dependent for its existence. On this career of theirs are they to set out, bent upon destruction—upon destruction of all property,—and with it, or before it, of all that derive support from it, ending or beginning with themselves.

In the words wild and wildness seems to be condensed the substance of all the talk—(to call it reason or argument would be misrepresentation,)—say then the talk—by which universal suffrage has been opposed. Wildness? Oh yes; and but too much of it. But in what place is it that it will be found?—in the universal-suffrage plan, with the practice and experience on which it is grounded, or in the theory with which, against all practice and experience, it has been opposed?

True it is—but too true—as matters stand at present, they have not, all of them, means so sufficient as could be wished, to inform and qualify themselves: they have not—so much as the majority of them—any such sufficient means to inform and qualify themselves: they have not—the majority of them—means so sufficient as could be wished to inform themselves aright as to what good government is, or what the value of it: they have not—the majority of them—sufficient means of access to the documents on which the acquisition of this necessary knowledge depends: they have not any such sufficient means in any regular way to read the newspapers: they have not—many of them—nay, even the majority of them—they have not as yet so much as the requisite skill in the elementary art of reading.

True. But these their deficiences—whatsoever they may be—is it in these deficiencies that we are to look for the consideration—the sole, the chiefly prevalent consideration, or so much as any part of the consideration,—by which your anxiety, and your determination, to exclude them from the right of suffrage is produced? Alas! alas! no.—These deficiencies—there is not any one of them, that it would not be little less difficult to you actually to supply, than to will or wish to do so: there is not any one of them, which they could not supply without any assistance of yours; which they would not supply to themselves, of themselves, if left to themselves; which they could not to themselves supply,—if, instead of aiding them in, your wishes and endeavours were not employed in the preventing them from, the receiving of such supplies. Of these same supplies, there is not one of them that, in the American States, is not actually and abundantly received. Received? Yes: and of the supply thus received, what is the fruit? What? is it anarchy? No; but instead of it, the best government that is or ever has been:—that, with which yours forms so strong, not to say so complete, a contrast.

Look on this occasion—if by any means you can endure to look that way—look once more to the American United States. Behold there democracy—behold there pure representative democracy. In the shape in question, any more than in any other shape, what mischief do you see there? In the American United States is there no property? Has it ever been destroyed since the establishment of independence?—has it ever been destroyed there, as it was here, in 1780, by your anti-popery mob; and—(not to speak of Luddites, and so many other non-religious)—in 1793, by your Church of England anti-sectarian mobs, with orthodox and loyal justices of the peace (see Hutton’s Life) to encourage them? In any one of these commonwealths has any, so much as the slightest, shock been ever given to it? All this while, since that auspicious day—these supposed destroyers of all property and all government—the great body of the people, has there ever been anywhere that day, in which they have not had full swing?—has there ever been that day, on which, for the keeping of them quiet, any one of your panaceas has been applied;—applied, or so much as thought of?—yet has there at any time been that day, in which the door of that immense country has not stood wide open to the scum of the earth, as you would call it? and amongst others, to your own wild Irish—to those wild Irish, who by your misrule, and by the fear of your torture-mongers, have been driven into banishment?

“Oh, but,” says somebody, “what they have in America is—not the universal-suffrage plan: it is more like the householder plan: only still less popular:—it is actually the property plan.”

True: in individuality, as above, it is not the universal-suffrage plan; but, in principle, look once more, and say once more—where and in what, if in anything, consists the difference? The property—the income there acquired from landed property—there, even as here—consider, even where largest, how small it is, compared with the least amount of what is necessary for, and actually expended on, the means of sustenance.

Well but—will you then give us the householder plan?—will you give us the American plan? With either of those plans, we for our parts—I, for one—I, for my part at least, should be contented. Oh no: for opposition, indeed—for refusal—this or anything may serve: but for agreement—for consent—that’s quite a different affair:—no: in the way of concession, nothing.

After all, what need can there be for looking to any such distance? Intellectual aptitude? sufficiency of appropriate intellectual aptitude?—is that the question? Look at home. Once more look at home. Turn your eyes to Westminster. By the hand of virtue, in that great metropolis of reform, behold democracy—already for these ten years past—though with the mass of corruption, as it were a mill-stone, still overhanging and threatening, yet still seated on her throne:—Westminster, a field of contention, on which, till that auspicious moment, monarchy and aristocracy—the everlastingly leagued, yet everlastingly bickering, adversaries of good government—had, from the commencement of the dynasty, been tearing one another and the country to pieces:—impoverishing one another; poisoning the morals of the people. Instead of this system of abuse, behold freedom of election—perfect and unexampled freedom:—yes, freedom: and with it sobriety, temperance, tranquillity, security. And this under what system of representation? Even under the householder plan—the same which Mr. Grey proposed—which Earl Grey is so much afraid of:—the householder plan—the almost equivalent of virtually-universal suffrage.*

No exaggeration here: nothing but simple truth. In proof, take, in the most compressed state possible, the following facts:—within a certain circle—were that a very small one—all of them notorious—all of them everywhere uncontrovertible.† The Americans—they impose no tax upon the means of political information; you impose an almost prohibitory one. Why impose so enormous an one? Is it for the sake of the money? In some degree of course, yes: for where money is to be had, in what place and at what price is it not raked for? It is raked for in the courts that should be courts of justice, to the destruction of justice: it is raked for in the stores of medicine, to the destruction of health and life. Yes, surely, in some degree for the money, but in a still greater degree for the sake of the darkness: the same transparent cunning which, in the teeth of all argument, and without the shadow of a pretence, has so recently, yet repeatedly engaged you to deprive them of the use of the press for giving expression to their desires, engages you, in relation to all these affairs, which while they are yours, are at the same time so much their own, to keep them in the state of the profoundest ignorance possible, that in the existence of that ignorance you may have a plea for the perpetuation of it.

