The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Book I.
• Preface.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: General Division of the Aggregate Body of the Law.
• Chapter II.: Constitutional Law.
• Chapter III.: Civil Or Distributive Law. *
• Chapter IV.: Penal Law.
• Chapter V.: Procedure Law. †
• Chapter VI.: Financial Law.
• Chapter VII.: Prescriptions Or Bearings of the Other Codes Or Branches of Law, to the Constitutional Code.
• Chapter VIII.: Public-opinion Tribunal.
• Chapter IX.: Good Rule and Bad Rule.
• Chapter X.: Corruption.
• Chapter XI.: Delusion.
• Chapter XII.: Fiction.
• Chapter XIII.: Factitious Honour.
• Chapter XIV.: Established Religion—none.
• Chapter XV.: Supreme Constitutive.
• Chapter XVI.: Supreme Legislative.
• Chapter XVII.: Supreme Operative.
• Book II.
• Preface to the Original Edition of Book II.
• Chapter I.: Territory of This State, Name, Situation, Boundaries, Divisions.
• Chapter II.: Ends and Means.
• Chapter III.: Sovereignty, In Whom. *
• Chapter IV.: Authorities.
• Chapter V.: Constitutive Authority. *
• Chapter VI.: Legislature.
• Chapter VII.: Legislator’s Inaugural Declaration. *
• Chapter VIII.: Prime Minister.
• Chapter IX.: Ministers Collectively.
• Chapter X.: Defensive Force.
• Chapter XI.: Ministers Severally.
• Chapter XII.
• Chapter XIII.
• Chapter XV.
• Chapter XVI.: Quasi-jury.
• Chapter XVII.
• Chapter XVIII.
• Chapter XIX.: Government Advocate General.
• Chapter XX.: Eleemosynary Advocates.
• Chapter XXI.
• Chapter XXII.
• Chapter XXIII.
• Chapter XXIV.
• Chapter XXV.
• Chapter XXVI. *
• Chapter XXVII.
• Chapter XXVIII.
• Chapter XXIX.
• Chapter XXX.
• Chapter XXXI.
• Appendix.
• No. I.
• No. II.
• No. III.
• No. IV.
• No. V.
• No. VI.
• No. VII.
• No. VIII.

CHAPTER VI.

LEGISLATURE.

Section I.

Powers:—and Duties.

Enactive.

Art. I. The Supreme Legislature is omnicompetent. Coextensive with the territory of the state is its local field of service; coextensive with the field of human action is its logical field of service.—To its power, there are no limits. In place of limits, it has checks. These checks are applied, by the securities, provided for good conduct on the part of the several members, individually operated upon; as per section 31, Securities for appropriate aptitude.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 2. The power thus unlimited is that of the Legislature for the time being. To no anterior Legislature belongs any power, otherwise than by confirmation given to it by the Legislature for the time being. Dead men can neither fine, nor imprison, nor banish living ones.

Enactive.

Art. 3. But, in so far as nothing appears to the contrary, confirmation of the acts, of all anterior Legislatures, and of all authorities subordinate to them, takes place of course.

Enactive.

Art. 4. For the means employed for preserving Government engagements against violation. See Section 2, Responsibility.

Enactive.

Art. 5. The Supreme Legislative Authority has, for its immediate instrument, the Supreme Executive, composed of the administrative and the judiciary, acting within their respective spheres. On the will of the Supreme Constitutive the Supreme Legislative is dependent, as per Ch. v. Section 2, Powers. Absolute and all-comprehensive is this dependence. So also, on the will of the Legislature the will of the Executive, and the wills of the Sub-legislatures.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 6. Only by unalterable physical impotence, is the Supreme Legislature prevented from being its own executive, or from being the sole Legislature. The Supreme Legislature will not, to the neglect of its own duties, take upon itself any of those functions, for the apt exercise of which, when taken in the aggregate, those subordinate authorities alone, can, in respect of disposable time, appropriate knowledge, judgment, and active aptitude, have been provided with sufficient means. But, in case of non-performance, or unapt performance, or well-grounded apprehension of either,—to the exercise of no function of the Executive or the Sub-legislative authority can the Supreme Legislature be incompetent.—Unfaithfulness, yes: but to the Supreme Legislature, neither can usurpation nor encroachment be imputed.

Enactive. Expositive.

Art. 7. To those functions which belong exclusively to itself, the Legislature accordingly adds, in case of necessity, those which belong respectively to all those its several subordinates, as per the several ensuing Chapters.

Enactive. Expositive.

Art. 8. In those same Chapters may moreover be seen, so many exemplifications of the subjects, to which the attention and proceedings of the Legislature will, constantly or occasionally, be directed.

Enactive.

Art. 9. Separately or collectively, the Constituents of a Member of the Legislature will, at all times, as such, make to such their deputy what communication they think fit: to his cognitive faculty, to his judicative faculty, or even to his will, it may be addressed. But, in so far as the good of the community taken in the aggregate is the paramount object of his care, no obedience will he pay to any such particular will, to the detriment of what appears to him the universal interest. Paramount to his duty to a part is, on every occasion, his duty to the whole. An engagement, exacted of him by a part, would be an act of insubordination as towards the whole. It belongs not to him to judge until he has seen or heard. His will is commanded by his judgment, not his judgment by his will. Such contrariety may have place, without detriment to moral aptitude on either side. They may have good reason for dislocating him; he for exposing himself to be so dislocated.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 10. If, on this or that particular occasion, in the opinion of Constituents, or in the opinion of their Deputy, a conflict should have place between their particular aggregate interest and the national interest, he will not be considered as violating his duty to the public, by giving his vote in favour of that same particular interest. For, the national interest being nothing more than an aggregate of the several particular interests, if against that which has been regarded as being the national interest, there be a majority, this result will prove, that in the so declared opinion of that same majority, that, which had been spoken of as if it were the national interest, was not so. If, in support of that which, by a majority of his Constituents, is regarded as being their interest, there be not a majority in the Legislature, his vote will be of no effect; and, to the national interest, no evil will have been done by it. On the other hand, a practice, which in every case is evil, is insincerity: and in this case, by the supposition no good at all, therefore no preponderant good would be produced by it.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 11. Accordingly, if so it should happen, that, after speaking in support of an arrangement, which, in the opinion of his Constituents, is contrary to their particular interest, he gives his vote against that same arrangement,—in such conduct there is not any real inconsistency. By his speech, his duty to the public is fulfilled; by his vote, his duty to his Constituents.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 12. Moreover, what, on an occasion of this sort, may very well happen, is—that an arrangement which, in the eyes of Constituents, is detrimental to their interest, is not so: and vice versâ: and, in this case, his speech in support of the opposite arrangement may have the effect of working a change in their opinion; and on a succeeding occasion, causing them to concur with the arrangement supported by him, instead of opposing it.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 13. Variable at all times,—variable at the pleasure of the Legislature for the time being,—is every article in this and every other Code. For every moment of its duration, on its reasonableness, first in the eyes of the Legislative, then in the eyes of the Constitutive, is its sole dependence. Not to speak of years, if, for any one day, error could prudently be exempted from correction, so might it for every other. If the wisdom of to-day is superior to that of to-morrow, so may it be to that of every day, to the end of time. Blinded by prejudice must that man be who, assured that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday, holds himself not equally assured that to-morrow he may be wiser than to-day. Blinded by vanity or selfishness must that man be who, assured that in knowledge and judgment he is beyond those who are gone before him, holds not himself equally assured that, in those same endowments, those who come after him may be beyond him. By individual responsibility, as per section 2, Responsibility, sufficient is the security afforded against inconsiderate and groundless changes: a degree of security far superior to any which can be afforded by any Constitution by which correction of error is inhibited to or by the Legislature.

Section II.

RESPONSIBILITY.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 1. Of the Constitutive Authority, the constant will, (for such it cannot but be presumed to be,) is, that the national felicity—the happiness of the greatest number—be maximized: to this will, on each occasion, it is the duty of the Supreme Legislature, according to the measure of its ability, to give execution and effect.

Enactive.

Art. 2. If, on any occasion, any ordinance, which to some shall appear repugnant to the principles of this Constitution, shall come to have been enacted by the Legislature, such ordinance is not on that account to be, by any judge, treated or spoken of as being null and void: not even although its tendency, intended as well as actual, were to appear to him to be to diminish the mass of power hereby reserved to the Constitutive Authority. But if, of any such act, the tendency be anti-constitutional, as above, it may form an apt ground for an exercise to be given by the Electors, to their incidental dislocative, and punifactive functions, applying them respectively to such members of the Legislature, by whom motion, speech, or vote shall have been given in favour of the supposed anti-constitutional arrangement: and in any Judicatory, such, by the Judge principal, may any such act, on its coming regularly before him, be in his opinion declared to be.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 3. To the Constitutive Authority and, that alone, it belongs to enforce the observance of contracts entered into by the Legislature; and in one word to afford such redress as can be afforded to misdeeds, in whatever shape, perseveringly committed by the Legislature. A law, ordaining that, in no case, a contract entered into by the Legislature, shall remain in any part unperformed by it, would be alike inefficient to good purposes,—efficient to bad ones.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 4. A contract, if fit to be performed, was made for increase of felicity, not for lessening it. Be the contract what it may, prove that by non-observance of it, more felicity, all items taken into account, would be produced, than by observance, you prove that it ought not to be observed. If all contracts were to be observed, all misdeeds would be to be committed: for there is no misdeed, the committal of which may not be made the subject of a contract; and to establish in favour of themselves, or of any other person or persons, an absolute despotism, a set of Legislators would have no more to do than to enter into an engagement—say with a foreign despot, say with a member of their own community—for that purpose. A Monarch, that he may persevere in a course of depredation and oppression with the less disturbance, binds himself (suppose) to perpetuate it. An instrument has been contrived for this purpose. It is called an oath—a coronation oath. Propose to him to assuage the misrule, “Alas! my oath!” (he cries) “my oath!” and all who share or look to share in the profit of the misrule, join with him in chorus.

Enactive.

Art 5. In the case of a contract entered into by the Government with any person or persons belonging to this state, it will rest with the judiciary to take cognizance of it, as in a case between individual and individual. Yet, to a decision pronounced thereupon by the competent judicial authority, should the Legislature, by any ordinance, act in declared repugnance, such ordinance is not, on that account, to be regarded as null and void.

Enactive.

Art. 6. So, in the case of a contract with the government of any foreign state.

Enactive.

Art. 7. So, in the case of a contract with a subject of any foreign state.

Enactive.

Art. 8. But, in all three cases, apt grounds may have place for the exercise of the incidental dislocative function, on the part of the Constitutive Authority, as per Ch. v. Constitutive, section 2, Powers, at the charge of the Members, who have concurred in the breach of public faith: the dislocative function, with or without the punifactive.

Enactive.

Art. 9. For wrong, in any shape, alleged to have been done to any foreign government, whether by breach of contract or otherwise, such Government may have judicial remedy, by suit in the immediate judicatory of the Metropolis of the state; Defendant, the Government Advocate-General of this state.

Enactive.

Art. 10. Yet, on any such occasion, should any ordinance have been issued by the Legislature, in relation to the matter of such suit after the commencement thereof, it belongs not to any judge to omit giving execution and effect to that same ordinance.

Enactive.

Art. 11. But here, likewise, apt grounds may have place for the exercise of the remedial functions of the Constitutive Authority, as above.

Section III.

Powers as to Sub-legislatures.

Enactive.

Art. 1. In relation to the hereinafter-mentioned Sub-legislatures, the Supreme Legislature exercises the several functions, directive, corrective, arbitrative.

Enactive.

Art. 2. I. Directive function. In the exercise of this function, it gives, as often as it sees convenient, antecedent and preparatory direction to their several proceedings.

Enactive.

Art. 3. II. Corrective function. In the exercise of this function, it in like manner abolishes, reverses, amends, or causes to be amended, any of their ordinances, or other proceedings.

Enactive.

Art. 4. III. Arbitrative function. In the exercise of this function, as often as, between one Sub-legislature and another, contestation has place, it gives termination thereto by an appropriate arrangement.

Instructional.

Art. 5. In the case of a federal Government, here may be the place for appropriate alteration. The Sub-legislatures would be the Legislatures of the several states.

Section IV. Seats and Districts. See Election Code, section 1.*

Section V. Electors who. See Election Code, section 2.

Section VI. Eligible who. See Election Code, section 3, and below, section 25, Relocable who.

Section VII. Election Offices. See Election Code, section 4.

Section VIII. Election Apparatus. See Election Code, section 5.

Section IX. Recommendation of proposed Members—how promulgated. See Election Code, section 6.

Section X. Voters’ Titles, how pre-established. See Election Code, section 7.

Section XI. Election, how. See Election Code, section 8.

Section XII. Election Districts and Voting Districts, how marked out. See Election Code, section 9.

Section XIII. Vote-making Habitations, how defined. See Election Code, section 10.

Section XIV. Term of Service. See Election Code, section 11, Members’ Continuance; and in this Ch. section 22, Term of Service—Continuation.

Section XV. Vacancies, how supplied. See Election Code, section 12.

Section XVI. Security of the Assembly against Disturbance by Members. See Election Code, section 13.

Section XVII. Indisposition of Presidents, how obviated. See Election Code, section 14.

Section XVIII.

Attendance.

Enactive.

Art. 1. Exceptions excepted, the Legislature sits every day in the year. Exceptions are Vacation days. Vacation days are every seventh day; that is to say, every day of general rest. But urgency declared, sittings have place in Vacation days.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 2. A domestic servant is a servant of one: a Legislator is a servant of all. No domestic servant absents himself at pleasure, and without leave. The masters of the Legislator give no such leave. From non-attendance of a domestic servant, the evil is upon a domestic scale: of a Legislator, on a national scale. A Legislator is a physician of the body politic. No physician receives pay but in proportion to attendance. The physician has no vacation days.

Section XIX.

Remuneration.

Enactive.

Art. 1. Of a Member of the Legislature the pecuniary remuneration is [NA] per day. Added to this are the power and dignity inseparable from the office. Of ulterior emolument, receipt, if from unwilling hands, is extortion; if from willing ones, corruption: as to which, see Penal Code. For principles as to Official Remuneration, see Ch. ix. Ministers collectively. Section 15, Remuneration.

Section XX.

Attendance and Remuneration—how connected.

Enactive.

Art. 1. Into the Assembly Chamber there is but one entrance. The retiring rooms are behind and above. Committee rooms have other entrances.

Enactive.

Art. 2. Each day, on entrance into the Assembly Chamber, each member receives that day’s pay at the hands of the Door-keeper. In his view, and in that of the company in the Assembly Chamber, is a clock. On delivery of the pay, the Door-keeper stamps, in the Entrance and Departure Book, on the page of that day, the member’s name, adding the hour and minute.

Enactive.

Art. 3. No member departs without leave of the President, who, on a sign made by the departer, rings, by a string within his reach, a bell hanging near the Door-keeper, who, after stamping in the Entrance and Departure Book, on the page of that day, the member’s name, with the hour and minute, lets him out. (A retiring place, opening only into the Chamber, is of course supposed.)

Enactive.

Art. 4. Sick or well, for no day, on which he does not attend, vacation days excepted, does any Legislator receive his pay.

Enactive.

Art. 5. Under the direction of the hereinafter-mentioned Legislation Minister, is kept the Non-Attendance, or say Absentation Book. In it, from the Entrance and Departure Book, entry is made of the days on which the several absenting members have respectively absented themselves: and for the information of their respective constituents, he causes the result to be published in the Government newspaper on the next day, as also at the beginning of each month; and at the time when the Election Minister issues his mandates for the General Election, a summary of all the absentations of the last preceding Session under the names of the several absentees.

Enactive.

Art. 6. If, by sickness, a member has been prevented from attending, he, on the first day of his re-attendance, presents to the Door-keeper a sickness ticket, on which are marked the day or days of non-attendance, with an intimation of the nature of the sickness, authenticated by his name in his own hand-writing, and the attestation of a physician.

Enactive.

Art. 7. To clear a member from the suspicion of employing sickness as a pretence for avoiding to give his vote or speech, questions may be put to him and others, in the face of the Assembly, and observations made. For ulterior securities against non-attendance, see section 23, Self-suppletive function.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 8. A soldier, if he fails in his attendance, is punished as a deserter: punished with corporeal punishment: in England, with flogging or perhaps with death. Under this code, or any that is in consonance with it, in the case of no man, military or non-military, will punishment in either of those shapes be employed: for in neither is it needed. But, in this case, as in every other, whatever is needed, why should it not be applied?—and what can be milder than the simple withholding of reward in proportion as the service remains unperformed?

Ratiocinative.

Art. 9. If, how severe soever, such means, as are regarded as efficacious and necessary, are employed for securing the service, exacted, whether with or without his previous consent to the engagement, from a common soldier, in what higher situation, were they ever so severe, should measures equally efficacious, supposing them necessary, be grudged? And should not they be the less grudged, the higher the duties of the situation in the scale of importance?

Ratiocinative.