“Oh, but the information they get, it is, all of it, from Cobbett:—misinformation, all of it:—mischievous information:—a great deal worse than none.”

Well, be it so: what of that? The information you could give—yes, and would give too, if you gave any—that is good information, is it not? Well then: what is it that hinders you from giving it? Have you not money enough?—enough at any rate for such a purpose? Know you not of writers enough, who—all of them, as touching righteousness and piety, inferior to nobody but yourselves—would—though none of them, any more than yourselves, for the sake of the money, have any objection to the taking of it? Have you not your champions, with and without names, and with names worse than none?—names with which paper such as this ought not to be defiled? The same hands which circulate your substitutes to the Bible, would they not serve, yea, and suffice, to circulate whatsoever writings it might seem good to you to circulate, for the purpose of serving as antidotes, and by Divine blessing as substitutes, to all such others, by the influence of which good government might, in the fulness of time, be substituted to misrule?

“Oh, but to contend with jacobins and atheists!—with jacobins who would substitute the Habeas Corpus act to the abolition of it—atheists, who would substitute the Bible to creeds and catechisms!—to think of contending with such wretches on anything like equal terms!—to think of arguing with miscreants, for whom annihilation would be too mild a destiny!”

Aye—there’s the rub! Ever under a monarchy—whether pure and absolute, or mixed and corrupt—ever under a monarchy—everywhere but in that seat of licentiousness, a representative democracy,—does excess in force employ itself in the filling up of all deficiencies, in the articles of reason and argument: and, the more palpable the deficiency, the more excessive, the more grinding, the more prostrative, the more irresistible the force.

So much for us of the swinish multitude: so much for us and our ignorance. But you—honourables and right honourables—how is it with you?

You tolerate publication of debates. But is it for the sake of general information and the diffusion of it? Oh no: it is for individual vanity, and the gratification of it. He who is at the head of you—the ablest head you ever had—after he had fired off his speech against corruption—his furious speech, with the double-headed shot in it from top to bottom—his speech, in which all that is least mischievous in corrupt influence is fired upon with red hot shot, while all that is most mischievous in it is spared,—did he not send it himself to Cobbett,—to the Cobbett whom you would all crush?

What they are in want of is not so much the time as the liberty to inform themselves. What you are in want of—you who have time as much as you choose to have—you who, so many of you, have time, so much more of it than you know what to do with—what you want, what you want, is inclination—the inclination to inform yourselves.

Thus deficiency—the evil of it, be it what it may, is a removable one: from you it came, by you it is kept up: at your pleasure it lies to remove it. Leave them but the liberty: by their knowledge will your ignorance be put to shame.

Your deficiency—the evil of your deficiency—is that evil a removable one? Yes: establish reform, and that a radical one, you will then—and I will presently show you how—have removed it. But upon any other terms, it is absolutely without remedy. It is fixed to your freehold: it sticks to property: to your only element of aptitude: the only element you either possess or acknowledge. From property—from that plethory of the good things of this world in all their shapes, under which the man who is gorged with property is condemned to suffer—from that surfeit comes love of ease: love of ease—that appetite which, existing in excess—in that degree of excess, in which in your situation it does so generally and so necessarily exist—is indolence. But be the field of action what it may, indolence and information are exclusive of each other. Labour of the body—labour of the mind—in his spare time will the man, who being used to labour, loves labour—in his spare time—be it ever so small—will he do more, than will the man, who, being unused to labour, hates labour, do in his whole time.

Opulence, indolence, intellectual weakness, cowardice, tyranny: Oh yes, these five are naturally in one. From opulence proceeds indolence—from indolence, intellectual weakness—from intellectual weakness, cowardice—from cowardice, tyranny. A phantom of danger presents itself: could he but fix his attention upon it, and look steadily at it, the phantom would vanish; but, being unexercised, his mind is weak: he has no such command over it. The phantom haunts him: it continues terrifying him: it plants an ague in his mind:—in his delirium he catches at every straw that presents to his eyes the image of a chance for stopping his fall into the gulf which he sees yawning for him: his bowels, if amidst his entrails he ever had any, wither: to his sick mind, no feelings but his own present any tokens of existence:—no barbarity—no wickedness—so it but afford the glimmering of an addition to the stock of accumulated securities with which he has overlaid himself, comes amiss to him. Frantic at the thoughts of the danger to himself, with or without thinking of any exterior objects, he gives his fiat to the cluster of tyrannies by which the security of the whole people—his own along with it—is destroyed. Trembling with terror and terror-sprung rage, he lends his hand to the opening of the Pandora’s box, and pours forth the contents of it upon the heads of the whole people. And thus it is, and by this course—and even without the aid of sinister interest in any other shape—thus it is that, by the very fear—the groundless fear—of its destruction, security may be destroyed. May be? Yes: and, by that, and sinister interest in all its shapes together, if it be not already, is, while this pen is moving, on the very point of being destroyed.

Yes!—you pillage them: you oppress them: you leave them nothing that you can help leaving them: you grant them nothing, not even the semblance of sympathy: you scorn them: you insult them: for the transgression of scores, or dozens, or units, you punish them by millions; you trample on them, you defame them, you libel them: having, by all you can do or say, wound up to its highest pitch of tension the springs of provocation and irritation, you make out of that imputed, and where in any degree real, always exaggerated irritation, a ground, and the only ground you can make, for the assumption, that, supposing them treated with kindness—all their grievances redressed—relief substituted to oppression, they would find, in the very relief so experienced, an incitement—an incitement to insurrection, to outrage, to anarchy, to the destruction of the supposed new and never-yet-experienced blessing, together with every other which they ever possessed or fancied.

Levelling!—destruction of all property! Whence is it they are to learn it?—what is there they can get by it?—who is there that ever taught it them?—whose interest is it—whose ever can it be—to teach it them? How many of them are there, who would, each of them, be so eager to lose his all? The all of a peasant—to the proprietor how much less is it, than the all of a prince—the all of him whose means of livelihood are in his labour, than the all of him whose means of livelihood are in his land? Who again is it, that, in your notion at least, they are at this moment so abundantly looking to for instruction? Is it not Cobbett? With all his eccentricities, his variations, and his inconsistencies, did he ever attempt to teach them any such lesson as that of equal division of property—in other words, annihilation of it? In the whole mass of the now existing and suffering multitude, think ye that one in a score, or in a hundred, not to say a thousand, could be found, so stupid, so foolish, as either of himself or from others, to fancy that, if without other means of living, he had his equal share in the whole of the land to-day, he would not, twenty to one, be starved upon it before the month were out? Oh! if the men, in whom—truly or erroneously—they behold their friends, were not better instructors as well as better friends to them than you are, or than it is in your nature to be, long ere this would the imputation you are thus so eager to cast on them, have been as substantially grounded as it now is frivolous.

No, no:—it is not anarchy ye are afraid of: what ye are afraid of is good government. More and more uncontrovertibly shall this fear be proved upon you;—proved upon you, from the sequel of these pages, even to the very end.

[* ]See the Reverend Mr. Belsham’s Observations on the Bishop of London’s Charge, anno 1814.

[† ]By Mr. Cobbett, this topic I observe just now mentioned by himself as having been frequently worked:—and if so, doubtless with that force and acuteness which might be expected at his hands, as well as with that copiousness and diffuseness, which is so well adapted to the situation of the bulk of those among whom he has to look for readers.

[* ]Such, at any rate in my own view, it cannot fail to be: for in this state, for a long course of years, was my own mind:—the object a dark, and thence a hideous phantom, until, elicited by severe and external pressure, the light of reason—or, if this word be too assuming, the light of ratiocination—was brought to bear upon it. In the Plan itself may be seen at what period (viz. anno 1809,) fearful of going further—embracing the occasion of finding, in derivative judgment, an exterior support—I was not only content, but glad, to stop at the degree of extension indicated by the word householders;—taking at the same time for conclusive evidence of householdership, the fact of having paid direct taxes. But, the more frequently my mind has returned itself upon the subject—the more close the application made to it—the more minute the anxiety with which every niche and cranny has been pried into—the stronger has been the persuasion produced,—that, even from an extent as unbounded as that which would have been given to the principle by the vigorous and laborious and experienced mind of the Duke of Richmond (always with the proviso, that, by that secresy—which, somehow or other, he could not bear to look in the face—freedom should be secured)—no mischief, no danger, in any such shape as that which is denoted by the words anarchy or equalization, i. e. destruction of property, would ensue: in a word, not any the smallest defalcation from any rights, but those which are universally acknowledged to be mere trust-rights—rights, the exercise of which ought to be directed to the advancement—not of the separate interests of him to whom they are intrusted, but of the joint and universal interest.

Tranquillized, on the other hand, by the persuasion, that although, by defalcation after defalcation, very considerable reduction were made in respect of extent, still no very determinate and distinguishable defalcation might be made from the beneficent influence of the universal-interest-comprehension principle,—and that, by every extension obtained, the way could be smoothed to any such ulterior extension,a the demand for which should, in the continued application of that principle, guided by the experience of security, under the experienced degree of extension, have found its due support,—with little regret, considering the subject in a theoretical point of view, and altogether without regret, considering it with a view to conciliation, and in that sense in a practical point of view,—thus it was that without difficulty I found I could accede to the extent indicated by the words householders, or direct-tax-paying householders: due regard being at the same time paid to the arrangements prescribed by the simplification principle, as above.

Representation co-extensive with taxation?—with taxation in every shape? Oh yes; with all my heart: no danger to property, any more than to person, should I apprehend from it: for, under another description, what would this be but the Duke of Richmond’s universal suffrage? But the principle—in the principle behold the defect:—a principle which is but the product of imagination—of imagination with nothing but itself for its support:—a principle not looking to universal interest—not looking to interest in any shape or to any extent—to human feelings in any shape or to any extent—to general utility—to utility in any shape or to any extent:—a principle deaf, unyielding, and inflexible:—a principle which will hear of no modification—will look at no calculation:—a principle which, like that of the rights of man, is in its temper a principle of despotism, howsoever in its application applied to purposes so diametrically and beneficently opposite.

Co-extensive with taxation? Why this reference, this adjustment? If, instead of imagination, reason be consulted, the answer is—that by extent coinciding with that of taxation, so it happens that in this country all interests are comprehended:—deference is paid to, practice would accordingly be guided by, the principle by which the comprehension of all interests is prescribed. Good: but if, in the principle which prescribes the giving admission at once to all interests, you were to have a principle which nobody but yourself would listen to, what would you be the better for it? And if, with a principle which, in numbers sufficient to carry the question, men would listen to and be governed by, you were to get a constitution, under and by virtue of which, for want either of appropriate probity or appropriate intellectual aptitude, or both, property and liberty would be destroyed,—what in this case would you be the better for your principle?—would not your condition be still worse—yea, much worse—than even at present?