Art. 10. As between individual and individual, where it is by the quantity of time employed in service that the quantum of remuneration is measured—payment being made by the day, as in the case of a common labourer or artisan, or by the hour, as in the case of a professional instructor—in what case, unless on the score of pure charity, does any person think of paying or asking payment for any quantity of time, during which no service has been performed? Why then as between an individual and the public?

Ratiocinative. Instructional.

Art. 11. By usage, intermission of Legislative business has hitherto been everywhere established. But, by such usage, were it ever so many times as extensive as it is, the need of uninterrupted attendance would not be disproved. Whatsoever is, anywhere, the proportion of attendance actually given, the presumption indeed is, of course, that it is sufficient—sufficient for all purposes. But for this presumption there exists not, anywhere, any the smallest ground. From the bare consideration of the nature of the case, the assurance may be entire, that, in the state in question, whatsoever it be, evil effects of the most serious kind have been continually taking place: and, in almost any proportion, such effect may have had place without its being possible to trace them, or, at any rate, without their having in general been traced to their cause.

Instructional.

Art. 12. In political states other than the Anglo-American states—that is to say, in all mixed monarchies, non-attendance has had, for its obvious cause, the sinister interest of rulers.

Instructional.

Art. 13. These rulers are—1. The Monarch, with his more especial dependants; 2. His junior partners in the concern—the members of the aristocracy, and, in particular, those who have seats in any Legislative Chamber.

Instructional.

Art. 14. By the Monarch and his dependants more especially it is, that those vast gaps have been made which have had place between session and session, and which have for their efficient cause the operations called prorogation and adjournment: prorogation, avowedly the act of the Monarch himself; adjournment that of the Monarch, by the hands of those his agents.

Instructional.

Art. 15. In England, for example, by the act of the Monarch alone, about the half of the year is habitually taken from the public service: in this case, the act is called a prorogation, and to this defalcation is added that of a month, or more, taken at various times by the House of Commons: not to speak of the House of Lords: in this case, the act is called an adjournment.

Instructional.

Art. 16. The original object was, of course, as history shows, to extinguish the existence of these troublesome concurrents and sharers in the sweets of Government: that being found impracticable, the next object of wish and endeavour was, is, and will be, to minimize their action. Of the whole quantity of the time employed by them, a certain portion must of necessity, for the purpose, and under the direction of, the Monarch, be employed in going through the forms necessary to the extraction of money, and in such other business as the conjunct interest of the Monarch and the Aristocracy requires to be performed. For this purpose, whatsoever quantity of time is necessary, is by law always at his command. Upon all measures whatsoever, coming from any other quarter, and, in particular, all measures tending to the melioration of the constitution, an exclusion is put, of course, in whatever way may be most commodious; and the most commodious, because the least exposed to observation, is the making such disposal of the time as shall either prevent anything troublesome from being brought on the carpet, or, when on, from being finished. As to this, see Parliamentary Reform Catechism, vol. iii. p. 435.—Introduction.

Instructional.

Art. 17. In addition to power, which, together with ease, is thus obtained in the wholesale way, comes the ease, which is obtained in the retail way by non-attendance, at business-times, on the part of particular individuals. Hence comes the curious phenomenon. In the principal House for business, seats 658: number necessary to be filled to give validity to the proceedings, 40: every session, several times does it happen, that, for want of this necessary number, the day is lost to the public service. The President excepted, by whom (under the name of speaker) the business must be directed,—on no session, by any one member, has attendance on every day perhaps been ever paid: out of the 658, not one by whom, under this head, that has been done, which ought to have been done by every one. In addition to those who are paid by the over-paid offices, by which they are kept in a state of corruption,—chance having of late produced an individual by whom the public service, for which he was engaged, has for years been made his principal and gratuitous occupation; at the observation of such a phenomenon, every body continues lost in amazement. But power without obligation is the very definition of despotism: slavery the condition of those who are subject to it. Here, then, is a form of government, under which, by those who should be servants, those who should be masters are kept in a state which is by law a state of slavery: howsoever, by the healing hand of Public Opinion, the rigour of the despotism may be softened.

Instructional.

Art. 18. In the Anglo-American United States, although power is not eased of obligation, still, in this same form, is breach of constitutional duty suffered to have place. Of each year, on an average, not so much as two-fifths are occupied in fulfilment. Of this neglect, what can be the cause? Answer—unreflecting imitation: imitation, too, of an original, the general inaptitude of which affords, to those who have rid themselves of it, matter of such just and unceasing self-congratulation. True it is, that, in the copy, the individual and retail idleness is not, because for various reasons it cannot be, anything near so flagrant as in the original: but the aggregate and wholesale idleness is little less enormous.

Ratiocinative. Instructional.

Art. 19. When, in all situations in which the business is of subordinate importance, the attendance is so unintermitted,—why should it be less so in those in which the business is all-comprehensive, and the importance of it supreme?

Instructional.

Art. 20. Every year, in a tone of exultation, assuredly by no means ungrounded, the President, in his Message to Congress, reminds the people of the good done in the course of the last. One day may perhaps produce the opposite account: the account of the good, which, by blindness and idleness, has thus been left undone. But, by the phrase good left undone, much too favourable is the representation given of the effect. Of the good left undone, one portion—and that by far the most important—is composed of the exclusion that should have been put upon the evil—the extensive and positive afflictions which have thus been suffered to take place.

Instructional.

Art. 21. Amongst the accounts, thus given by authority, let there be one, for example, of the misery produced by tardiness, on the occasion of the adjustment of the state of the Insolvency laws, as between the central government and the several states: a matter which, to this day, 24th Jan. 1826, remains, after all, unadjusted.

Instructional.

Art. 22. For the inefficiency here mentioned, two more causes are visible: one is, that which belongs to the present head—the suffering so much to be unemployed: the other is, the suffering so much to be wasted in the commencement of businesses, the time employed in which is by the conclusion of the session turned to waste, for want of their being handed over by the outgoing to the incoming Legislature. As to this, see section 24, Continuation Committee.

Instructional.

Art. 23. As to the subsidiary obligations above provided, the more efficient, the less favourably, of course, will these chains be thought of and spoken of, by those for whose wear they are designed. But, at no less price can the effect be accomplished.

Instructional.

Art. 24. On architecture good Government has more dependence than men have hitherto seemed to be aware of. Those who wish not for absentation or untimely departure, from any seat of business, must not admit of multiplied or unobserved entrances and exits. Those who wish to exclude abuse from prisons, must not have a space in which either the behaviour of any prisoner, or the treatment he experiences, is not continually exposed to every desiring eye. Those Judges, whose wish it is to exclude inspectors from the seat of judicature, (and such of course have ever been all English Judges,) know well how powerless every other veto is, in comparison with that which the Architect alone can issue, and secure completely against non-observance.

Instructional.

Art. 25. Non-attendance is not the only cause of frustration and retardation in the provision for public exigencies. Another is the want of a supply for the involuntary deficiency created by death or sickness. For remedy, see section 23, Self-suppletive function. A third may be seen in the improvidence, or sinister providence, by which each successive Legislature is deprived of the benefit of all former work, commenced and left unfinished by its predecessor. For remedy, see section 24, Continuation Committee.

Section. XXI.

Sittings public and secret.

Enactive.

Art. 1. Special cause to the contrary excepted, the sittings of this Assembly are, at all times, public. The auditory is a committee of the Public-Opinion Tribunal, hearing and reporting for the information of the Constitutive.

Enactive.

Art. 2. So far as is consistent with convenience in respect of health, sight, hearing, minutation, and necessary intercommunication between actor and actor on the Legislation theatre, together with lodgment for requisite and appropriate furniture, this Constitution requires that the number of the members of the Public-Opinion Tribunal, to whom access and appropriate accommodation is given, be maximized.

Enactive.

Art. 3. To the hereinafter-mentioned Legislation Minister it belongs to keep a secret sitting-book. In it, in the case of a secret sitting, are entries made as follows:—

1. Year, month, and day of the motion for secrecy.

2. Names of movers, voters, and speakers for and against the secrecy.

3. Names, or initials, in their own handwritings respectively.

4. Alleged cause of the demand for secrecy.

Enactive.

Art. 4. If divulgation has not already had place, cognizance is taken, of course, by the next succeeding Legislature, of the truth and sufficiency of the allegations: if either be wanting, censure is passed on the members, by whom the secrecy was voted.

Enactive.

Art. 5. Then is the regular time for divulgation. But if the cause for secrecy subsists, divulgation may be referred to the same Legislature on some succeeding day of that year, or to the next succeeding Legislature: and so on from Legislature to Legislature.

Enactive.

Art. 6. For other cases for secrecy, as to the operation of public functionaries, see Ch. viii. Prime Minister. Section 11, Publication system.

Section XXII.

Term of Service—Continuation.

Ratiocinative. Instructional.

Art. 1. Exceptions excepted, the shorter the term of service in the Legislative Assembly can be rendered, consistently with the avoidance of precipitation and performance of duty, the better. For reasons, see section 23, Self-suppletive function, section 24, Continuation Committee, and section 25, Relocable who.

Instructional.

Art. 2. Exception may be, if in any part of the territory of the State there be Districts, one or more, so situated in respect of remoteness from the seat of legislation, and difficulty of travelling taken together, that, by the time consumed in the journey, too great a difference would be made between those Districts and the others, in respect of means of giving information to, and support to their interests in, the Legislative Assembly.

Instructional.

Art. 3. Note that, on this occasion, the time necessarily expended in the giving and receiving information, as between the Legislature and the constituted Authorities and individuals residing in the remote Districts, in relation to exigencies peculiar to these districts, is the only time which, in the nature of the case, needs, to this purpose, to be taken into account. For, as to the regular time of election, if as per section 25, Relocable who, the Members who have sitten on any year are excluded from relocability in the next, the day of universal vacancy being always foreseen and predetermined, the first of the days occupied in the election process may, without difficulty, be appointed to be as many days anterior to that same day,—as including the time occupied in the journey from the District to the seat of Legislature, shall be sufficient to secure the timely arrival of the elected Deputy at the seat of Legislature. Thus much as to the regularly recurring vacancies: as to the accidental vacancies, caused by death, resignation, or dislocation, replenishment will be seen effectually secured by section 23, Self-suppletive function.

Instructional.

Art. 4. Supposing these arrangements thus settled,—Elections may just as well take place, in virtue of a pre-established and continued general regulation, as in virtue of a special mandate offered by an individual functionary, such as the Election Minister, as per Election Code, and Ch. xi. Ministers severally. Section 1, Election Minister. Indeed much better: for when the performance of a process or operation is made, or left, dependent upon the act of a public functionary, or, in a word, on the act of any person whatever, it is left liable to be prevented by any one of a variety of accidents as also by sinister design on the part of that same functionary, with or without concert with others.

Instructional.

Art. 5. In Monarchies it was that the Representative, or say, the Deputation system, originated. Of course, under such a form of government, no such process as that of deputation to a common assembly could be commenced, otherwise than in consequence of, and in conformity to, the will of the Monarch, as promulgated on some particular day, by a known servant of his, appointed for this purpose. Hence the need of Election authorizing-and-commencing mandates.

Instructional.

Art. 6. In no one of the several Anglo-American United States is the term of service in the Legislative Assembly more than one year. In one of them, Connecticut, it is, or was, no more than half a year. In the General Congress it is two years. The difference has for its obvious cause the consideration of distance. Had the considerations mentioned, and expedients referred to, in Art. 3, occurred, would or would not the length of the term of service have in that case been thus doubled?

Section XXIII.

Self-suppletive function.

Enactive. Expositive.

Art. 1. Self-suppletive function. To every Deputy is communicated, by the act of Election, the power of locating and keeping located, upon and for every occasion, some person of his own choice, to act in all things in his stead, at what time soever he is incapable of acting for himself, or does not act. To every Deputy accordingly belongs this power, together with the obligation of keeping it in exercise.

Enactive.

Art. 2. Compensationally, punitionally, and dislocationally responsible, is the Deputy for the acts of this his substitute.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 3. Exceptions excepted, locable as a Deputy’s Substitute is every person who is locable as deputy.

Exception 1. Another member of the same Legislature. For, to a person so situated, though the power of giving a vote over and above his own might be communicated,—the power of making a speech over and above his own, or a motion over and above his own, could not.

Enactive.

Art. 4. By the Legislation Minister will be kept a set of blank Substitution Instruments. On each occasion, one of these instruments, filled up and signed by the Deputy, and signed by the Substitute, is, on his entrance into the Assembly Chamber, delivered by him to the Door-keeper: as to whom, see section 20, Attendance and Remuneration, &c.

Enactive.

Art. 5. To provide against casual inability on the part of the Deputy, as to the locating a Substitute in time for the occasion,—every Deputy, previously to his taking his seat in the Assembly Chamber, lodges, in the office of the Legislation Minister, a Substitution instrument, in favour of some person appointed to act as his permanent Substitute; the instrument being filled up and signed by himself, and signed by the substitute, who thereby engages to keep himself within reach, in readiness to attend on requisition. But, to such permanent Substitute may, on each occasion, as above, be substituted an occasional Substitute.

Enactive.

Art. 6. On timely information received, that on the then next, or any succeeding sitting day, the Deputy in question will certainly or probably not be able to pay attendance,—the Legislation Minister will cause to be summoned the above-mentioned Substitute: or the information may be given to the Substitute immediately, with or without its being given to the Legislation Minister: if dated and signed by the person giving it, it may be given either by the Deputy himself or by any other member of the Legislature, or by any other person sufficiently known to the Deputy.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 7. Question 1. Why thus make provision of a substitute to each deputy?

Answer. Reasons. I. Whatsoever need or use there is for a Deputy to act as member of the body in question, on any one day of the session,—the same there will be, for anything that can be known to the contrary, on every other.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 8. II. Whatsoever arrangements can, as above, be taken, as per section 20, Attendance, &c., for securing plenitude of attendance on the part of the Deputy,—to render them completely effectual, without provision made of an eventual substitute, is not possible. Witness definitive vacancy by death, incurable infirmity, resignation, or dislocation: witness occasional vacancy, or say non-attendance, involuntary through sickness, voluntary through any one of an inscrutable multitude of causes. By the arrangements proposed in this section, this plenitude would be rendered complete and never-failing: every seat having daily a member duly authorized to fill it.

Ratiocinative. Expositive.

Art. 9. III. For want of this desirable plenitude, a mode of corruption has at all times been carried on to an indefinite extent: corruption, effectually safe, not only as against punishment at the hands of legal tribunals, but against scrutiny and censure at the hands of the Public-Opinion Tribunal. A man whom, had he been in attendance, the apprehension of that censure would have engaged to vote on the right side,—absents himself, and thereby, though he does not give to the wrong side the whole benefit of his vote, deprives the right side of it, and this, without any check to hinder him,—gives thus, on every occasion, to the wrong side half the benefit of a vote given in favour of that same wrong side. Corruption, where the purpose of it is thus executed, may be distinguished by the name of semi-corruption or say absentation corruption. Happily, though in this form it cannot with certainty be punished,—yet what is much better, it may, in the way that will be seen, be, with adequate certainty, prevented.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 10. IV. Prevention of fluctuation. In Legislative and other bodies, instances are not uncommon where the same measure has, by one and the same body, without any change in the number or sentiments of the Members, been alternately adopted and rejected: those who are in a majority one day finding themselves in a minority another day: hence confusion and uncertainty in the minds and actions of all persons whose interests are thus disposed of. Where attendance is optional, there are no assignable limits to the magnitude of the evil thus produced, nor to the frequency of its recurrence. By the plenitude here secured, evil in this shape would altogether be excluded.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 11. V. Saving of solicitations of attendance:—solicitations, with the accompanying vexation, consumption of individual’s time, and sometimes even delay to public measures.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 12. VI. Thus, and for the first time, will the aggregate will actually expressed, be rendered constantly identical with the aggregate will which, on the occasion of all Elections of Deputies, to a Legislative or other representative assembly, is not only intended to be expressed, and almost as generally, howsoever erroneously, regarded as being actually expressed. Thus will an undesirable and reproachful distinction be obliterated: an imperfection, hitherto submitted to as if it were inherent in the constitution of a body of the sort in question, cleared away.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 13. VII. For want of this remedy,—questions, to the number and importance of which no limit can be assigned, must for their decision, have been dependent on accident: on accident in an unlimited variety of shapes, of which sickness, though a principal one, is but one. Apply this security, the power of accident, over this case is at an end.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 14. Question 2. Why give the suppletive power to the Deputy, instead of reserving it to his Constituents?

Answer. Reasons. I. If the Constituents are the only persons to whom the power of providing the supply is given, the supply cannot ever be adequate; and the mode of making it cannot but be productive of divers evil effects; whereas, if the power be given to the Deputy, the supply may be rendered surely adequate, no such evil effects will be produced, and divers positive good effects will be produced.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 15. II. In this way, the adequacy of the supply may be, and by the here proposed arrangements, naturally will be, made perfectly sure. The Deputy, in case of his non-attendance, is made responsible for the attendance of a Substitute. This he may be without difficulty. The seat of the Legislature being naturally the metropolis of the State,—its sittings, as per section 18, Attendance, unintermitted, and the metropolis the principle seat of business in the State,—the influx into it, on one account or other, from all the districts, naturally abundant and constant,—and in particular the influx of men who, in respect of condition in life, will be among the most apt for the situation in question—and these very arrangements furnishing an additional inducement for such influx,—all these things considered, any want of apt persons, ready, for the sake of the benefit, to take upon themselves the burthen, seems not in any degree to be apprehended.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 16. III. On the part of the eventual Substitute, if located by the Deputy, the attendance, in case of temporary non-attendance on the part of the Deputy, is more effectually secure, than if he were located by the Constituents in an immediate way, as above, it could be. The Substitute, being resident on the spot, will on every occasion be within call of the Deputy; and, the Deputy being bound for attendance on that same occasion,—thus, between the one and the other, adequate motives are accompanied by adequate means.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 17. IV. Suppose the Substitute located by the Constituents,—no such assurance of constancy in the supply can be obtained. By whatsoever causes, as above, non-attendance on the part of the Deputy is producible, by these same so is it on the part of the Substitute. Substitutes, more than one, could not be proposed to be sent along with the Deputy: and whatsoever greater number could be proposed to be so sent, still the assurance could not be entire. True it is, that the above-mentioned course—of taking for the Substitute a person resident at the seat of service, would be open to their choice. But it would not be likely to be uniformly adopted: for, if permanently resident at that same seat of service, he would not be known to them: and if, in the case of this or that District, there were any such known person,—in the case of this or that other there would not be. At the best, the number that could be thus located—located to serve throughout the session—would be thus limited: whereas, to the number that could be located, one after another, as occasion called, by the Deputy, there are no limits.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 18. V. Suppose, however, an eventual Substitute located by the constituents. In the case of a vacancy, on the part of either Deputy or Substitute, here would be a demand for a fresh election. But, while the process of election was going on,—here would be but one of the two on the spot, and during that time there would be the same danger of want of attendance, as if no such provision of an eventual Substitute had been made.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 19. VI. On this supposition, too, comes the vexation and expense of the Election: loss of time on the part of all who attend: expense of journey to and fro and demurrage, on the part of many: and, from all this loss, no assignable advantage in any shape obtained.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 20. VII. Antecedent to the close of the Session, which, under the here proposed annuality of Election, is the same thing with the death of the Legislature,—there would be a certain number of days occupied by the Election process: during this time, the vacancy would of necessity remain unsupplied.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 21. VIII. So likewise, a greater number of days, during which a still longer vacancy would be produced by another cause. The utmost service that could be looked for at the hands of a new Member or Substitute, in the course of so short a time, would be regarded as not capable of compensating for the vexation and expense of the Election process, as above.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 22. IX. If the provision of a Substitute be made by the Electors, it must be at an expense charged upon the public: if by the Deputy himself, it may be made without expense: in the metropolis, for as many days in the year as can present the demand, sufficiently apt men in sufficient number, able and willing to serve, for so many different portions of so short a length of time, in so high a situation, without pecuniary retribution,—and taken together for the whole of it, one after another,—never can be wanting. Then, as to pay,—suppose the Substitute paid, and paid by the public, his pay will require to be at least equal to that of his Principal. It will, in truth, require to be greater; for, to that same Principal belongs the whole of the power; to the Substitute no part at all, except such, if any, as the Principal feels the desire, or lies under the necessity, of imparting to him: which is what can no otherwise be done, than by forbearing himself to exercise it. This being the case, if a Substitute, engaging for constancy of attendance, can be had gratis, much more can the Principal—the Deputy; and whatsoever pay, if any be necessary, suffices for the Substitute, still less will suffice for that same Principal.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 23. X. Positive good effects that afford a promise of being produced by this arrangement are as follows:—

1. Increase given to appropriate aptitude in all its branches, by admission given to persons who otherwise would have stood excluded. A person who, though in respect of such his aptitude, is the object of universal confidence, would, through old age or infirmity, have been incapacitated from, or disinclined to, the subjecting himself to any such constancy of attendance as is as above required under the notion of its being indispensable,—may, by the here proposed relief, be disposed to take upon himself the trust.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 24. XI. So, in like manner, a person who, though recommended to the notice and favour of the Electors by pre-eminent pecuniary responsibility, would otherwise, by the indolence naturally attendant on opulence, be deterred. In this case, as in the former, the natural subject of the proposed Deputy’s choice would be some person, by whose appropriate aptitude, in the situation of Substitute, honour would, in the opinion of the Depute, be done to that same choice.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 25. XII. In both these cases, an opening is made for new men, in whose instance a special promise of appropriate aptitude is afforded; afforded, and, by means and motives, beyond such as are likely to have place on the part of a majority of the Electors.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 26. XIII. Attached to the situation of Deputy, here, in both these cases, would be patronage: and from this patronage, the value of the situation would, in the eyes of candidates and competitors, receive increase. True it is, that, in other cases, patronage is a source and instrument of corruption: not so in this case. In no shape is any advantage given, which is not altogether dependent upon the free will of the people in the quality of Electors. In the case of the approved and respected patron, may be seen a promise of moral, in that of the opulent patron, of pecuniary responsibility; in that of the subject of their choice, a promise of appropriate intellectual and active aptitude.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 27. What is above, considered,—it may be worth further consideration, whether it might not, with advantage and safety, be left at the option of every Deputy, whether to attend in his own person or by such his Substitute: attendance, on the part either of the one or the other, being unremittingly enforced. As to the public, it has been seen that it would be likely to be a gainer by this indulgence: and, it does not appear, whence suffering or danger in any shape can come: as to the individuals in question, the advantage, in various shapes, to them is obvious and out of dispute.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 28. For distinction’s sake, that is to say, for pointing, in a more particular manner, the eyes of the people upon the conduct of the Substitutes, and in this point of view upon that of their respective locators,—might it not be of use that they should wear some conspicuous habiliment? for example, across the shoulders a broad ribbon, on which are marked, in universally conspicuous letters, their official denominations?

Instructional.

Art. 29. So also, in the case of the Members of the proposed Continuation Committee; as to whom, see section 24, Continuation Committee.

Enactive.

Art. 30. On every day, on which the seat of any Member in the Assembly shall have remained vacant, neither the Deputy, nor any Substitute of his being on service,—notice of such absentation will, by the Registrar, be entered in the register of the assembly; and placards in sufficient number forthwith transmitted to the Election Clerk of the District, by whom they will be posted up on the outside of his official edifice, in conspicuous situations appropriated to the purpose.

Enactive.

Art. 31. If, within [7] days after such day of default, no Excuse paper, stating the inevitable cause of such vacancy, shall have been delivered in to the Registrar,—information of such further default will be transmitted by him to the Election Clerk in his District; and, at the same time, to the Election Minister, at the seat of the Assembly. On the receipt thereof, the Minister will forthwith transmit to the Election Clerk his mandate, ordering for the district in question, a fresh election. For the excuses, allowable on different occasions, for failure of attendance and other compliances where and when due, see the Procedure Code.

Enactive.

Art. 32. If an Excuse paper, as above, be delivered in,—the Assembly will, in the first place, pronounce as to the sufficiency or insufficiency of the excuse. In case of its insufficiency, the Legislature will give orders for a fresh election, as above; and as to the Substitute, who likewise will, in this case, have made default, it will either content itself with rendering the default universally known by appropriate publication, or in case of need proceed to punishment, as per section 28, Legislation Penal Judicatory.

Section XXIV.

Continuation Committee.

Enactive. Ratiocinative. Instructional.

Art. 1. Lest, by the exit of Members, by whom introduction or support has been given to useful arrangements, any such arrangement should, after proposal and acceptance, be lost or deteriorated,—as also lest the appropriate intellectual and active aptitude produced by experience should, by such secession, be rendered less than, without prejudice to appropriate moral aptitude,—to wit, to length of exposure to corruption from the Executive,—it may thus be made to be,—each Legislature, antecedently to its outgoing, will elect a Committee, the Members of which,—to the number of from [seven] to [twenty-one,] or more,—will, under the name of the Continuation Committee, under the direction of the Legislature, apply their endeavours, collectively or individually, in the next succeeding legislature, to the carrying on of the designs and proceedings of the then next preceding Legislature, in an unbroken thread.

Enactive.

Art. 2. Locable in the Continuation Committee is, in each year, not only every Member of the outgoing Legislature, but every Member of the Continuation Committee, serving in that same Legislature. Thus may any person serve as a Continuation Committee-man for any number of successive years.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 3. A Continuation Committee-man has, for the above purpose, on every occasion, right of argumentation and initiation, or say of speech and motion: but, not having been elected by the people, he has not a vote.

Enactive.

Art. 4. Subject to any such alteration as the Legislature may at any time think fit to make, the pay of a Continuation Committee-man is the same as that of a Deputy.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 5. Question 1. Why make provision for the continuation of proceedings, which, having been commenced under one Legislature, would otherwise have been dropped, for want of being continued under the next?

Answer. Reasons. I. If for this purpose, no provision were made, useful arrangements, to the importance, extent, or number of which no limits can be assigned, may experience a delay, to which also no limits can be assigned. Say Time lost.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 6. II. Others, of which at the time the need may in any degree have been, or even may continue urgent, may, by some temporary accident, be prevented from even being so much as proposed. Say Good measures lost.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 7. III. In whatever instance, in the hope of consummation, proceedings, having been instituted, have by the extinction of the Legislature been left unfinished,—here is so much of the time employed in them consumed in waste. Say Functionaries’ time wasted.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 8. IV. True it is—that, in this case, though the legislative arrangements, with a view to which the proceedings were commenced, have not taken place,—yet, in the course of these same proceedings, information more or less valuable will commonly have been obtained. But, on the other hand, in so far as information, elicited on behalf of a proposed arrangement, has not been accompanied with such information as, in case of completion would have been elicited in opposition to it—here comes a proportionable danger, that the information thus obtained will be more or less delusive. Say Delusive information probabilized.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 9. V. Arrangements, to the extent, number, and importance of which no limit can be assigned may,—in consideration of the length of time that would be necessary to the bringing to maturity the body of information necessary to constitute an adequate ground,—be precluded from being ever initiated, proposed, or so much as mentioned. The more extensive and important the arrangements, the more protracted the preparation will naturally be conceived to be: and the more protracted it is conceived to be, the more perfectly will all prospect of consummation be excluded. Say Improvement prevented from being so much as conceived.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 10. VI. The shorter the life of the legislative body, the greater the evil in its above several shapes. Under the present proposed Code, this life is limited to a single year; or, in case of necessity, produced by distance of some parts of the territory from the seat of legislation, to, at the utmost, two years; and, the greater this distance, the greater will naturally be the length of time necessary to give completeness to the information.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 11. VII. As the same Continuation Committee-man may be relocated by successive Legislatures in any number, there will be no limit but that of his life to the quantity of experience thus placed at their command.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 12. VIII. True it is—that, in the practice of nations, no instance of any such provision is adducible. But, the absence of it may, without difficulty, be accounted for by other suppositions than that of its needlessness: to wit, by the vis inertiæ of government, by the natural blind continuance in the course continued in by predecessors, and by sinister interest, and interest-begotten prejudice, on the part of rulers.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 13. IX. In the earliest ages, printing being unknown, writing—a jewel in the hands of the extremely few, travelling moreover unsafe and tedious, means of eliciting any such extensive body of information in a permanent shape were unattainable: in succeeding ages, when bodies having a sort of momentary and precarious share in legislation, were brought together, it was under the spur of temporary necessity for some one or two limited purposes:—commonly for no other but the obtaining a pecuniary supply: their convener, a Monarch, who, when once the purpose was accomplished, felt no motives for continuing, but the most irresistible ones for dismissing, as quickly as possible, such troublesome associates.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 14. Question 2. Why not give to the Members of these Committees the right of voting?

Answer. Reasons. I. To the purpose for which the institution is proposed, that right is neither necessary nor subservient: Servants, not fellow Masters, these functionaries stand in this respect on the same footing with Ministers, to whom speech and motion without vote is given, as per Ch. ix. Ministers collectively. Section 24, Legislation—regarding functions.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 15. II. Though, for the year during which they serve as Deputies with votes, they will have been chosen by their proper Constituents,—they will not have been chosen, by those same or any other Electors, for any one of the succeeding years, during which the need of their services, in the character of Continuation Committee-men, may come to have place.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 16. III. For as much as, to the purpose in question, it may be necessary that the number of them should not be fixed,—the consequence is—that if they had votes, the power of keeping the number of the Members of the Legislature in continued fluctuation would be, in case of such non-fixation, possessed by whatsoever authority they were located by.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 17. IV. Supposing, as above, the right of voting not imparted to them,—they may, without difficulty or ground of objection, be located by their own colleagues, who, on this supposition, are, as will be seen, their only apt locators.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 18. Question 3. Why thus give to their colleagues the location of these functionaries?

Answer. Reasons. I. In the possession of these their colleagues will be the best evidence, whereon to pass judgment on their appropriate aptitude in all its branches: and in particular in the intellectual and the active, being those which, in their instance, are principally in demand: while, by their non-possession of the right of voting, will be obviated all danger and objection, on the score of any such deficiencies of appropriate moral aptitude, as might otherwise be the result of their length of continuance in office: a length which, after this precaution, may without danger be maximized. Influence of will on will, none: influence of understanding on understanding will be their sole influence.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 19. II. In the possession of these their colleagues alone, will moreover be the evidence, whereon to judge of the nature and probable quantity, of the business for which their assistance will be needed, and thence of the number of them which that business may require.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 20. III. The choice of Committee-men out of their own associates has, by universal need, been rendered the universal practice, on the part of the legislative and other numerous bodies.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 21. IV. Take here for emblem Sisyphus and his stone. Sinister policy joins with ignorance and heedlessness in perpetuating the useless torment. The Continuation Committee system applies to the stone a board, which detains it at its maximum of elevation, and the next impulse given to it lodges it on the desired eminence.

Section XXV.

Relocable who.

Enactive.

Art. 1. No person who, for any District, has sitten as a Member of the Legislature, can, for that or any other District, be in that situation, relocated, unless, and thence until, of the persons who have served as Members, there exists at the time, a number thrice [or twice?] as great as that of the whole number of the Members, of whom the Legislative Body is composed.

Enactive.

Art. 2. For the ascertaining, on each occasion, the existence of this necessary number, it will be among the functions of the Legislation Minister, having before him the list of the Members of the Legislature, to keep account, and for the several years to mark off, as the occurrences take place, the several quondam Members, who, by death or otherwise, have become definitively unrelocable.

Enactive.

Art. 3. For reasons for Art. 2, and for the locability of a Member in the Continuation Committee of the next year, see section 24, Continuation Committee.

Ratiocinative. Instructional.

Art. 4. A position, upon which the here-proposed arrangement is grounded, is—that, without non-relocability—and that for a term sufficient to present to the Electors two sets at least of competitors, the number of whom, when added together, shall be little or nothing less than the double of that of the situations to be filled,—any supposed opening, for improvement or correction of abuse, will be but illusory: for that, unless it be in a number insufficient to produce any effect, the set of men located at the first Election will, to every practical purpose, continue in place, on all subsequent Elections; just as they would have done had there never been any Elections by which they could be dislocated.

Ratiocinative. Instructional.

Art. 5. If the number of persons capable of being competitors be short of this,—all the effect, produced by the elimination and election process, will be,—the adding to the original number of the acting managers, a certain number of dormant ones, who will be all along sharers in the latent profits of the power, without being sharers in the responsibility attached to the open exercise of it.

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 6. Joint proprietors of a fund, for whatever purpose established, suppose an indefinite and ever-changing number, having for its limits the original number of the transferable shares. Number of original managers during the first year of the institution, say, for example, twenty-four: of these, eighteen stay in, without re-election; six only go out, and that of course, the first year, giving place, consequently, to six new ones, and so in every succeeding year. Of this arrangement, what is the result? Answer: Every year after the first,—total number, instead of twenty-four, thirty: whereof, twenty-four in possession: six others in expectancy only, but that expectancy sure. Thus is the election no more than an empty show: no proprietor, besides the six managers in expectancy, seeing any the least chance of his being elected, should he offer himself: accordingly, no such offer is ever made: whole number—thirty—revolve in a cycle, consisting of a short arithmetical repetend in the form of a circulate.

Exemplificational. Instructional.

Art. 7. In every instance in which the sort of arrangement in question has place, the truth of this theory stands demonstrated by experience. Witness the case of the East India Company: witness that of the Bank of England Company: witness that of the several minor companies, too numerous for enumeration, which have been organized upon the model of those two gigantic ones.

Exemplificational. Instructional.

Art. 8. In the case of the City of London, and its governing body, the Common Council, it stands exemplified, and receives a still stronger confirmation: in that case, the seats—not merely in a small proportion, as above, but the whole number—are at all Election times open, and the Elections have place in every year: yet, in the whole number, rarely indeed, except by death or resignation, does any change take place. Of this stagnation, what is the consequence? Answer:—What it cannot fail to be anywhere: imbecility, corruption—inaptitude in a word in every shape, comparison laid with the aptitude which might securely be substituted to it, by the here-proposed all-comprehensive temporary non-relocability system: and assuredly not at any less price.