Behold here—(for it is well worth beholding)—the relation—the instructive relation—between theory and practice:—of the goodness of theory, the test is, in every instance, its applicability to practice:—good in theory, bad in practice:—behold in this fallacy—this vulgar fallacy—a contradiction in terms.

But, if theory be recurred to, it suffices not that a proposed measure be good in itself;—the theory employed in support of it should also be a good one: a theory capable of being—and without practical mischief—applied to practice. But capable of being, without mischief, applied to practice, it cannot be,—if, no reference being made by it—no regard paid by it—to human interests or to human feelings—to feelings of pain—to feelings of pleasure,—it admits of no modification—no yielding of interest to interest—and thereby of no means of conciliation:—of no means of conversion, but overbearing despotism.

The horror and terror with which, by the words universal suffrage and annual elections, so many uncorrupted breasts are filled—(for I speak not here of the case of those in whose instance language and deportment are necessarily prescribed and fashioned by the predominance of sinister interest)—these self-disturbing and dissocial passions—to which object shall we look for the cause of the application thus made of them? Shall it not be to the weakness—alas! the too natural, and, in a greater or less degree, the universal weakness—of yielding too readily to first impressions?—of giving the reins to imagination, and at the same time to that love of ease, which spares itself the labour necessary to close inspection and carefully comprehensive analysis? Oh yes: in the combination of all these co-operating causes may be found power but too sufficient for the production of these and so many other undesirable effects.

In my own instance, well do I remember the time when the principle of universal suffrage, howsoever modified, presented itself to me as being in a general view inadmissible. Yes: but what time?—any time subsequent to that attentive consideration and scrutiny, which the importance of the question now so imperiously calls for? Oh no: it was a time at which, as yet, no purposed attention had on my part ever directed itself to the subject. No: the closer the attention bestowed, the firmer has all along been my conviction—on the one hand, of the undangerousness of the principle, taken in the utmost extent to which the application of it can ever reach,—on the other hand, of the facility and consistency with which, for the sake of union and concord, defalcation after defalcation might,—provisionally at any rate, and for the sake of experience—quiet and gradual experience,—be applied to it.

As to what concerns the influence of understanding as understanding—in the case here in question the only beneficent, the only endurable influence,—my own persuasion is—that under the most unbounded universality of suffrage,—instead of being annihilated, the influence of aristocracy would still be but too great: too great, I mean, with relation to appropriate intellectual aptitude: too great not to give admission to many an idle and comparatively unfurnished, to the exclusion of a laborious and better furnished, mind.

As far as I have been able to collect it—and I have not been unsolicitous in my endeavours to collect it—the whole stream of experience runs that way.

In proof, or at any rate in illustration of this position—one particular incident, which has place in my own remembrance, has just been confirmed by cotemporary recollections. In the days of Wilkes and liberty!—among Wilkes’s supporters—and indeed, for activity and extent of influence, at the head of them—was Churchill the apothecary, brother to poet Churchill. Election time approaching, Wilkes himself being, for the moment, by some incident or other, put out of the question—apothecary Churchill was proposed. An apothecary member for Westminster! By a loud and general clamour to this effect was the proposition immediately crushed:—yet, besides that extraordinary personal popularity, by which he had been enabled to render such commanding service to the fine gentleman, his protégé, was this apothecary of the number of those who kept their coaches.

As to apothecaryship and gentlemanship,—for my own part, if, of two candidates—knowing nothing of either, but that one was an apothecary, the other a gentleman of £10,000 a-year—the question were to be asked of me, for which will you give your vote? my answer would be at once—the apothecary—the apothecary for me!—Why? Even because in the mind of the apothecary—the apothecary being to a certain degree known as such—I should be assured of finding intellectual aptitude—intellectual aptitude in the shape and degree corresponding to the exigencies of that eminently useful and respectable profession, including the branches of art and science that belong to it:—in the first place, intellectual aptitude at large: and scarcely can it happen but that, so it be considerable in degree, intellectual aptitude appropriate—appropriate, if not with reference to any subject without exception, at any rate with reference to the subject here in question—may with more or less facility be acquired: the already acquired stock or capital being, with more or less advantage, capable of being transferred and applied to the newly adopted branch of industry.

Thus much for the apothecary. Now as to the gentleman. This gentleman, with his ten thousand a-year—he having been bred up in the expectation of it—on what assignable or maintainable ground could I build an equal, or nearly equal expectation, of his possessing the requisite intellectual aptitude, in any tolerably competent degree, in any shape?—at any rate in any shape in which it would, any part of it, possess a tolerable chance of being transferred to this purpose? Intellectual aptitude—to whatever subject applied—is it not the fruit of labour?—is it to be had without labour? How then should he have come by it?—by the force of what motives shall that of the pain attached to the labour have been overcome?

[* ]Thus miserably diluted by Dryden and Co. (Chalmers’s English Poets, vol. xx. p. 532:—)

  • —Nor may I lose the prize,
  • By having sense which heaven to him denies;
  • Since great or small the talent I enjoy’d,
  • Was ever in the common cause employed;
  • Nor let my wit and wonted eloquence,
  • Which often has been used in your defence,
  • And in my own, this only time be brought
  • To bear against myself, and deem’d a fault.

[† ]

  • The deeds of long-descended ancestors,
  • Are but by grace of imputation ours,
  • Their’s in effect.

[* ]For the passages quoted, see Hone’s Reformist’s Register, February 15, 1817, No. 3. On reading them, a suspicion may possibly arise of their having been penned by the author of this tract. In respect of personal knowledge, the facts are all unknown to him:—the picture here given of them was equally so, till several days after it was in print.