Instructional.

Art. 9. For proof or disproof of this same position, the case of the Anglo-American United Congress, with its House of Representatives and Senate, presents another obvious and proper object of reference. But, in that case, circumstances occur which would render the examination tedious, and the result undecisive. The case is there a complicated one, complicated with that of the general system of government and state of society in other particulars: and where simple cases are sufficiently decisive, it would be lost labour to dwell on complicated ones: it would not have been mentioned but to show that it has not been overlooked.

Instructional.

Art. 10. For the same reason, nothing more is here said of the French Chamber of Deputies, under the Charter, with its provision for the annual elimination of one-fifth.

Instructional.

Art. 11. The same reason will serve for similar silence, on the present occasion, as to the case of the English House of Commons.

Instructional.

Art. 12. In conclusion, where for each situation, there are not at least two candidates, standing upon tolerably equal ground, all appearance of choice is, in a greater or less degree, illusory.

Instructional.

Art. 13. The contrivance has for its model that of the Juggler. Holding up a pack of cards, with the faces to the company,—“Young gentleman,” (says he to one of them) “fix upon which you please;” care being all the while taken that one and one alone shall be in such sort visible, as to give determination to choice.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 14. Question 1. Why, during the time proposed, or for so much as any one session, exclude all persons who have served as Deputies, from serving again?

Answer. Reasons. I. Because from undiscontinued relocability, evil effects naturally flow, as will be seen, in all shapes.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 15. II. To the public, whatever good could be expected from undiscontinued relocability, and undiscontinued relocatedness in consequence, is ensured, with addition, and without any evil, by the Continuation Committee institution, as above.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 16. III. As to individual Deputies, no evil in any shape would be produced—no pain of privation—no disappointment: since no sooner did any one of them look to the situation, than the limits to his continuance in it would meet his eyes. True it is, that, in the case of a person whom the commencement of the authority of this Code might find in the possession of the situation in question, the exemption from uneasiness would not have place: and from this circumstance a proportionable obstruction to such commencement could not but reasonably be expected.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 17. IV. As to the evil effects from undiscontinued relocability, they have for their immediate cause the probabilization of relative inaptitude in all shapes, on the part of the relocated functionary.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 18. V. First, as to the inaptitude correspondent and opposite to appropriate aptitude in all shapes taken together. Under the circumstances in question, the undiscontinued relocability wants very little, scarce anything at all in effect and practice, of being tantamount to location for life: in the eyes of Electors in general, as well as their Deputies, non-re-election will have the effect of dislocation. The Deputy who has served his one year has, at the Election of the second year, possession to plead, and his services that have been performed in the course of that same first year. Be those services ever so slender, no equal plea can be put in by a competitor, who not having served at all, has not had the possibility of rendering any such services.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 19. VI. Next, as to moral inaptitude in particular. In the natural course of things, this disqualification, so far as it is constituted by corruptedness, will be universal. Corruptees, these same relocated Members: corruptors, with or without design, in the superior regions, the two great givers of good gifts—the Prime Minister, and the Justice Minister: in the inferior regions, the leading men among each deputy’s electors.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 20. VII. Matter of corruption, the aggregate of these same good gifts, attached to the several official situations, as to which they are locators: elements of this aggregate—Contents of this cornucopia, money, money’s worth, power, (power of patronage included,) and reputation, comprising whatsoever dignity, or say distinction, stands inseparably attached to these same situations: the two other ingredients in the official cornucopia of a Monarchy—to wit, ease at the expense of duty, and vengeance at the expense of justice being, it is hoped, excluded pretty effectually from that of the present proposed Constitution, by various appropriate arrangements, pervading the whole texture of it.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 21. VIII. Efficient cause of corruption in this case, expectation of the eventual receipt of some portion or portions of that same matter, in case of compliance with the several wills, declared or presumed, of the corruptors.

Here, as elsewhere, let it never be out of mind—it is not so much by the actual receipt of these objects of desire that the corruptedness is produced, as by the eventual expectation of them: for by the receipt in one instance, it is not produced any otherwise than in so far as receipt is necessary to engender and keep alive expectation in other instances.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 22. IX. Corruptees, per contrà, those same corruptors above-mentioned. Elements of the matter of corruption in their situations—1. Increase of power; 2. Diminution of responsibility—restrictive, or say refrenative, responsibility.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 23. X. Thus in the superior regions: in the inferior regions, Corruptors the leading men among the Electors: matter of corruption, the benefit of their influence with those their colleagues. Corruptees per contrà, those same leading men. Elements of the matter of corruption in their situation: 1. Such portions of the matter of corruption as are of too little value to be objects of concupiscence to the Deputies for themselves or their connexions: 2. Gratification, from courtesy and flattery received and expected from their Deputies, in consideration of the support received or expected: 3. Benefit to the particular local interest, or supposed interest, of the District they belong to, at the expense of the general interest of the State.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 24. XI. Correspondent per contrà corruptees in this case, these same corruptors. Matter of corruption in this case, 1. at the hands of the eventually re-elected Deputy, expectation of good things of minor value, not good enough to be worth the acceptance of Deputies or their connexions, and thus obtainable from the favour of the above-mentioned Arch-corruptors: 2. Expectation of courtesy and flattery at the hands of these same Deputies, in return for the favours looked for by them, as above. As to the good things just mentioned, the original source from which they will in great part, perhaps in most part, be looked for, is the favour of the Arch-corruptor above-mentioned: the channel through which they will be regarded as flowing, being the favour of the several also above-mentioned Sub-corruptors.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 25. XII. Under the influence of this corruption, the greater number of the members will naturally be found belonging to one or other of two classes: those who have nothing but votes to sell, and those who, besides votes, have talents to sell. As to comparative prices; of the vote-seller, the price will not deviate much from uniformity: of the talent-seller, the price will not only rise above that of the vote-seller, but swell to an amount to which no determinate limit can be assigned: no limit other than that which bounds the aggregate value of all that the above-mentioned arch-givers of good gifts have to bestow, and that which, for himself and his connexions of all sorts, the Deputy in question is capable of receiving. As to the talents, they may be distinguished into talents for speaking and talents for management. As between these, the highest price will, in general, be obtained by the talents for speaking, these being at once the more rare, and by much the more conspicuous.

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 26. Thus, on this part of the moral world, is the attraction of corruption not less universal than the attraction of gravity in the physical world: and, in the present case, every year, the cohesion of which the matter of corruption is the cement, will be closer than in all former years.

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 27. As is the blood of man to the tiger who has once tasted of it, so are the sweets of office to the functionary who has once tasted of them. Seldom by anything but hopelessness of re-enjoyment will the appetite be extinguished.

Instructional.

Art. 28. But, though the power of the matter of corruption is naturally thus efficient, some length of time, different according to idiosyncrasy and other circumstances, will be necessary to the production of the effect: for, though, for the formation of the virtual contract, converse and particular explanations between the parties may be unnecessary,—not so such means of acquaintance with one another’s dispositions as are requisite to form a ground for practice; and, for the obtainment of this information, a certain length of time is generally necessary. Hence, in the antisceptic regimen, one general rule. In the case of every two functionaries whose situations operate upon each other with a corruptive influence, minimize the time of contact. But for this resource, all endeavours to obviate the contagion might be hopeless: but, this resource being at command, the case is by no means desperate.

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 29. Emblem, the red hot roller, under which, for smoothing, a stuff is passed without injury. Allow to the time of contact a certain increase, the stuff is in a flame.

Instructional.

Art. 30. Of the principle here in question, ulterior application will be seen made, in so far as the nature of the case admits; and in particular in the Judiciary department. See Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively, section 17, Migration.

Instructional.

Art. 31. Though, to the extent to which it is applicable with advantage, the principle has not perhaps been applied in any country,—there is not perhaps any in which, more or less application has not been made of it.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 32. Of the sole reason for the undiscontinued relocability system, on the ground of utility, the essence is contained in the word experience. But, on the occasion here in question, the idea commonly attached to this word wants much of being clear or sufficiently comprehensive.—Experience is applicable to two different situations—1. To that of the Deputies; 2. To that of the Electors. On this occasion, that of the Deputies seems to have been the only one commonly thought of. Moreover, on the occasion of the application thus made of it, the idea attached to it seems to have been vague and indeterminate. To fix it, the expression must be changed, and to the indeterminate expression experience, the so thoroughly determined expression, appropriate aptitude, substituted. Now, to the most important branch of appropriate aptitude, namely, the moral, the system in question has just been shown to be not only not favourable, but positively and highly adverse. Remain the two other branches of the aptitude, namely, the intellectual and the active. True it is, then, that, considered apart from the moral, to these it cannot but be acknowledged to be, generally speaking, favourable: but, in the moral branch suppose a deficiency, any increase in these two branches, so far from raising the degree of aptitude, taken in the aggregate, may, as has been seen, lower it.

Instructional.

Art. 33. Here, then, comes in one great use of the Continuation Committee: to the Members, as such, the right of speech and that of motion being alone given, and that of voting being discarded. Thus it is—that, by means of this engine, a supply of intellectual and active aptitude may be kept up, without any the least diminution of moral aptitude; a supply, and that susceptible of increase, as long continued as any which, by undiscontinued relocability and relocation, could have been provided at the expense of moral aptitude.

Instructional.

Art. 34. After all, where, on this occasion, experience is ascribed to the situation of the functionary in question, of what qualification, on his part, under that name, can there be any reasonable assurance? From his merely filling the situation, if that be all, nothing can be inferred; and, unless this or that individual be in view, this is all that can, on any sufficient grounds, be affirmed. Upon the attention bestowed upon the business to which his situation puts it in his power to apply his mind, will depend whatever aptitude he may possess in either of the two branches; take away the attention, the experience amounts to very little: that is to say, to the present purpose: for another there is, as will be seen, with reference to which this little will be considerably better than nothing.

Exemplificational. Instructional.

Art. 35. For an example, look to the English Legislative Assemblies, and in particular to the House of Lords. Here you may see beyond all doubt possession of the situation, possession on the part of hundreds, and on the part of each unit, whatsoever experience the possession cannot fail to give. Look at this experience, and then see what, in the case of the vast majority, is the produce, in the shape of any one of the branches of appropriate aptitude.

Instructional.

Art. 36. Remains now the experience considered as desirable in the situation of the Electors: experience as to comparative aptitude, as between Candidate and Candidate. As to this, see the next Article.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 37. Question 3. Why not render the non-relocability perpetual?

Answer. Reason. That, for the choice of the Electors of each District, there may be, in a state capable of being, and not unlikely to be, competitors with each other, two persons at least,—of whose comparative appropriate aptitude in future, as to the situation in question, the Electors have had the means of judging, from observations made of their respective degrees of appropriate aptitude, in and for that same situation, as therein already manifested; which men may accordingly, relation had to that same situation, be termed tried men: and, in respect of the interest which the observers have had in the accuracy of the observation, the conduct of their Deputies being thus the concern of the Electors,—the Electors may thus, in the words of the common phrase, be said to have had experience of it. Suppose the relocability to have place from the first,—they would, as above, (vacancies by death, resignation, or the extremely rare case of dislocation excepted,) seldom have any to choose out of but the original stock; in which case, the Election process would be of little or no use: suppose no relocability to have place at any time, they would have no tried men—in the above sense of the word tried—to choose out of.

Instructional.

Art. 38. In the instance of each Deputy, after one year of service in that situation, for how many years shall his non-relocability therein continue? The choice seems to be between two years and three years. The country not being a given quantity, materials constituting a sufficient ground for a decisive answer, are not, it should seem, to be found. The following considerations will present to view the difficulty, and at the same time a circumstance which lessens it.

Instructional.

Art. 39. Make the interval of non-relocability too long, the danger is—1. That the chance or even the assurance, of repossessing the situation, will not be sufficiently attractive: the minds of those who would otherwise have been competitors, will have been turned off to other pursuits; 2. Moreover, the State will for so long have remained debarred from the benefit looked for, from the giving to the electors the choice as between men called tried men, as above. Note, however, that, supposing no failure in the number of these peculiarly apt competitors,—this effect extends not beyond the preparation period:—the first year, reckoning from the day of the adoption of the Constitution here proposed.

Instructional.

Art. 40. As to the circumstances, by which the difficulty is lessened, it consists in the multitude of situations which, in the instance of each such temporarily dislocated Deputy, will, under this Constitution, be open to his desires.

Instructional.

Art. 41. 1. In this one supreme legislature, there will be seen, as per Ch. v. Constitutive, section 2, Powers, a multitude of Sub-legislatures, exercising, each of them, though to less local extent, most of the functions of that one. In the Supreme Legislature suppose, by the Deputy in question, no more than a moderate share of appropriate aptitude manifested, and that for no more than one year—such manifestation made in such a place, cannot but be expected by him, and with reason, to operate as a powerful recommendation: particularly, that body of appropriate information considered, which, even though no outward manifestation of his having received it shall have happened to be given, cannot fail to have presented itself to his notice.

2. Ministerial situations, immediately under the Supreme Legislature, and thence under the Prime Minister. True it is—that, in these, the openings will be so few,—and the qualifications which will be found necessary, so rare,—that the number, by whom, for the present purpose, their situations can be looked to as a resource, will be proportionably small. Though the number of those same situations is thirteen,—whether for the filling them so large a number of persons will be necessary, will depend on local circumstances: and, in these same situations, instead of temporary non-relocability, the nature of the case will be seen to require perpetual continuance, saving special causes of dislocation. As to these Ministers, see Ch. xi. Ministers severally.

3. Under each Sub-legislature, a set of Sub-ministerial situations, wanting little of being equal in number to the above-mentioned Ministerial ones.

4. Situations in the Judiciary. In each Immediate Judicatory, four situations,—no one of them, with reference to the ex-functionaries in question, beneath acceptance. So likewise the same number in each Appellate Judicatory. True it is—that it will not be till a considerable time after the commencement of the constitution, that this resource will be open to them: nor then, except on the supposition of their having passed through the appropriate probationary period, and thereupon migrated for the time from the Judiciary into this transitory situation. As to this, see Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively. Section 28. Locable who.

Instructional.

Art. 42. On the first establishment of a Constitution, which is as much as to say on the first formation of a new State,—the people find themselves under a dilemma. Experience of the character of public men, with a view to their location in the several efficient situations, is at the same time pre-eminently desirable, and necessarily deficient; accordingly, that is the state of things, wherein arrangements, for stocking the establishment with such appropriate experience, are most needful. But, at that same period, men, in any tolerable degree possessed of appropriate aptitude will be most rare: and, at the same time, the need of appropriate aptitude for these same situations the most pressing. In this state of things, if on the part of the set of men first located, a degree of appropriate aptitude should chance to be possessed, sufficient for carrying on in any way the business of government,—the higher the degree of that aptitude, the greater may be the risk incurred, by the substituting, to the men by whom such appropriate experience has been had, other men by whom, and of whom, no appropriate experience at all has been had.

Instructional.

Art. 43. Exception made of the case of the new Republican States, sprung peaceably, as if in the way of child-birth, out of already established parent states, under the Anglo-American Confederacy,—new Republics will not have been seen formed, otherwise than by the complete subversion or dismemberment of Monarchical, Aristocratical, or Monarchico-Aristocratical Governments. But, it is only in consequence of an excessive degree of palpable misgovernment, (the case of England and its emancipated Colonies excepted,) that any such revolution has ever yet taken place: and, of such bad government, one never-failing effect has been—the rendering the people, in a degree proportioned to the badness of it, unapt for the business of government. When the power has come into their hands, appropriate aptitude, intellectual and active, sufficient for the throwing off the yoke of the old bad government, and for the formation of a new government, has indeed had place among them, by the supposition. But, in conjunction with this necessary existing minimum of intellectual and active aptitude, slight indeed is the degree of appropriate moral aptitude which, as above, can have had existence. As to that which consists in the being desirous of giving to the people at large the benefit of such degree of appropriate intellectual and active aptitude as the individual in question possesses, instead of giving that benefit exclusively to himself and his own particular connexions,—the total absence of it may not be inconsistent with a degree of intellectual and active aptitude, sufficient for the institution, and even for the continuance, of a government in the hands of the set of functionaries first located.

Instructional.

Art. 44. Of this state of things, exemplifications are but too abundant; and too notorious to need specifying.

Instructional.