[†]I.—

COMMENCEMENT. Origin of the System of uncorruption and free Election established in Westminster.



I. Object proposed. Inducements—“To return Sir Francis Burdett free from expense, or personal trouble, and without even making him a candidate: Sir Francis Burdett, the only man who had the sense and the courage to fight the people’s battle. He had proved himself a friend to very extended suffrage, and to Annual Parliaments.”II. Managers,who. “Few in number, of no political importance whatever—without influencea —even their names unknown to the electors. The electors, from the long disuse of the elective franchise, in the way in which alone it should ever be used, had no confidence in each other. Each man was indeed ready to do his duty, yet few reckoned upon the same disposition in their neighbours . . . .”III. Managers—their mode of canvassing. Managers to the people—“We have undertaken your cause; the way is open—it is before you; do your duty. Electors may receive letters of thanks from the candidates who are acting for themselves, but you will not expect to receive them from the committee who are acting foryou, and by your means.”

IV. Resultas to SUCCESS. “For Sir Francis Burdett, the object of their choice (himself not soliciting any man,) single votes as many within seven as all the candidates, four in number, had received among them; and nearly two-thirds of the whole number of electors polled, voted for him.”

V. Resultas to EXPENSE.—“From the commencement of the election to the close,” sum total £780 : 14 : 4:—to the person thus chosen for representative—himself not so much as a candidate—not a farthing.

VI. Resultas to MORALS.—“No drunkenness—no rioting—no murders—no bludgeonmen—no sailors—no Irish chairmen—no obstruction at the place of polling—no hired voters—no false swearing—no puffing and lying in the newspapers—no assassin-like attempt to destroy reputation—no attempt to mislead:—to the people was the business left: nobly and effectually did they perform it.”

VII. Oppositionvanquished: MEANS in vain employed by it: Terrorism, bribery, falsehood—the holy triple alliance—impotent.—“Threats, promises, persuasions, calumny, misrepresentation; frauds of all kinds; letters written for those who could not refuse their signatures, to induce others to procure votes; licences threatened; tradesmen to have their customers taken away.”—N.B. From what I know of the source from whence the information came,—I should, upon occasion, stand assured of finding these general assertions made good by proof of individual facts.

II.—

CONTINUANCE.



VIII. On the part of the managers, Perseverance: on the part of the system of uncorruption, Permanence.

“It is now nearly ten years ago; and from that time to this the electors of Westminster have kept their steady course, while corruption has been obliged to hide its head, and to draw in its claws.”

“The electors of Westminster have, since that time re-elected Sir Francis Burdett once, and Lord Cochrane twice, on the same excellent plan. They have had to contend three times in courts of law; they have held upwards of thirty public meetings, all at their own expense—all, too, at an expense scarcely exceeding £4000.”

In ten years, four thousand pounds—scarcely more—even with the drain from the Great Hall! But for the cramming of giants, ever refreshed, still insatiate—to how much more moderate a sum would not that so astonishingly moderate sum have been reduced!

IX. PrincipalitiesandPowerscontended with and vanquished.—“In Westminster are the Courts of Law—the Houses of Parliament—the Palaces—the Admiralty—the Pay Office—the War and Ordnance Offices—the Treasury—the India Board—the great Army Agents—the Barrack Office—the Navy Office—the Victualling Office—the Tax Office—the Theatres—the Opera House—and many other offices and public establishments, all of them, from their very nature, opposed to free election; yet in this place—abounding beyond all others in the means and the love of corruption—in this place power was impotent against the people.”

X. Sophistrythus confuted by fact.—“Westminster has replied, by its acts, to the calumny of the enemies of reform, that the House of Commons was corrupt, because the People were corrupt.”

The people corrupt, forsooth! This was the plea of the alarmist, muddle-headed, joke-spinner, metaphor-hunter, and laborious would-be deceiver, now no more: in whose head no one idea was ever clear, nor any two ideas consistent. The people corrupt, forsooth! Corruption, why thus charge it upon the people? Even because, among the men he was addressing, he saw—and upon each occasion felt—an eagerness to catch at every pretence for shrouding, under a covering of contempt cast on the subject-many, the system of depredation and oppression, continually carried on at their expense, by the ruling few. Even because, supposing the pretended corruption to be regarded as having its source in that quarter, it could not but be regarded as being below the reach of remedy—and reform, in every shape and every situation, hopeless. The aim of this man was to extinguish hope.

XI. Contrastbetween this genuine reform and Government sham-reform.—“Talk of reformation and economy indeed! Here are examples of both, worthy the contemplation of every man. Here is no petty retrenchment from unlimited extravagance; here is a radical reform in management and in morals, at once demonstrating that the people, and the people alone, are willing and able to do their own business in the best and the least expensive manner.

XII. Exampleset,Lessongiven,Practicabilityproved:Assuranceof likesuccesseverywhere.—“Westminster, at this moment exhibits a fair sample of what the whole people would be if the plan of reform proposed by Sir Francis Burdett were adopted. Corruption and profligacy would speedily disappear from among them; and the profligate and the corrupt would no longer dare to offer themselves as candidates to misrepresent and abuse them. Then must a man have a character for wisdom and integrity, who aspired to the high honour of representing a virtuous, a free, an intelligent, and brave people; and then would the wise and the virtuous, whose more correct notions of honour keep them out of sight, come forward, proud to receive real honours from their countrymen. And what is there, after all, in the conduct of Westminster, which would not instantly be put in practice by the whole people, if they possessed even the right of voting enjoyed by the people of Westminster?”