Art. 45. Of this same state of things, one consequence is, that, in regard to the points here in question, scarcely can any arrangement be proposed, which does not lie open to objections,—and such objections as,—if considered by themselves, and without regard to the objections to which every arrangement differing from it stands exposed,—might not unreasonably be regarded as decisive.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 46. Under these circumstances, of the two opposite risks, one or other of which cannot but be incurred, that incurred by undiscontinued relocability presents itself as the greatest; that by temporarily discontinued locability, as the least. Under undiscontinued locability, relocation of by far the greater number has been seen to be highly probable. Thus would it be, at the very next Election after that by which they were seated for the first time: and, whatsoever were the degree of their firmness in their several seats on the first re-election, at the time of every fresh election it will have received increase. But, in every situation, with length of possession, the appetite for power, far from experiencing diminution, experiences increase; and, in the situation here in question, while the appetite is thus receiving increase, so is the facility of gratifying it: to wit, from the strength, so necessarily given by habitual intercourse, to the connexion of those Members of the Supreme Legislative Assembly, with the unavoidably so constituted arch corruptors—the givers of good gifts—the respective heads of the Administrative and the Judiciary Departments, more especially of the Administrative. The consequence, if not absolutely certain, at any rate but too highly probable, is—a gradual but regular progression from a Representative Democracy to a Monarchicho-Aristocratical form of Government, working by fear and corruption, and thence to a Despotic Monarchy, with its standing army, working by fear alone, without need of corruption: everything going on from comparatively good to bad, and from bad to worse, till the maximum of what is bad is reached, and, bating the chance of a violent revolution, perpetuated.

Instructional.

Art. 47. Such, for example, was the course in which, at the time of the English Civil Wars, the Parliament, in conclusion called the Rump Parliament, had, at the time of its forced dissolution, been running, in consequence of the perpetual non-dislocability, which,—with intentions probably at the outset as patriotic at least as any which in any such situation were ever entertained,—the original members had succeeded in obtaining for themselves.

Instructional.

Art. 48. On the other hand, under the temporarily discontinued relocability system, if with a legislature composed, each year, of an entire new set of Members for three or even two years, the Government can but maintain itself in existence,—appropriate experience, on the part of Deputies and Electors, will go on increasing: corruption, to an extent capable of producing evil in a tangible shape, will, by means of the securities here provided against it, be excluded; and what change there is will be from good to better and better. For, by this change in the composition of the Supreme Legislature, no change as to the individual at the head of the Executive will be necessitated or so much as probabilized; and in him will be the powers of location and dislocation, as to all the other official situations, in which the business of Government is carried on.

Instructional.

Art. 49. As to the just mentioned securities—those which apply to the situation of the head of the Administrative Department—the Prime Minister,—in this way will be seen to operate—not only those which are placed in the Chapter denominated from that high functionary, but those also which are placed in the Chapter headed Ministers collectively, (Ch. ix.); namely, in section 15, Remuneration, section 16, Locable who, section 17, Located how, section 25, Securities, &c. For although, in a more direct and manifest way, they will be seen bearing upon the situations of those his several locatees, immediate subordinates, and dislocables,—yet, by the limits they apply to his choice when filling those several situations, and the checks they apply to the powers exercised by these his instruments, those securities, the application of which may, to a first glance, appear confined to those situations, may be seen moreover to apply, all of them, in effect, to his. But, neither do these, nor any others which could be added, bear upon the situation of Deputy, commissioned by the Electors to act in their behalf in that Supreme Legislative situation, which, as per Ch. iv. Authorities, is the Supreme Operative. All locators subordinate to the Members of the Legislature,—and at the head of them the head of the Administrative Department,—are responsible, legally as well as morally, as for all other exercises of their authority, so for every choice it falls in their way to make. Upon the situation of the Deputies of the people, no legal responsibility can attach, other than that which is constituted by the extraordinary and difficultly applicable, though indispensable, remedy, applied, should it ever be applied, by dislocation exercised at their charge by their respective Electors: upon the situation of the Electors themselves, neither can any legal, nor so much as any moral responsibility attach, consistently with the altogether indispensable freedom of their choice.

Instructional.

Art. 50. Meantime, in every situation, moral aptitude will depend upon the influence exercised by the Public-Opinion Tribunal, as will the efficiency of that influence upon the degree of liberty possessed by the press; and, under the best possible form of government, the sufficiency of that liberty will be in a lamentable degree dependent upon the particular structure of the minds of those in whose hands the reins of Government happen, at the outset, to be placed. The Anglo-American States, now so happily confirmed in the possession of a form of Government, the only as yet fully settled one, which, in an enlightened age, deserves the name of a Government—were for years within an ace of losing it. From 1798 to 1802, a law was in force, having for its object the saving the rulers, wherever they were, from the mortification of seeing any disapprobation of their conduct, expressed in terms, other than such as they themselves would approve of; and, by those who afterwards had the magnanimity to expose themselves to it, a trial, the severest, perhaps, that a man in power is capable of undergoing, was submitted to.

Instructional.

Art. 51. In England, by a mixture of magnanimity and weakness—in what proportion cannot as yet be known—the example, to a degree not less astonishing than laudable, has been for some time copied. In this, as in all cases in which tyranny has been relaxed, the danger is—lest, by gratitude, the people should be betrayed into a greater degree of confidence, than, even under the best possible form of Government, can find a sufficient warrant.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 52. Objections to the temporary non-relocability system, with answers.

I.

Objections.

1. By the non-relocability system, temporary as it is, freedom of choice is, for the time taken away.

2. To every irreproachable Member, dislocation from his situation—dislocation, and for so long a term, and without so much as any imputation of misbehaviour, will be productive of suffering, and that unmerited.

3. Power, so small in respect of its duration, no person, endowed with adequate appropriate aptitude in all its several branches, would vouchsafe to accept.

II.

Answers.

1. Of no use is freedom of choice, otherwise than as a security for appropriate aptitude on the part of the object of the choice. But, until the proposed term of non-relocability is expired, freedom of choice is not, (it has been shown,) conducive in any degree to the location of appropriate aptitude: it is, on the contrary, in a high degree conducive to the location of inaptitude; of inaptitude, as to every branch of appropriate aptitude. When the non-re-locability ceases to operate as a bar to aptitude, it is here removed.

2. Productive of suffering? Yes, if unexpected, and thence he unprepared for it: to wit, pain of disappointment. But, every one being completely prepared for it, no such suffering can have place. As his location cannot be effected without his own consent,—if upon the whole the enjoyment were not expected by him to be preponderant over all suffering, he could not be in the situation in which, by the supposition, he is.

3. Yes: persons in abundance. Even supposing the situation of Member of the Legislature led to nothing else, instances of situations which, though much less desirable, are objects of extensive competition, may be seen in every state. But, over and above the facility for obtaining, at the hands of Ministers, desirable situations for his friends, an advantage, the complete prevention of which, how desirable soever, is impossible, is—that the seat in the Legislature is a stepping-stone into divers other seats: to wit, 1. In the Continuation-Committee; 2. In the next Sub-legislature; 3. At the expiration of the non-relocability term, a seat in the Legislature, and thence again into a Continuation-committee.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 53. Comparative view of the undiscontinued locability and the temporary non-relocability system. Upon the whole, as between the temporary non-relocability system, coupled with the Continuation-Committee Institution on the one part, and the undiscontinued relocability system on the other, the points of comparison may be summed up as follows:—

I.

Temporary non-relocability and Continuation-Committee System.

1. By the prospect of a situation in the Committee,—it secures, on the part of all apt Members, together with the desire of that situation, prospect of competition; thence exertion, and by exertion, maximization of appropriate aptitude in all its branches.

2. The term of non-relocability expired, it secures, in a number proportioned to the length of the term, tried men, out of whom, on the election of Members of the Legislature, the Electors will have their choice: and at the same time opens the door to men as yet untried, who, under the other system, would have regarded it as shut.

3. It keeps on foot a select body of appropriate political watchmen without doors, engaged by interest in their quality of leading Members of the Public-Opinion Tribunal, to keep watch on the conduct of their rivals and future competitors—the Members of the Legislature in the several years.

4. It secures for the Sub-legislatures a supply of appropriate aptitude, such as they could not, by any other means, be provided with.

5. It thereby affords to the Legislature a probable supply, more or less extensive, of functionaries, who, to the stock of national knowledge and judgment, acquired in the Legislature, have added a stock of local knowledge and judgment, acquired in Sublegislatures.

II.

Undiscontinued re-locability System.

1. No such prospect, no such motive for exertion: for the being re-elected, the negative merit of not having given offence to individuals will, on the part of a great majority, suffice.

2. On no occasion, unless by accident, and that not likely to be frequent, does it admit of the non-relocation of the person once elected, howsoever unapt: nor accordingly does it lay open the choice.

3. It provides no such security for appropriate aptitude, in any shape, on the part of the Members of the Legislature.

4. It affords no such supply.

5. No such supply.*

Ratiocinative.

Art. 54. Question 1. Why, to the security provided in section 20, Attendance and Remuneration, for each day’s attendance, by forfeiture of that day’s pay, add the further securities in this present section provided?

Answer. Reasons. Against non-attendance on particular days, not only the mere loss of those days’ pay, but even the utmost penal security applicable in a pecuniary shape, would necessarily be insufficient: inadequate would be not only the mere withdrawal of remuneration, but any positive fixed mulct that could be applied. To men of a certain elevation in the scale of opulence, a pecuniary punishment that might generally even appear excessive, would even operate as a licence: to some even as an object of mockery. In this case, therefore, as in every other for securing compliance, no instrument other than punishment, in such amount as to be sure of operating in that character, and in such sort as to outweigh the utmost profit by the offence, could have been sufficient. Applied to the Principal alone, or the Substitute alone, even this sort of security could not be sufficient: by allegations, the falsity of which could not be sufficiently made manifest, either would be able to shift off the blame from himself, and fasten it either upon the other, or upon accident.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 55. Question 2. Intending to provide additional securities so much more efficient, and of themselves so sufficient, why commence with a security, the effect of which is thus precarious?

Answer. Reasons. I. As far as it goes, pecuniary punishment, in this mildest of all forms, is the most secure of execution that the nature of the case admits of; and, to a considerable extent, efficiency would not be wanting to it.

II. In the case of the several subordinate situations, it appeared indispensable: and to have withholden the application of it to this, would have been contributing to the propagation of mischievous delusion, by attributing to all men, to whom it shall have happened to be located in this situation, a needless and delusive character of peculiar dignity, independent of good desert.

Section XXVI.

Wrongful exclusion obviated.

Instructional.

Art. 1. The case of partial exclusion by force or fraud, or extraordinary accident excepted,—against deficiency in respect of plenitude of attendance, and thence risk of fluctuation, in legislative arrangements, provision, such as appeared sufficient, has been made, in and by former sections: viz. section 18, Attendance—section 19, Remuneration—section 20, Attendance and Remuneration—section 23, Self-suppletive function—section 24, Continuation Committee—section 25, Relocable who—remains, as a case calling for provision, that of a temporary deficiency, produced by one or other of the three just mentioned causes.

Enactive.

Art. 2. On each occasion, the authority belongs to the majority, of the Members then present, at the appropriate place of meeting.

Enactive.

Art. 3. If, by force, artifice or accident, any Member or Members, who would otherwise have been present, have been prevented from being so, the proceeding is not, by any such impediment, rendered null and void. But, supposing the fact of such impediment established, and the case such, that the number so excluded would, had it been present, have composed, with the addition of that of the others, a majority on the other side,—a declaration to that effect will naturally be passed; and things will be placed, as near as may be, on the same footing, as if the Members, so excluded, had been present.

Enactive.

Art. 4. If the exclusion has had force or artifice for its cause, all persons, Members and others, intentionally concerned in the production of it, will, at the discretion of the majority, be compensationally, as well as punitionally and dislocationally responsible. As to this, see section 28, Legislation Penal Judicatory.

Enactive.

Art. 5. If, in the bringing about any such fraudulent exclusion, any Member, or other functionary, dislocable by the Constitutive Authority, has been purposely concerned, here will be another occasion for the exercise of its incidental dislocative, as per Ch. v. Constitutive, section 2.

Section XXVII.

Legislation Inquiry Judicatory.

Expositive.

Art. 1. By a Legislation Inquiry Judicatory, understand a Judicatory, by which, on any particular occasion, by the hands or the authority of the Legislature, for the purpose of constituting a ground for its ulterior proceedings, and in particular for the enactment of a new law, evidence is elicited. To no other purpose does this Judicatory act. By this circumstance it stands distinguished from a Judicatory ordinarily so called: and by this circumstance alone are the powers and mode of proceeding distinguished from those, by which, in an ordinary Judicatory, a ground is made for definitive judication: as to these, see Arts. 16, 18, 19, 29, 30.

Enactive. Instructional.

Art. 2. By its own, or by other hands, the Supreme Legislature will give exercise to this branch of its power, according to the nature of each individual case.

Expositive.

Art. 3. By whichsoever hands exercised, the sort of function, exercised by exercise given to these powers, is termed the evidence-elicitative function; or, for shortness, the elicitative function.

Expositive.

Art. 4. Principal, or say effective, call the purpose, to which the imperative, (including the enactive,) function of the Legislature is exercised; preparatory or preparative, that to which the elicitative is exercised.

Instructional.

Art. 5. Correspondent to the imperative function in the exercise of Legislative, is that same function when performed in the exercise of judicial authority. In the one situation as in the other, on every occasion, it were (as will be seen in Art. 17) desirable, were it practicable, that of both functions—the principal and the preparatory—the exercise were the work of the same hands. But, of this desirable purpose, the accomplishment will, in the one situation as in the other, to a more or less considerable extent, be found impracticable. What remains is—to maximize the accomplishment of it, in so far as may be, without the introduction of preponderant evil from other sources.

Instructional.

Art. 6. Whether, without preponderant evil in other shapes, this preparatory function can be exercised by the hands of the Legislature itself, will depend—partly upon the quantity of its applicable time, partly upon the importance of the occasion and the purpose. On the occasion of each individual inquiry, it will depend—partly upon the presumable importance of the result, partly upon the quantity of time requisite for an adequate exercise of the elicitative function, partly upon the quantity of applicable time, which, at the moment, the Legislature has at its disposal, and not called for by other purposes of superior importance. But rare in the extreme are, as may have been seen, the cases, in which, for this subordinate purpose, any of the Legislature’s applicable time can be spared. See section 1, Powers and Duties.

Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 7. Evidence ready elicited, evidence requiring to be elicited, or in one word say elicitable. Under one or other of these denominations will come whatsoever evidence can, on any occasion, need to be under the eye of the Legislature. Under the appellation of evidence ready elicited, comes the whole stock of that which, for all occasions together, for judicial and legislational purposes together, has been elicited and preserved. In consideration of this distinction, it has been characterized by the denomination of preappointed evidence.*

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 8. Of preappointed evidence, examples are as follow—1, The aggregate mass of scriptitiously expressed evidence, (as to which, see Art. 11,) composed of exemplars, of the several documents emanating from, or recorded in, the Register Books, belonging to the several offices contained in the official establishment of the State. These documents constitute the subject-matter of the Universal Registration System, as to which see Ch. viii. Prime Minister. Section 10, Registration System.

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 9. 2.—In particular, the statements made and recorded under the care of Local Registrars, as per Ch. xxvi. Local Registrars. Section 5, Death-recording. Section 6, Marriage-recording. Section 7, Birth-recording. Section 8, Maturity-recording. Section 10, Post-obit-administration-granting. Section 11, Property-transfer-recording. Section 12, Contract-recording. Section 13, Extrajudicial-evidence-recording. Section 14, Subjudiciary topographical function.

Expositive.

Art. 10. Oral or epistolary—in one or other of these two modes or forms, will be elicited, whatsoever evidence, on the occasion and for the sort of purpose in question, requires to be elicited in the form of discourse:—oral the mode, where the signs employed are of the evanescent, and unless in the extraordinary case of muteness or deafness, of the audible kind: opistolary, where expressed by signs of the permanent kind made by the operation called writing, or the operations substituted to it—say, in one word, by scriptitious signs.

Expositive.

Art. 11. Note, that as to elicitation, it may, on the part of the elicitor, or say elicitator, be either passive or active: passive, in so far as the discourse brought into existence is delivered spontaneously, by him whose discourse it is: the elicitee being occupied with it in no other way than by receiving it: active, in so far as extracted from him by the elicitor, by means of questions, or say interrogatories, actual or virtual: in which last case the elicitor is interrogator, or say examiner; the person, to whom a question is addressed, interrogatee, or say examinee.*

For the elementary functions comprised in the Evidence-elicitative function, see title Evidence in the Procedure Code, (vol. ii. p. 57.)

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 12. Considered in respect of its source, the evidence to be elicited may be distinguished into personal and real: personal, in so far as it consists of a portion of discourse, uttered, as above, by some person: real, in so far as it is afforded by the condition or appearance of some thing or assemblage of things, or by a person otherwise than by means of human action or discourse, as in the case of a wound or bruise sustained. Evidence, in the scriptitious form, is, in respect of the things signified, personal; in respect of the signs, real. So far as the evidence is, as above, personal,—he, whose discourse it is, may be termed a testifier, or say testificant: so far as it is real, the thing or things which are the sources of it, whether they belong to the class of moveable or to that of immoveable objects, will commonly be in the custody of some person. Spoken of with reference to the source of evidence so possessed by him, this person will be an Evidence-holder. To a person in either of those characters, or in both, may an authoritative mandate, issued for the obtainment of evidence—say an evidence-requiring mandate—be to be addressed.

Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 13. In so far as it is by hands other than those of the whole Legislature, that the evidence sought by it is elicited, or endeavoured to be elicited,—the hands by which it is thus elicited or endeavoured to be elicited, may be said to be those of a Committee, say an Evidence-elicitation Committee: as to which, see Art. 23 to 26.

Instructional.

Art. 14. 1. With what powers;—2, of what person or persons consisting;—3, at what time or times;—4, in what place or places; and under what checks, may the operations of this same Legislation Inquiry Judicatory be most aptly carried on?

Correspondent to the unlimitedness of the demand, must be the extent and variety of the provision, made under these several heads, for the satisfaction of it.

Enactive. Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 15. Powers. For procuring and securing attendance, whether at the seat of Legislation or elsewhere, for the purpose of oral examination,—the Legislature will, of course, possess, and upon occasion exercise, all those which, by this Code and the Procedure Code connected with it, are given to ordinary Judges: and to these it will add all such, if any, as, being necessary to no other purpose than that of Legislation, will not have been instituted for the purpose of Judicature: as, for instance, the giving, on this occasion and to this purpose, unlimited exercise, to the function of eliciting information through the hands of Government Envoys to foreign Governments, or Government. Agents of all classes, resident in the dominions of foreign Governments: so, of functionaries belonging to the Army and Navy Sub-departments, and serving at the time in distant local fields of service.

Instructional.

Art. 16. In relation to power considered as applied, for the purpose of Legislation, to the extraction of evidence, or say appropriate information,—note here a disadvantage, under which Legislation lies, as compared with Judicature. The sort of negative information which is capable of being afforded by silence, in return for interrogation actual or virtual, being, to a comparatively inconsiderable, if any, extent, capable of being made subservient to the purpose of Legislation;—hence it is, that the Legislator finds himself destitute of the faculty of obtaining appropriate and requisite information, in cases in which, to a large extent, and with no small advantage, it is obtainable by the Judge. For, as in domestic, so in legal procedure, as in a non-penal, so in a penal case, highly instructive, as in domestic procedure no person can have failed to experience, is the information capable of being furnished by silence in the character of self-condemning evidence.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 17. Though in no case for the exclusion of deception,—yet in all cases for the exclusion of delay, vexation, and expense, where preponderant over the evil of definite misjudication or non-judication, does the Procedure Code, connected with this present Code, interdict the extraction of evidence. To the extraction of evidence for a Legislative purpose, the limit, thus applied to the extraction of it for a judicial purpose, will not of necessity apply. For, by the choice which the Legislator has of places, times, and hands,—delay to the public service, and vexation and expense to individuals, may, on each occasion, be minimized. On the other hand, to the evil producible by misjudication or non-judication, there are limits, (and, by the authority of the Legislature, those limits are rendered narrow ones,) to the evil producible by mislegislation or non-legislation, none.

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 18. Clearness, correctness, impartiality, all-comprehensiveness, non-redundance—thence instructiveness and non-deceptiveness—under one or other of these heads may be placed, it is supposed, whatsoever properties are desirable in the entire of a body of evidence elicited to form a ground for a proposed measure: clearness, that is to say, exemptness, as well from ambiguity as from obscurity: impartiality, that is to say, comprehensiveness, or say exemption from deficiency, as well as from incorrectness, in so far as those imperfections would respectively be productive of undue assistance to either side; all-comprehensiveness, for the sake of sufficiency of information and avoidance of deceptiousness, on the part of the effect: to wit, the effect produced on men’s judgments by the whole body of the evidence: non-redundance, for the sake of clearness, and for saving of useless delay, vexation and expense, on the part of all persons interested.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 19. In the case of the Procedure Code connected with the present Code, and for the purposes of judicature, the application made of the two following securities against deception by falsehood, is maximized. These are—

I. For the security of testimonial evidence scriptitiously expressed, wheresoever delivered, and whether spontaneously or responsively—against falsehood, as well temeracious as mendacious, responsibility, satisfactional as well as punitional, in the same manner as if the evidence had been delivered in the Justice Chamber, in the shape of responsion in the oral mode to interrogation in that same mode.

Enactive. Instructional.

Art. 20. II. In explanation, confirmation, or invalidation of any such scriptitiously delivered evidence,—the testifier, at all times, in case of need, subject to examination in the oral mode. See Procedure Code, title Evidence.—See also in this present Code, Ch. xxi. Immediate Judiciary Registrars. Section 5, Minutation how. From neither of these securities will the Legislature fail to derive such benefit as, in each case, the nature of the case affords.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 21. For, seldom can the sufficiency of the securities afforded against deception,—whether by evidence, or for want of evidence,—be maximized, without the benefit of instant answers or silence in return to questions arising instantly out of preceding answers or silence, and the interpretation thereupon capable of being afforded—by tone, countenance, gesture, and deportment.

Enactive. Instructional.

Art. 22. On each occasion, the Legislature will constitute or distribute the Inquiry, in such manner as the exigency or convenience of the occasion shall be deemed to require. It will conduct the whole by its own hand, or the whole by other hands; or part by its own, other parts in any number by so many different hands or sets of hands.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 23. The hands which, to the purpose here in question, the Legislature acts by, may, when any other than its own, be spoken of as being the hands of a Committee. Such Committee is capable of being made to consist either of a single person, or of persons in any number: but to every even, it will prefer any odd, number: for, otherwise, by the want of a casting voice, the whole operation or any part of it, may at any time be stopped, and the Inquiry frustrated.

Expositive. Instructional.

Art. 24. By the appellation Legislation-evidence Elicitor, or, for shortness, Legislation Elicitor, or say Legislational Inquest man, understand a Committee man thus employed. In English practice, The Grand Inquest of the Nation is an appellation, by which the House of Commons has, on this occasion, been designated. Inquisitor would have been more commodious, but for the odious idea so indissolubly associated with it.

Enactive. Expositive.

Art. 25. A Legislational Elicitor, or say Inquest man, may be either a Deputy, or a person other than a Deputy: if a person other than a Deputy, either a person at large—or, according to a common phrase, say a person from without doors—or else a Continuation Committee man; he being, as such, though not a Deputy, yet, as per section 24, Continuation Committee, a Member of the Assembly.

Instructional.

Art. 26. An apt Legislation-evidence Elicitor may be any Judge Ordinary, Immediate or Appellative; and in both cases the Judge Principal or a Judge Depute, as to whom, see Ch. xiv. Judge Immediate Depute permanent: Ch. xv. Judge Immediate Depute occasional.

Enactive. Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 27. If the Elector be a Deputy,—the elicitation process will not be carrying on, at any time of the day, at which the Legislature is sitting on Legislation business. Incompatible with the indispensable plenitude of attendence, as per sections 18, 20, and 26, would such exterior occupation be: during the whole of the time so occupied, the Deputy’s Constituents in particular, and the State in general, would be deprived of the benefit of his service, on that part of the business, which is of intrinsic and superior importance. Thus, whether it were without or with his consent, that the occupation were allotted to him. Moreover, if without his consent, the power of location so applied might, in that case, be employed as an instrument of virtual expulsion for any length of time, and thereby as an engine of oppression and tyrannical dominion. And so in the case of a Continuation Committee man.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 28. For obviating delay to the detriment of the public interest, and vexation and expense to individuals, by journeys to and fro, and demurrage for the purpose of oral examination,—the Legislature will have at its option the carrying on the inquiry into different facts or classes of facts by any number of Elicitation Committees, at any number of places at the same time.

Instructional.

Art. 29. On this occasion, for the maximization of publicity, it will feel itself at liberty, in the choice of an edifice for this purpose, to exercise powers such as might not belong to a Judge; as for example, taking any public or even, in case of necessity, any private edifice.

Instructional.

Art. 30. Only in so far as confrontation is necessary—necessary, to wit, to the discovery of relevant and relatively material truth, will persons more than one be convened from mutually remote places, to the seat of Legislature or elsewhither, to be orally examined at the same time.

Expositive.

Art. 31. Purposes, for which confrontation may be requisite, are explanation, contradiction, counter-evidence. By counter-evidence understand such evidence of an opposite tendency as may be delivered without contradiction opposed to anterior assertions.

Instructional.

Art. 32. In a case, in which conflict has place between divers particular interests,—an arrangement, desirable in so far as practicable, is—that the Elicitation Judicatory should consist either of a single person, approved by all parties interested,—or of divers persons, in number the same as that of the conflicting interests, and approved respectively by those several interests; with the addition of a Chairman, approved alike by all interests.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 33. In the case of such conflict, it will commonly be found conducive to justice to allow to each interest its professional Advocate: care being taken to prevent such needless addition as might otherwise be made, by causing one and the same interest to be split in appearance into divers interests.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 34. So, in case of a conflict between the public and this or that particular interest: care being taken that such allowance be not employed as an instrument of needless delay.

Enactive. Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 35. Exceptions excepted, as per section 21, Sittings public and secret; as in an ordinary so in a Legislative Inquiry, publicity will be maximized.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 36. The situation of Judge being that in which men will be in use to make due and appropriate distinction between ordinary cases and the few extraordinary ones, in which the purposes of justice are best served by secrecy, so it be but temporary,—the Legislature will, on this consideration, incline to employ, as Legislational Elicitor, if acting singly, a Judge in preference to a person at large.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 37. Cases, however, may occur, in which, where the obligation of secrecy is deemed necessary to be imposed, reason may be found for employing, for this purpose, a many-seated Judicatory, say a Judicatory of three, in preference to a single-seated Judicatory, filled by a Judge. For, against the temptation to apply to purposes of depredation or oppression, the power afforded by secrecy,—the greater number will afford a security not afforded by the lesser: each member of the secret tribunal, thus formed, being capable of giving eventual information against every other: and, any suspicion which might otherwise be entertained by the Public-Opinion Tribunal of sinister design on the part of a majority in the Legislature—may thus, by means of the greater number, be more effectually obviated.

Instructional.

Art. 38. To the conduct of the Legislature and the instruments employed by it in this business, as above,—will be seen applying the same checks as those which apply to it on the occasion of the exercise given by it to its peculiar Legislative function, as per section 31, Securities for appropriate aptitude. To the possessors of the Constitutive Authority, in their character of Members of the Public-Opinion Tribunal, it will belong—to keep an ever watchful eye on the conduct of these their servants, in such sort as to give maximization to the efficiency of those several securities.

Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 39. Legislation Inquiry Report, or, for shortness, say Legislation Report. Methodization, condensation, application,—by these terms may denomination be given to functions, by the exercise of which, after completion given to the exercise of the Elicitation function, an instrument of the sort thus denominated is framed: methodization, that is to say, placing one after another, in the order best adapted to correctness, completeness, and clearness of conception, the facts respectively sought in the character of conclusions from the aggregate body of the evidentiary matter elicited: and, in relation to each such conclusion, the propositions expressive of the evidentiary facts, or assemblages of evidentiary facts, regarded as constituting respectively a ground for these several conclusions: condensation, that is to say, collecting and expressing, by one general proposition, the propositions respectively expressive of a group of relatively particular facts: application, that is to say, pointing out in what manner the above-mentioned propositions, general and particular, contribute to the affording of the information sought by the whole inquiry.

A Report is the appellation by which, in English practice, a written instrument, occupied in the exercise of these functions is denominated. In the present instance, a Report thus occupied, may be termed, as above, a Legislation Inquiry Report, or, for shortness, a Legislation Report.

Instructional.

Art. 40. The need of consistency and symmetry considered,—seldom can such a Report be aptly penned, unless in the original concoction of it, it has been the work of no more than a single hand. Such, accordingly, is commonly the English practice. But, on any occasion, when once the instrument has been framed by some single hand, others in any number may be occupied with advantage in the making or proposing of amendments. And, on the supposition of a case, in which, between two or more portions, of the subject-matter of an inquiry made for a given single purpose, no other connexion has place,—for despatch or alleviation of labour, the drawing up of the Report may, of course, without prejudice to the design, be committed to that same number of different hands.

Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 41. Under this head, not inconsiderable is the light derivable, by any other nation from English practice.

Regularity elicited, and occasionally, or say, incidentally elicited, or about to be elicited,—to one or other of these heads may be referred whatsoever mass of evidence, applicable to Legislative purposes, is employable at any given point of time: regularly elicited, those masses which are furnished by the occurrences and state of things registered of course in the several offices: occasionally elicited, those which, for the purpose of some particular Legislative measure, have from time to time been respectively elicited, by the act of so many Elicitation Judicatories, on the several occasions constituted.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 42. In English practice, locators, on this occasion, have been each one of the three branches of the Sovereign authority—King, Lords, and Commons: such is the order in which the three authorities are, in general, mentioned. But, on the present occasion, it requires to be reversed. Authority the most frequently thus exercised, that of the House of Commons: next most frequently, that of the House of Lords: lastly, that of the monarch.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 43. First, as to the House of Commons: and, in this case, first as to the quality of the particular object endeavoured at: next, as to the mode in which the endeavour is carried on.

As to the quality of the object in view, it may reasonably be regarded, for the most part, as being beneficial. For, the whole compages of government having been and being in so large a proportion still composed of the rubbish of the dark ages, and thence so palpably ill adapted to its professed end—the maximization of public happiness,—need of reform and improvement has always been, and continues to be, visible throughout the whole texture of it. But seldom, if ever, otherwise than with the help of an inquiry of this sort, can any adequate ground for any considerable reform or improvement be, on any occasion, made.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 44. Next, as to the mode of carrying on the inquiry. This is still more uniformly well-adapted to the purpose, whatever it be, than the purpose itself is beneficial. Properties desirable in a mass of evidence, for whichever purpose, judicial or legislative, elicited—appositeness, clearness, correctness, impartiality, all-comprehensiveness, non-redundance—thence instructiveness and non-deceptiveness: these are the properties with which the rules here laid down aim at investing all such masses of evidence, as shall have been elicited in conformity to them: these same are the rules which, with such exceptions as will be mentioned, appear to have been conformed to as far as powers sufficed, in and by the mode in use in the House of Commons.

Instructional.

Art. 45. In the way of contrast, the usefulness of these rules may be seen receiving additional illustration and confirmation, from a comparison with rules, devised and employed in this same process, by the Judicial Establishment: of these rules, an exposition in detail may be seen in a work on Evidence, by the Author of this Code.

Instructional.

Art. 46. Of this contrast, the efficient cause will not be found exposed to doubt: it will be seen in the difference between the interests which have been in operation in the two different situations. On the sort of occasion in question, the interest of the House of Commons, including that of its Elicitation Committees, has, generally speaking, been in alliance with that of the great majority of the people: and, on this same occasion, by no other means could they have given support to that common interest, so effectually, as by pursuing rules, conducive to appropriate instruction, as above: while, by no set of rules, subservient to deception and misinstruction, could they have given equal support to that same rightly directed and directing interest.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 47. Diametrically opposite to that same exclusively rightly directed and rightly directing interest has, at all times, been the particular and thence sinister interest of those ruling Members of the Judiciary Establishment, by whom,—on pretence of declaring it, as if already made by others,—the rule of action has, over so vast a portion of the field of legislation, and in particular over the department of evidence, been made: made, that is to say, in that undelineable crooked and ever-shaking form, in which alone it could ever have been made by hands so situated. Creatures of the Monarch—and, till comparatively of late years, arbitrarily dislocable creatures—instruments of the Monarch, and, by the act of their location, constituted members of the aristocracy—invested with powers, to which there have never been any other legal limits than those which have been applied by the power of those their confederates,—they have at all times found themselves in a condition to give effect to their own particular and sinister interest: and this, not only to an unbounded extent at the expense of the universal interest, but, to a considerable extent, even at the expense of the interests of those their partners. Deriving remuneration from taxes imposed and levied by themselves to their own use upon suitors,—they have thereby given to themselves an irresistible interest in the maximizing the number of those useless proceedings, on which these taxes have been assessed: and, at the same time in maximizing uncertainty, by maximizing the encouragement given to delinquent suitors on both sides, to persevere in the track of injustice and maleficence: at the same time, giving to all who can come up to their price, the faculty of gaining their ends, to an extent more or less considerable, at the expense of their adversaries, by means of the pecuniary burthen thus imposed: thus, uniting sale to denial of justice, and effectuation of injustice.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 48. For the maintenance of the thus profitable system of uncertainty, they accordingly laid down those exclusionary rules, by the enforcement or relaxation of which they could admit or reject evidence, and thus give success to the one or the other side at pleasure: while, by their diversified modes of ill-adapted elicitation, they maximized the expense, and with it their own profit out of the expense; and, by holding out success to mendacity, maximized the quantity of it, and thereby the number of evil deeds and evil-doers. Thus far, by their oppositeness, the systems of rules pursued by these functionaries, serve in a direct way for throwing light upon the system exemplified and recommended, as above. As to the all-pervading practice of mendacity, and in particular in a written state, in their own persons in their several situations,—and that of forcibly injecting the poison into the mouths or pens of all suitors, by refusing all assistance to all who should refuse to taint themselves with it—these practices, with so many more of like complexion that might be mentioned, belong to the present purpose no otherwise than by serving to characterize the source, from which the system opposite to the one here recommended, has derived itself.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 49. As to the House of Commons, and the observations whereby it has so frequently been necessary to bring to view the corruptedness, which, in such abundance, has place in that part of the Government,—between those general ones and the more particular ones which have just been seen, no real inconsistency will be found to have place. Of all forms of Government that ever were in existence, till that of the Anglo-American United States became visible,—that of England, with all its corruptions, was, beyond comparison, the least adverse to the only defensible end of Government: and in no other source than the power and practice of the House of Commons, could any part of whatever is good in the form of the Government, have originated. It is owing to what is good in the House of Commons—in particular, it is owing to the power of the Public-Opinion Tribunal—that power, which has been hatched under the wings of the House of Commons—that that, as well as the other authorities in the state, may at length be thus spoken of without fear or danger: in particular, the Judicial Establishment, the practice of which, had it not been for the door left open to complaint in the House of Commons, would not, in respect of the support given by it to arbitrary power, have been surpassed by that of the Spanish Inquisition: for, not more hostile to the tutelary power of the Public-Opinion Tribunal can the mind of a Spanish Inquisitor ever have been, than that which, even yet, continues from time to time to be manifested by the most influential of the English Judges.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 50. Thus far the good: comes now the evil: call it, in one word, impotence. It consists in a deficiency, under which the House of Commons labours, in respect of the appropirate powers necessary to the giving adequate exercise to this its evidence-elicitation function.

1. Neither for securing verity in responsion; nor for securing responsion itself; nor so much as for securing attendance for the purpose of responsion, does the House of Commons, in the exercise of its share in the Supreme Legislative authority, possess a power equal to that which is exercised by Judges, on the occasion of the most trivial contestation between individual and individual, in their professedly subordinate sphere. With relation to no one of these purposes, does time oppose any limit to the power of Judges: to that of the House of Commons, it opposes limits which, as long as the life of the House continues, grow every day narrower and narrower, till at last, before that life is extinct, this power is gone. Before seven years are at an end, this body suffers that predestinated, which may be termed its natural, death,—and before that time it commonly dies a violent one. As to verity in particular,—in so far as punishment for mendacity operates as a security for it, the Judges, (by means of a ceremony called an oath, and the word perjury employed in connexion with it—a ceremony which they have contrived shall be performed where the performing of it—withholden, where the withholding of it—best suits their sinister interest)—subject a man to banishment, with forced labour, for as many as seven years, or even to still more severe inflictions. The utmost suffering, to which, in any case, for any one of the above-mentioned three purposes, this of security for verity not excepted, an individual can be subjected is—that of simple imprisonment; and that, for a time, which, as above, depends—not on the demand for punishment, but on the age of the House of Commons: and may find itself limited to less than as many days, or hours, as that which the Judges have at command will last years. Upon the whole, a considerable time before the end of the seven years, this power amounts to nothing: for, by keeping out of the way, in the first place, of summonition, in the next place of prehension, a man may set it at defiance: and, from the weakness of this power, suffers, of course, every measure of reform or improvement, in the initiation of which, the evidence-elicitation process is a necessary preliminary.

Instructional.

Art. 51. So much as to the House of Commons. Now as to the House of Lords. As to every purpose but that of giving support to its own particular and sinister interest, in addition to that of the Monarch, with which it stands associated,—this branch of the actually existing Supreme Authority of the State being so much worse than useless,—if, with reference to the purpose here in question, not to speak of other purposes, it were afflicted with the same debility as that which has just been seen in the case of the House of Commons,—the people, if not the better, would at any rate be little the worse. As to shortness of life, except that it stands assured of resurrection in the same persons, its case is the same as that of the House of Commons. Not so, however, as to the power of punishing for mendacity, under the name of perjury, and with the punishment attached to that name: for, that command over the Almighty which, as above,—by the magic words, “So help you God,” and the kiss given to a book,—King, Lords, and Commons have concurred in giving to Judges, the House of Lords, while it sees the House of Commons destitute of it, exercises by its own hands without reserve: in a word, the House of Commons is not in the practice of administering an oath: the House of Lords is.

Instructional.

Art. 52. On each occasion, whether an inquiry of the sort in question shall be entered upon by the body so highly superior in the scale of factitious dignity, it belongs to accident to determine: and this accident consists sometimes of an expectation of amusement in the breast of the Member by whom the motion is made; sometimes in the recurrence of the notion, that, lest the inutility of such a body to every interest but its own and that of the Monarch should become too manifest, a show of activity should from time to time be kept up.

Instructional.

Art. 53. Lastly, as to the Monarch. When, by his authority, an Evidence-elicitation Judicatory is instituted, Commission not Committee is the word.

I. As to the object in view. Instituted by the House of Commons, seldom can the Committee have had any other than the promotion,—seldom the Commission any other than the exclusion,—of reform or improvement.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 54. II. As to appropriate powers. By the instruments of the Monarch, neither could comprehensiveness nor impartiality be secured to the body of evidence elicited by them, if such were really their desire. By law, neither for responsion, for veracity, nor so much as for attendance, do they possess any such power as that possessed by the Judges, or even as that possessed, as above, by the House of Commons. Consequence,—the only persons at whose hands, for any one of these purposes, compliance is at their command, are their own dislocable subordinates, together with any such other person to whom it happens to stand subjected to their will by corruptive influence:—Quality of the information, such as may be expected from packed witnesses speaking to packed Judges.

Instructional.

Art. 55. As to composition. According to circumstances, the Commission is given to number one, or to a greater: number one is, by reason of the comparative secrecy of the measure, and the unostentatiousness of the expense, best suited to the purposes of inspection visits to distant dependencies. A many-seated sham Judicatory of this kind is the resource, when,—on complaint made of some more than ordinarily scandalous system of abuse,—Ministers are prevented by shame from refusing inquiry, and by fear from trusting to the House of Commons. By fear:—for, the corruption which would with certainty, suffice to engage the House in a body, to acquiesce in this or any other desired imposture,—would not suffice to secure the excluding from a Committee every Member who would not concur in such suppression of evidence as the purpose might require. In the case of a distant inspection visit, forecast is exemplified: and the object is—to forestall and avert all such sincere inquiries, as are yet in no other than a future-contingent state: in the case of the many-seated Elicitation Judicatory, acting at the seat of Government,—the object is—to make a pretence for refusing some inquiry actually called for in the House of Commons. When, for example, under the eye of King, Lords, and Commons,—Judges, and other judicial functionaries of all classes, have been in the notorious habit of practising extortion on false pretences,—thereupon, on pretence of paving the way for reform, comes a Commission, under which the population of the judgment-seat, as well as that of the witness’s-box, is composed of accomplices; with the principal for Locator. From a Commission of this sort, a collateral benefit is naturally and commonly, if not constantly, derived: what is called a job is effected: and, in place of punishment, criminals receive remuneration for their crimes.

Instructional.

Art. 56. One feature familiar to, if not constant in, English practice, requires here to be laid open to view. It belongs to the form of the Reports: it consists in the suppression of the interrogatories, by which the responses have been elicited; and, still more frequently of the names of the several Interrogators. Of this suppression, so far as regards the interrogatories, a natural and not unfrequent consequence is—obscurity or misconceivedness; so far as regards the power-clad Interrogator,—consequence and final cause, subtraction of his conduct from that scrutiny of the Public-Opinion Tribunal to which he has been subjecting the Interrogatee. The practice may be set down among the natural fruits of aristocratical oppression: presumptive evidence of intentional abuse of power on the part of as many as give into it.

Section XXVIII.

Legislation Penal Judicatory.

Enactive. Instructional.

Art. 1. To any of the following chief functionaries should misconduct be imputed, for the punishment of which, dislocation, with extra publicity, shall not be deemed sufficient,—it rests with the Legislature to form an occasional Special Judicatory for the trial of them.

Functionaries thus triable are—

I. Any Member of the then present Legislature.

II. Any Member of any anterior Legislature.

III. The Prime Minister of the then pressent, or any preceding time.

IV. The Justice Minister of the then present, or any preceding time.

Enactive.

Art. 2. Number of Members of this Judicatory, three or five.

Enactive.

Art. 3. Judges, either all of them Members of the then present Legislature, or persons who,—at the time when the decree for the prosecution is pronounced,—are not, any of them, Members—either of the Legislature, or of any part of the Official Establishment.

Enactive.

Art. 4. Mode of location, secret suffrage.

Enactive.

Art. 5. The Legislature will at the same time appoint persons, one or more, to officiate as Pursuers.

Instructional.

Art. 6. I. In relation to this extraordinary judicial function, the legislature will, on each occasion, judge whether its time will admit of its taking upon itself this extra charge.

Enactive. Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 7. II. If all the members do not, neither should any: for, it should not be in the power, either of an individual or of the whole body, in this or any other way, to produce, during the whole or any part of the time occupied in the Inquiry, a virtual vacancy in the particular seats in question, as to the exercise of the legislational function; thus depriving constituents of the service of their agents, as to the principal and peculiar part of their duty.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 8. III. Though,—more especially in the case of a Member,—nothing that can be done, can exclude altogether so inevitable an imputation as that of partiality—still the transference of this temporary function to other hands, will, in no small degree, lessen the ground of the imputation, if men of generally acknowledged aptitude, moral as well as intellectual, are the persons located. In the case where the Prime Minister, or the Minister of Justice—located, both of them, by the Legislature—being parties accused, are guilty—much less difficulty will a man who has not, than a man who has, contributed to their location, find, in contributing to their punishment.

Enactive.

Art. 9. Neither in non-penal nor in penal cases, does the Legislature act, on any occasion, as an Appellate Judicatory: in that field of service, it trusts altogether to the appropriate subordinate authorities. Only in case of punishable criminality, as practised by them in the exercise of their functions, does it take cognizance of the course taken in and by that exercise.

Enactive. Ratiocinative.

Art. 10. But, for as much as of necessity,—in so far as the propriety of the conduct of any such judicial functionary, on the occasion of a non-penal suit comes in question,—that which should, on that occasion, have been done, cannot but come, though, as it were, in a preliminary or collateral way, under the cognizance of the Legislature,—any error which, on that same occasion, shall, in the eyes of the Legislature, have manifested itself, will not be left unredressed.

Ratiocinative.

Art. 11. For knowingly and wilfully to leave a wrong in any shape unredressed, would,—on the part of those who, without preponderant evil, have full power to redress it, be an open profession of injustice, tending to the destruction of public confidence.

Enactive. Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 12. On every such occasion, the Legislature will, at the same time, be upon its guard, lest, by this means, it should insensibly be led to constitute itself into an ordinarily officiating Appellate Judicatory: an office, as to the functions of which it is essentially incompetent; to wit, as well in respect of the multitude of the Members of which it is composed, as in respect of the vacancy which would thereby be created in the exercise of its appropriate and peculiar functions.

Enactive. Instructional.

Art. 13. Accordingly, if, on the face of the application, no criminality in any shape be imputed to the functionary whose conduct is the subject of complaint,—the Legislature will uniformly refuse to take cognizance of it. In a case in which such imputation is made,—if no sufficient reason for imputing criminality is found, the Legislature may accordingly make declaration to that effect, forbearing to accompany such declaration of acquittal with any decree, imperative or opinative, in relation to any such alleged wrong, as above.

Enactive. Instructional.

Art. 14. On every such occasion, if, in the eyes of the Legislature, the accusation has been not only insufficiently grounded, or altogether ungrounded, but accompanied with evil consciousness or temerity,—it will, if it see sufficient reason,—on the same evidence, and without the formality of a separate suit, proceed,—as in the case where compensation is given in the name of costs,—to punish the wrongful accuser with such punishment as the case shall appear to demand.

Instructional.

Art. 15. Note, that, only in case of a decision,—or, where decision is due, non-decision by an Appellate Judicatory,—or by the JusticeMinister, in the extraordinary and narrow field of the judicial service allotted to him, as per Ch. xxiv. section 4, Judicative function,—can any such non-penal, under the guise of a penal suit, as above, be apprehended: for as much as, for redress of wrong done by an Immediate Judicatory, the correspondent Appellate Judicatory is constituted, and its doors kept wide open,—while, as above, those of the Legislature are against all such applications, shut.

Instructional.

Art. 16. Note also that, for prevention of wrong otherwise about to be done, or redress of wrong done, by a Judge, without deficiency on his part in respect of appropriate moral aptitude,—facilities may be seen afforded, in and by Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively: Section 19, Judges’ contested interpretation reporting function—Section 20, Judges’ eventually emendative function, and Section 21, Judges’ sistitive, or say, execution-staying function: and moreover, by the general facility for amendment, afforded by the melioration-suggestive function allotted by this Code throughout, to individuals as well as to judiciary and other functionaries.

Section XXIX.

Members’ Motions.*

Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 1. In proposing an ordinance, a member will do well to consider, whether in the law as it then stands, there be any Article, to the matter of which, such his ordinance would, if adopted, be repugnant, in such sort, that if that Article were thereafter to receive its execution, the so proposed ordinance would thereby, in some way or other, be contravened. In case of non-repugnancy, his new proposed ordinance is independent and non-emendative: in the case of repugnancy, it is, to the extent of the repugnance, emendative.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 2. If thus it be emendative in effect, he will do well to render it declaredly so: for thus only can the Pannomion† be kept clear of that needless and useless voluminousness, with obscurity, confusedness, and incomprehensibility for its effects, by which, in the nature of the case, it cannot otherwise escape being more or less vitiated.

Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 3. Declaredly emendative, an ordinance may be, in either of two modes—the directive or the reeditive. In the directive mode, the Draughtsman will proceed in the manner of an author, in directing corrections to be made, in and by a list of Emendanda or Corrigenda. Taking for the subject of his reference the Pannomion as it stands—“In such an Article,” (he will say) referring to Code, Chapter, Section, and Article, “omit so and so;” or, “between such and such words, insert so and so;” or, “to such and such, substitute such or such words;” or, taking the Article entire, “omit such or such an Article;” or, “between such and such an Article, insert such or such an Article or Articles;” or, “to such or such an Article or Articles, substitute the following.”

Instructional. Enactive.

Art. 4. Follows a formulary for the introduction of an amendment. “By the Legislature,” [Year, Month, and Day.] “In” [referring, as above, Art. 3, to the portion of the Pannomion] “the following amendments are this day made.” [Hereupon follows the direction as above.] Attestator, the Legislation Minister. Each amendment, if adopted, being the work of the Legislature,—the proposer will not, in penning his proposal, scruple thus to speak in the name of the Legislature.

Instructional. Enactive.

Art. 5. In the reeditive mode, the proposer proceeds, in the manner of an author, who is publishing a new edition of his work. Introductive formulary as follows:—“By the Legislature”—[Year, Month, and Day, and place in the Pannomion, as above.] “It is ordained as follows.” Thereupon comes the new matter. If, in this ordinance, there be anything which is in repugnance to any part of the Pannomion, as above,—to minimize doubt and needless quantity of matter, he will proceed in manner following. “Repealed on this occasion are”—then will follow the indication of the several Articles. On this occasion, no alteration will he direct to be made in any Article. Instead of giving any such direction, he will repeal the entire Article, and substitute a new one.

Instructional. Enactive.

Art. 6. In an emendative ordinance expressed in the reeditive mode, indications will be given as follows:—

I. Indication made,—by appropriate types and other means,—of words, omitted, added, or substituted, as above: in such sort that, in the new edition, if possible, by a single glance, the eye may be able to distinguish the new matter from the old.

II. Indication made,—of the proposer, his seconder, his other supporters, and his opposers. Thus, to all persons concerned will it, in all times, be made known,—in what particulars, at what times, by what ordinances, at whose instance, and under whose opposition,—effect, good or bad, on the interest of the community, has been produced.

Enactive.

Art. 7. To every Member, it belongs, of right, to make whatsoever motion he thinks fit, in whatsoever terms he thinks fit, in relation to any matter he thinks fit: on its being seconded by any other Member,—any such motion becomes a subject of discussion, and is eventually capable of being converted into an ordinance of the Legislature.

Instructional.

Art. 8. In case of need, should it happen to the Legislature to find its time wasted by ill-considered motions, it will, for remedy, instead of one such preliminary adopter, require two or more.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 9. To obviate, however, the voluminousness and confusion, liable to ensue, from laws made, at different times, on the motion of different persons,—on principles in respect of form as well as matter, disparate or adverse,—a Member, antecedently to any motion tending to the enactment of a new ordinance, will do well to consider, to the province of which of the several Ministers, if any, the matter belongs: thereupon, to communicate on the subject with such Minister or Ministers,—and, in so far as they and he agree, to consult with the Legislation Minister as to the bearings of the proposed ordinance on those already in existence, and thence, as to the form in which, on its introduction, the proposed ordinance may most conveniently stand expressed: and, in particular, whether in the independent and non-emendative form, as per Art. 1, or in the emendative: and, if in the emendative, whether in the directive, or in the reeditive, as per Art. 3, 4, 5, 6.