N.B. Freedom of suffrage here—freedom, to an extent sufficient for the purpose—and yet, (it may be observed) without the protection of secresy. True:—but though, in every other particular, a fit example for the whole kingdom, in this one it could not be. Why? Because, in the circumstances in which the population is placed, freedom, even without the aid of secresy, finds a protection, such as, unless it be in the adjoining metropolis, it would in vain look for anywhere else. Though by the particularly independent condition of the majority of the inhabitants, terrorism was vanquished, it was not till it had struggled and done its utmost. Terrorism, notwithstanding the majority being so great, how much greater might it not have been, had terrorism been disarmed by secresy?

Of democracy it is among the peculiar excellencies, that to good government in this form nothing of virtue, in so far as self-denial is an ingredient in virtue, is necessary. Such is the case, where the precious plant stands alone: no Upas tree, no clump of Machineel trees, to overhang it. But, in the spot in question, still live and flourish in conjunction both these emblems of misrule. Here then was, and still is, and will continue to be, a real demand for virtue: and here has the demand proved, as Adam Smith would say, an effectual one.

Shade of Hampden! look down, and in a host of tradesmen and shopkeepers, behold thy yet living and altogether worthy successors!

[* ]Such, at any rate in my own view, it cannot fail to be: for in this state, for a long course of years, was my own mind:—the object a dark, and thence a hideous phantom, until, elicited by severe and external pressure, the light of reason—or, if this word be too assuming, the light of ratiocination—was brought to bear upon it. In the Plan itself may be seen at what period (viz. anno 1809,) fearful of going further—embracing the occasion of finding, in derivative judgment, an exterior support—I was not only content, but glad, to stop at the degree of extension indicated by the word householders;—taking at the same time for conclusive evidence of householdership, the fact of having paid direct taxes. But, the more frequently my mind has returned itself upon the subject—the more close the application made to it—the more minute the anxiety with which every niche and cranny has been pried into—the stronger has been the persuasion produced,—that, even from an extent as unbounded as that which would have been given to the principle by the vigorous and laborious and experienced mind of the Duke of Richmond (always with the proviso, that, by that secresy—which, somehow or other, he could not bear to look in the face—freedom should be secured)—no mischief, no danger, in any such shape as that which is denoted by the words anarchy or equalization, i. e. destruction of property, would ensue: in a word, not any the smallest defalcation from any rights, but those which are universally acknowledged to be mere trust-rights—rights, the exercise of which ought to be directed to the advancement—not of the separate interests of him to whom they are intrusted, but of the joint and universal interest.

Tranquillized, on the other hand, by the persuasion, that although, by defalcation after defalcation, very considerable reduction were made in respect of extent, still no very determinate and distinguishable defalcation might be made from the beneficent influence of the universal-interest-comprehension principle,—and that, by every extension obtained, the way could be smoothed to any such ulterior extension,a the demand for which should, in the continued application of that principle, guided by the experience of security, under the experienced degree of extension, have found its due support,—with little regret, considering the subject in a theoretical point of view, and altogether without regret, considering it with a view to conciliation, and in that sense in a practical point of view,—thus it was that without difficulty I found I could accede to the extent indicated by the words householders, or direct-tax-paying householders: due regard being at the same time paid to the arrangements prescribed by the simplification principle, as above.

Representation co-extensive with taxation?—with taxation in every shape? Oh yes; with all my heart: no danger to property, any more than to person, should I apprehend from it: for, under another description, what would this be but the Duke of Richmond’s universal suffrage? But the principle—in the principle behold the defect:—a principle which is but the product of imagination—of imagination with nothing but itself for its support:—a principle not looking to universal interest—not looking to interest in any shape or to any extent—to human feelings in any shape or to any extent—to general utility—to utility in any shape or to any extent:—a principle deaf, unyielding, and inflexible:—a principle which will hear of no modification—will look at no calculation:—a principle which, like that of the rights of man, is in its temper a principle of despotism, howsoever in its application applied to purposes so diametrically and beneficently opposite.

Co-extensive with taxation? Why this reference, this adjustment? If, instead of imagination, reason be consulted, the answer is—that by extent coinciding with that of taxation, so it happens that in this country all interests are comprehended:—deference is paid to, practice would accordingly be guided by, the principle by which the comprehension of all interests is prescribed. Good: but if, in the principle which prescribes the giving admission at once to all interests, you were to have a principle which nobody but yourself would listen to, what would you be the better for it? And if, with a principle which, in numbers sufficient to carry the question, men would listen to and be governed by, you were to get a constitution, under and by virtue of which, for want either of appropriate probity or appropriate intellectual aptitude, or both, property and liberty would be destroyed,—what in this case would you be the better for your principle?—would not your condition be still worse—yea, much worse—than even at present?

Behold here—(for it is well worth beholding)—the relation—the instructive relation—between theory and practice:—of the goodness of theory, the test is, in every instance, its applicability to practice:—good in theory, bad in practice:—behold in this fallacy—this vulgar fallacy—a contradiction in terms.

But, if theory be recurred to, it suffices not that a proposed measure be good in itself;—the theory employed in support of it should also be a good one: a theory capable of being—and without practical mischief—applied to practice. But capable of being, without mischief, applied to practice, it cannot be,—if, no reference being made by it—no regard paid by it—to human interests or to human feelings—to feelings of pain—to feelings of pleasure,—it admits of no modification—no yielding of interest to interest—and thereby of no means of conciliation:—of no means of conversion, but overbearing despotism.

The horror and terror with which, by the words universal suffrage and annual elections, so many uncorrupted breasts are filled—(for I speak not here of the case of those in whose instance language and deportment are necessarily prescribed and fashioned by the predominance of sinister interest)—these self-disturbing and dissocial passions—to which object shall we look for the cause of the application thus made of them? Shall it not be to the weakness—alas! the too natural, and, in a greater or less degree, the universal weakness—of yielding too readily to first impressions?—of giving the reins to imagination, and at the same time to that love of ease, which spares itself the labour necessary to close inspection and carefully comprehensive analysis? Oh yes: in the combination of all these co-operating causes may be found power but too sufficient for the production of these and so many other undesirable effects.

In my own instance, well do I remember the time when the principle of universal suffrage, howsoever modified, presented itself to me as being in a general view inadmissible. Yes: but what time?—any time subsequent to that attentive consideration and scrutiny, which the importance of the question now so imperiously calls for? Oh no: it was a time at which, as yet, no purposed attention had on my part ever directed itself to the subject. No: the closer the attention bestowed, the firmer has all along been my conviction—on the one hand, of the undangerousness of the principle, taken in the utmost extent to which the application of it can ever reach,—on the other hand, of the facility and consistency with which, for the sake of union and concord, defalcation after defalcation might,—provisionally at any rate, and for the sake of experience—quiet and gradual experience,—be applied to it.

As to what concerns the influence of understanding as understanding—in the case here in question the only beneficent, the only endurable influence,—my own persuasion is—that under the most unbounded universality of suffrage,—instead of being annihilated, the influence of aristocracy would still be but too great: too great, I mean, with relation to appropriate intellectual aptitude: too great not to give admission to many an idle and comparatively unfurnished, to the exclusion of a laborious and better furnished, mind.

As far as I have been able to collect it—and I have not been unsolicitous in my endeavours to collect it—the whole stream of experience runs that way.

In proof, or at any rate in illustration of this position—one particular incident, which has place in my own remembrance, has just been confirmed by cotemporary recollections. In the days of Wilkes and liberty!—among Wilkes’s supporters—and indeed, for activity and extent of influence, at the head of them—was Churchill the apothecary, brother to poet Churchill. Election time approaching, Wilkes himself being, for the moment, by some incident or other, put out of the question—apothecary Churchill was proposed. An apothecary member for Westminster! By a loud and general clamour to this effect was the proposition immediately crushed:—yet, besides that extraordinary personal popularity, by which he had been enabled to render such commanding service to the fine gentleman, his protégé, was this apothecary of the number of those who kept their coaches.

As to apothecaryship and gentlemanship,—for my own part, if, of two candidates—knowing nothing of either, but that one was an apothecary, the other a gentleman of £10,000 a-year—the question were to be asked of me, for which will you give your vote? my answer would be at once—the apothecary—the apothecary for me!—Why? Even because in the mind of the apothecary—the apothecary being to a certain degree known as such—I should be assured of finding intellectual aptitude—intellectual aptitude in the shape and degree corresponding to the exigencies of that eminently useful and respectable profession, including the branches of art and science that belong to it:—in the first place, intellectual aptitude at large: and scarcely can it happen but that, so it be considerable in degree, intellectual aptitude appropriate—appropriate, if not with reference to any subject without exception, at any rate with reference to the subject here in question—may with more or less facility be acquired: the already acquired stock or capital being, with more or less advantage, capable of being transferred and applied to the newly adopted branch of industry.

Thus much for the apothecary. Now as to the gentleman. This gentleman, with his ten thousand a-year—he having been bred up in the expectation of it—on what assignable or maintainable ground could I build an equal, or nearly equal expectation, of his possessing the requisite intellectual aptitude, in any tolerably competent degree, in any shape?—at any rate in any shape in which it would, any part of it, possess a tolerable chance of being transferred to this purpose? Intellectual aptitude—to whatever subject applied—is it not the fruit of labour?—is it to be had without labour? How then should he have come by it?—by the force of what motives shall that of the pain attached to the labour have been overcome?

[†]I.—

COMMENCEMENT. Origin of the System of uncorruption and free Election established in Westminster.



I. Object proposed. Inducements—“To return Sir Francis Burdett free from expense, or personal trouble, and without even making him a candidate: Sir Francis Burdett, the only man who had the sense and the courage to fight the people’s battle. He had proved himself a friend to very extended suffrage, and to Annual Parliaments.”II. Managers,who. “Few in number, of no political importance whatever—without influencea —even their names unknown to the electors. The electors, from the long disuse of the elective franchise, in the way in which alone it should ever be used, had no confidence in each other. Each man was indeed ready to do his duty, yet few reckoned upon the same disposition in their neighbours . . . .”III. Managers—their mode of canvassing. Managers to the people—“We have undertaken your cause; the way is open—it is before you; do your duty. Electors may receive letters of thanks from the candidates who are acting for themselves, but you will not expect to receive them from the committee who are acting foryou, and by your means.”

IV. Resultas to SUCCESS. “For Sir Francis Burdett, the object of their choice (himself not soliciting any man,) single votes as many within seven as all the candidates, four in number, had received among them; and nearly two-thirds of the whole number of electors polled, voted for him.”

V. Resultas to EXPENSE.—“From the commencement of the election to the close,” sum total £780 : 14 : 4:—to the person thus chosen for representative—himself not so much as a candidate—not a farthing.

VI. Resultas to MORALS.—“No drunkenness—no rioting—no murders—no bludgeonmen—no sailors—no Irish chairmen—no obstruction at the place of polling—no hired voters—no false swearing—no puffing and lying in the newspapers—no assassin-like attempt to destroy reputation—no attempt to mislead:—to the people was the business left: nobly and effectually did they perform it.”

VII. Oppositionvanquished: MEANS in vain employed by it: Terrorism, bribery, falsehood—the holy triple alliance—impotent.—“Threats, promises, persuasions, calumny, misrepresentation; frauds of all kinds; letters written for those who could not refuse their signatures, to induce others to procure votes; licences threatened; tradesmen to have their customers taken away.”—N.B. From what I know of the source from whence the information came,—I should, upon occasion, stand assured of finding these general assertions made good by proof of individual facts.

II.—

CONTINUANCE.



VIII. On the part of the managers, Perseverance: on the part of the system of uncorruption, Permanence.

“It is now nearly ten years ago; and from that time to this the electors of Westminster have kept their steady course, while corruption has been obliged to hide its head, and to draw in its claws.”

“The electors of Westminster have, since that time re-elected Sir Francis Burdett once, and Lord Cochrane twice, on the same excellent plan. They have had to contend three times in courts of law; they have held upwards of thirty public meetings, all at their own expense—all, too, at an expense scarcely exceeding £4000.”

In ten years, four thousand pounds—scarcely more—even with the drain from the Great Hall! But for the cramming of giants, ever refreshed, still insatiate—to how much more moderate a sum would not that so astonishingly moderate sum have been reduced!

IX. PrincipalitiesandPowerscontended with and vanquished.—“In Westminster are the Courts of Law—the Houses of Parliament—the Palaces—the Admiralty—the Pay Office—the War and Ordnance Offices—the Treasury—the India Board—the great Army Agents—the Barrack Office—the Navy Office—the Victualling Office—the Tax Office—the Theatres—the Opera House—and many other offices and public establishments, all of them, from their very nature, opposed to free election; yet in this place—abounding beyond all others in the means and the love of corruption—in this place power was impotent against the people.”

X. Sophistrythus confuted by fact.—“Westminster has replied, by its acts, to the calumny of the enemies of reform, that the House of Commons was corrupt, because the People were corrupt.”

The people corrupt, forsooth! This was the plea of the alarmist, muddle-headed, joke-spinner, metaphor-hunter, and laborious would-be deceiver, now no more: in whose head no one idea was ever clear, nor any two ideas consistent. The people corrupt, forsooth! Corruption, why thus charge it upon the people? Even because, among the men he was addressing, he saw—and upon each occasion felt—an eagerness to catch at every pretence for shrouding, under a covering of contempt cast on the subject-many, the system of depredation and oppression, continually carried on at their expense, by the ruling few. Even because, supposing the pretended corruption to be regarded as having its source in that quarter, it could not but be regarded as being below the reach of remedy—and reform, in every shape and every situation, hopeless. The aim of this man was to extinguish hope.

XI. Contrastbetween this genuine reform and Government sham-reform.—“Talk of reformation and economy indeed! Here are examples of both, worthy the contemplation of every man. Here is no petty retrenchment from unlimited extravagance; here is a radical reform in management and in morals, at once demonstrating that the people, and the people alone, are willing and able to do their own business in the best and the least expensive manner.

XII. Exampleset,Lessongiven,Practicabilityproved:Assuranceof likesuccesseverywhere.—“Westminster, at this moment exhibits a fair sample of what the whole people would be if the plan of reform proposed by Sir Francis Burdett were adopted. Corruption and profligacy would speedily disappear from among them; and the profligate and the corrupt would no longer dare to offer themselves as candidates to misrepresent and abuse them. Then must a man have a character for wisdom and integrity, who aspired to the high honour of representing a virtuous, a free, an intelligent, and brave people; and then would the wise and the virtuous, whose more correct notions of honour keep them out of sight, come forward, proud to receive real honours from their countrymen. And what is there, after all, in the conduct of Westminster, which would not instantly be put in practice by the whole people, if they possessed even the right of voting enjoyed by the people of Westminster?”

N.B. Freedom of suffrage here—freedom, to an extent sufficient for the purpose—and yet, (it may be observed) without the protection of secresy. True:—but though, in every other particular, a fit example for the whole kingdom, in this one it could not be. Why? Because, in the circumstances in which the population is placed, freedom, even without the aid of secresy, finds a protection, such as, unless it be in the adjoining metropolis, it would in vain look for anywhere else. Though by the particularly independent condition of the majority of the inhabitants, terrorism was vanquished, it was not till it had struggled and done its utmost. Terrorism, notwithstanding the majority being so great, how much greater might it not have been, had terrorism been disarmed by secresy?

Of democracy it is among the peculiar excellencies, that to good government in this form nothing of virtue, in so far as self-denial is an ingredient in virtue, is necessary. Such is the case, where the precious plant stands alone: no Upas tree, no clump of Machineel trees, to overhang it. But, in the spot in question, still live and flourish in conjunction both these emblems of misrule. Here then was, and still is, and will continue to be, a real demand for virtue: and here has the demand proved, as Adam Smith would say, an effectual one.

Shade of Hampden! look down, and in a host of tradesmen and shopkeepers, behold thy yet living and altogether worthy successors!

[a]Supposing this a speech spoken—hear him! hear him! would it not at this place be the cry from the opposite benches? Profound the discovery of the supposed confession—proportionably triumphant the exultation!

[a]By influence must surely have here been meant—not influence of understanding on understanding, the influence exercised by acknowledged wisdom on unexperienced probity—but the vile instrument commonly called and understood by this name; viz. the influence of will on will—the influence exercised by the double headed beast, whose name is terrorism and bribery.