Instructional.

Art. 10. If, to any such Minister, such communication shall have been omitted to be made,—reasons for the omission will be expected to be given: so, in case of non-concurrence on the Minister’s part, reasons for and against such non-concurrence. No such Minister is bound to concur in any such motion: but to him the mover is expected to communicate it; he, to receive it and to attend to it: and so throughout its progress, until it is either adopted or rejected.

Section XXX.

Dislocable how.

Enactive.

From the situation of Member of the Legislative Assembly, causes of dislocatedness are these—

1. Resignation.

2. Acceptance, of any other office belonging to the Official Establishment of this State.

3. Acceptance, of any office belonging to the Official Establishment of any Foreign State.

4. Acceptance, of factitious honour or dignity, in any shape, at the hands of any Foreign Government.

5. Mental derangement.

6. Disturbance, of Legislative proceedings, as per section 16, Security for the Assembly against disturbance, &c.

7. Criminal delinquency, pronounced by the sentence of a Judiciary, located for this purpose by the Legislature, as per section 28, Legislation Penal Judicatory.

8. Dislocation, by his constituents, in virtue of their incidental dislocative, as per Ch. v. Constitutive. Section 2, Powers.

Section XXXI.

Securities for appropriate aptitude.

Instructional.

Art. 1. The assemblage of securities, here proposed with reference to the highest department, the Legislature, forms the commencement of an all-pervading system of the like securities, covering the whole field of the Official establishment, and applying to all public functionaries in every department and subdepartment. The same endeavour will accordingly be seen successively applying itself to the situation of Prime Minister,—to the situations of the several Ministers,—to the several Sub-legislatures, their Members, and Subordinates,—and with more especial solicitude to that of the several Members of the Judiciary establishment; and lastly to the bis-subdepartment occupied by the Local Headmen and Local Registrars, whose logical fields of service, in their respective smallest local fields of action, lie in subordination to the directing functionaries of the Administrative and Judiciary departments; and are composed accordingly of portions of the logical fields of service of both.

Security against abuse of power composes one branch of the system of securities here provided: one branch, but not the only one: for, security against abuse of power is but one branch, though the principal one, of security for appropriate moral aptitude: and to this are added security for appropriate intellectual and security for appropriate active aptitude.

Instructional.

Art. 2. For this purpose, and on these several occasions, confidence (it cannot be denied) may with truth be said to be minimized: distrust and suspicion maximized. Principle acted upon, say for shortness, the confidence-minimization principle: whence, as to practical deductions, the control-maximization principle.

Instructional.

Art. 3. Corresponding rules are the following:—I. To no official situation, attach any more power than is necessary to enable the functionaries to exercise the functions of it with the most effectual subserviency to the dictates of the greatest-happiness principle.

Instructional.

Art. 4. II. To every such situation, apply such instrumentary arrangements as, by means of appropriate selection, restraint and constraint shall afford the efficient security for appropriate aptitude in all its branches.

Instructional.

Art. 5. III. The arrangements for restraint are those which promise to afford the most effectual security against abuse of power: to wit, of the several powers respectively instituted and conferred.

Instructional.

Art. 6. These principles and rules have for their bases certain axioms, or say assumptions. These are expressive of certain supposed matters of fact: the existence of certain propensities in all human minds.

Instructional.

Art. 7. I. In all human minds, in howsoever widely different proportions,—self-regard, and sympathy for others, or say, extra-regard, have place.

Instructional.

Art. 8. II. But, in self-regard even sympathy has its root: and if, in the general tenor of human conduct, self-regard were not prevalent over sympathy,—even over sympathy for all others put together,—no such species as the human could have existence.

Instructional. Expositive.

Art. 9. Take any two persons, A and B, and suppose them the only persons in existence:—call them, for example, Adam and Eve. Adam has no regard for himself: the whole of his regard has for its object Eve. Eve in like manner has no regard for herself: the whole of her regard has for its object Adam. Follow this supposition up: introduce the occurrences, which, sooner or later, are sure to happen, and you will see that, at the end of an assignable length of time, greater or less according to accident, but in no case so much as a twelvemonth, both will unavoidably have perished.

Instructional.

Art. 10. To give increase to the influence of sympathy at the expense of that of self-regard, and of sympathy for the greater number at the expense of sympathy for the lesser number,—is the constant and arduous task, as of every moralist, so of every legislator who deserves to be so. But, in regard to sympathy, the less the proportion of it is, the natural and actual existence of which he assumes as and for the basis of his arrangements, the greater will be the success of whatever endeavours he uses to give increase to it.

Instructional.

Art. 11. A consequence is—that whatsoever evil it is possible for man to do for the advancement of his own private and personal interest, (or what comes to the same thing, what to him appears such,) at the expense of the public interest,—that evil, sooner or later, he will do, unless by some means or other, intentional or otherwise, he be prevented from doing it.

Instructional.

Art. 12. To the above rule suppose there is this or that exception: still, with a view to practice, there might as well be none: forasmuch as by no criterion will it be possible, to distinguish the individuals in whose instance the exception has place, from those in whose instance the general rule has place: more especially when, as in the case of all Legislative arrangements of a general nature, the individuals in question are unassigned and unassignable.

Instructional.

Art. 13. Neither to the public service is it in the nature of the precautions in question to be hurtful; nor yet so much as to the reputation or the feelings of the individuals to whom they apply.

Not to the public service? Yes, indeed, if of the care thus taken to avoid giving to functionaries more power than, as above, is needful, the effect were—to withhold from them any part of that which is needful. But, in proportion to the attention with which the arrangements in question are looked into by him, and compared with others, will be every man’s assurance,—that in no existing Code is the scope given to the power of ruling functionaries so ample as in the present proposed Code.

Instructional.

Art. 14. Not even to the reputation or the feelings of any individual functionary or non-functionary are these precautions hurtful. Yes, if they applied to him to the exclusion of others, or in a more particular manner than to others. But, no: for, without any exception, they apply to all persons alike.

Instructional.

Art. 15. To say—they ought not to apply to me, is as much as to say—I am not of the human species: or at the least with the Pharisee, “I am not as other men are.”

Instructional.

Art. 16. As little can these precautions be said to be needless: for, wheresoever no obstacle—no bar to evil doing is opposed, and motives inciting to evil doing are at work, evil doing will, by the prevalence of self-regard over sympathy, be sure to be let in. Suppose the probability of evil doing ever so faint, still ought the obstacles in question to be opposed to it, considering that by their being opposed to it, evil may be excluded, while, as above shown, from their being so opposed, in no shape can evil, public or private, be introduced.

Instructional.

Art. 17. Accordingly, on this supposition, in respect of the treatment given by them to the subject many, proceed, on every occasion, the ruling one and the ruling or sub-ruling few. No evil, how atrociously and extensively mischievous soever, do they speak of or deal by as too mischievous to be likely to be exercised: no mischievous act, in so far as the subject many are regarded as capable of being the actors, and these rulers themselves as liable to be sufferers by it, do they leave unnoticed, or by force of restraint and punishment, omit to use their endeavours for the prevention of it.

Instructional.

Art. 18. In the estimates acted on by rulers, the degree of propensity to evil in the minds of the subject many is commonly carried rather beyond than short of the truth. In particular, such is the estimate acted upon by all Legislators: such is the estimate acted upon by all Judges, especially by all Judges, who, as in England, are suffered to act, and act accordingly, as Legislators: except always in so far as the persons acted upon belong to those classes which are linked with theirs by a community of particular and sinister interest.

Instructional.

Art. 19. Widely different, not to say opposite, in relation to propensity to evil on their part, is the estimate by these confederates acted upon. Is it the ruling one that is in question? His estimate of himself, as expressed in his own language, is—I am not as other men are: they are of the species composed of miserable sinners. I am of the species between God and man. Thereupon, from the lips and pens of those to whom he is an object of hope or fear, comes the response in chorus—O yes, sir, so you are! Are they the ruling few? Of the like complexion here too, is the estimate acted upon,—and a certain theory, on which it is grounded. Motives (says this theory) are of two sorts, impure and pure. With few or no exceptions, the motives which give determination to the conduct of all, whose situation in the conjunct scales of power and opulence is beneath a certain level, are impure or pure, as it may happen: in all situations above that same level, at all times supremely and invariably pure:* to suppose that, on any occasion, they do or can fail of being so, is an affront, and a gross injury: an injury to which, either at the hands of justice, or at those of the party injured, condign punishment is due.

Instructional.

Art. 20. Not that in this theory about purity and impurity, there is anything better than stark nonsense: not that any one who utters it, knows what it is he means by it. But, if the theory wants so much, the practical conclusions from it want not anything of being sufficiently intelligible:—Reserve all restraints for those others: none are needful, all are injurious, if applied to ourselves.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 21. In point of fact—unquestionable fact—how stands relative behaviour in correspondence with the condition of the two situations? In the position supposed as above? No: but exactly the reverse. The more dependent a man is for the comforts of life on his good behaviour to others, the better is his behaviour to them: the less dependent, the worse. The greater a man’s power, the stronger his propensity in all possible ways to abuse it. Of this fact, all history is one continued proof. Ye who, for examples, fear to look near home,—send your regards to a safe distance. Look to the twelve Cæsars: there you have distance in time: look to all oriental despots: there you may have distance in time and space.

Instructional. Ratiocinative.

Art. 22. But, if such were not the effect of power in all lesser masses, neither could it have been so in those greatest possible masses. Not in the inverse, but in the direct ratio of the quantity of power possessed, is the degree of propensity to do evil in every shape: the degree of the propensity, and therefore the quantum of the demand for securities against the existence and the effects of it. If to any one it appears, that in any part of the scale, this proportion fails to hold good, let him say in what, and wherefore.

But, in this respect, suppose high and low upon a par;—suppose even, that, in the high situations, the evil propensity is less strong than in the low ones;—still, so long as, in the case of the mind in question, the existence of it is in any degree admitted,—the demand for the securities in question must be allowed to be indispensable.

Instructional.

Art. 23. If so it be, that these securities for appropriate aptitude are thus incontestably beneficial and needful,—the sort of reception a man gives to them when proposed, may serve as a test of his own appropriate aptitude, moral and intellectual. Regarding them as beneficial and needful, does he contest their being so? judge thence of his sincerity and probity: regards he them as not beneficial, or as not useful? judge thence of his understanding.

Instructional.

Art. 24. Different will naturally be the reception experienced by these securities, at the hands of rulers, in different governments: most favourable, in a pure representative democracy: less favourable, in a pure and absolute monarchy: most completely unfavourable in a mixed monarchy, composed of a mixture of monarchy and aristocracy, with or without a tinge of representative democracy.

Instructional.

Art. 25. I. Look first to a pure representative democracy. Why in this case most favourable? Answer. The reason is almost too obvious to bear mentioning. Every man is a gainer by the efficiency of these securities: no man can entertain a hope of being a gainer from their absence, or their inefficiency.

Instructional.

Art. 26. One class, and that the only one, by which an unfavourable reception will naturally be given to it, is the Lawyer class: and, even in their case, not to the whole system,—but only to that part of it which applies to the Judicial Department.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 27. For exemplification and instruction, look to the Anglo-American United States. In that seat of good government,—by that class, and by that alone, is a system of authorized depredation kept in exercise at the expense of all the other classes: accordingly, for no system of securities, the tendency of which is to lessen the amount of evil from that source, can any favourable reception be reasonably expected at such hands.

Instructional. Exemplificational.

Art. 28. Of the ascendancy of this class the cause is—that when the people cast off the other parts of the English yoke,—neither time, nor the state of appropriate intellectual aptitude on the part of leading men, admitted of their casting off, except in here and there an easily detached fragment, that part, which, under the name of Common Law, had, by those of the King’s creatures and instruments, by whom were occupied the chief judicial situations, been gradually imposed upon the rest of the community,—for their own benefit, in subserviency to and in conjunction with that of the Monarch, by whom they had been located, and were at every moment dislocable. In this same Common Law, with its essential and most elaborately organized uncertainty, its factitious delay, vexation, and expense, did they behold an instrument which, with more or less effect, would, in all such hands as could obtain a share in the use of it, be applicable to the purposes, for which, as above, it had been originally framed.

Instructional.

Art. 29. True it is—that, in that same fortunate region, by the official class of lawyers, no such share is reaped in the plunderage as by the professional class: nor, in the professional class, are the largest lots nearly equal to those which are reaped by the same class in the mother country: the magnitude being kept comparatively small by the multiplicity of the competitors: but by this very multiplicity will their appetite for the golden fruit, and their fear of losing any part of it, be sharpened, and their horror of everything that threatens to lessen it, augmented: and, misrepresentation being the grand instrument of their trade,—the use of it, in a case of such vital importance cannot reasonably be expected to be spared.

Instructional.

Art. 30. II. Look next to a pure and absolute Monarchy. So as the power of depredation and oppression, to the use of himself and such instruments and favourites as, from time to time, it may please him to let in for a participation in the benefit of that same power, remains unchanged,—security against abuse of power by all other functionaries, so far from being to the Monarch a sure object of displeasure, will naturally enough be an object and source of satisfaction in his eyes. Depredation committed by them to their own profit, will be to him so much loss: for, the greater the spoil taken by them, the less remains for him: and, as to oppression as well as depredation,—by whatsoever is committed by them in gratification of their own appetites, discontent is produced and secret enmity, from which he has never anything to hope, and always more or less to apprehend: considering, as he cannot but now and then consider, that his life is at the mercy of every man who will risk his own life for the hope of destroying that of the supposed author of his sufferings.

Instructional.

Art. 31. In this case, the misfortune is—that, of the aggregate mass of securities against abuse of power in functionaries, the greatest part, as has been, and will be further seen, unavoidably depends upon the power of the Public-Opinion Tribunal: and a Monarch will always be fully sensible, to the difficulty which there cannot but be, in allowing that authority to oppose its force to abuse of power, in the shapes in which it appears to him that he would be a sufferer by it,—without seeing and feeling that same force acting against that same abuse, in the shapes in which the whole or the greatest part of the profit from it is reaped by himself.

Instructional.

Art. 32. To come to particulars: Security against abuse of power on the part of the Legislative authority,—no such Monarch can, of course, be naturally expected to endure: for his is the Legislative authority. Not so as to his subordinates, all or any, in the Administration Department: not so, as to his subordinates even in the Judiciary Department: for, of appropriate aptitude in both those departments, his absolute power enables him to reap for himself the full benefit: while, on every occasion on which, in his view of the matter, it threatens to oppose obstacles to his will,—he can extinguish it, or completely guard himself against the effects of it. Not altogether without reason, therefore, may he be expected to give acceptance—if not to all securities against abuse of power in those departments,—at least, to all such securities as can be employed, without giving, to the Public-Opinion Tribunal, an influence, capable, in his eyes, of opposing obstacles to any such depredation and oppression as it may happen to him to feel disposed to see committed.

Instructional.

Art. 33. III. Look now to pure aristocracy. Look, in a word, to British India: for, though a controlling power is in the hands of the mixed monarchy to which the members of that same aristocracy are subject,—yet it is by themselves that all the details of Government in the way of legislation are carried on. Securities against abuse of power on the part of the Legislative authority, they cannot reasonably be expected to endure; for they themselves are Legislators. So neither against abuse of power on the part of occupants of situations in the Administrative department: for, by themselves, or by those in providing for whom they provide for themselves, are those same situations occupied: accordingly, ruin is the universally expected and most effectually denounced lot, of all who should presume to bring to light, or hold up to view, within the field of their power, any instance of such abuse: all this under the eye and to the perfect satisfaction of the superior authority—the King’s Board of Control—whose care it is, to whatsoever else they apply this same control, not to apply it to depredation, to oppression, or to that power by which complaint is stifled, and misery thus maximized.

Instructional.

Art. 34. Thus irremediably adverse are they naturally rendered, to the application of all such securities to the legislative and administrative departments. Not altogether so in regard to the judicial department. For, to such a degree, on the part of their subjects, for want of appropriate civil law judicature and procedure, does security for property remain deficient,—that by the deficiency the quantity of the matter of wealth capable of being extracted from them, is manifestly diminished. The consequence is—that, supposing appropriate legislation and judicature capable of being established, with such effect as to give increase to the quantity of wealth so extractible, and at the same time without giving to the Public-Opinion Tribunal any such power as would oppose a sensible check to the profitable and indispensable abuse of power in the other departments,—a system, of good judicature and correspondent legislation, might, not altogether without reason, be expected to find, at least among the most enlightened of that same body, its advocates.

A circumstance that contributes to render such a result the less improbable is—that, as to those situations, in which, in cases regarded as the most important, judicial power is exercised,—the power of location is in the hands—not of these same aristocrats, but of the Monarch; and, by the depredation exercised to so vast an amount by those creatures of their superior, the sub-aristocratical creatures of the aristocratical rulers are sufferers without being gainers.

Instructional.

Art. 35. IV. Look lastly to mixed Monarchy: composed, as above, of a mixture of Monarchy and Aristocracy: the one and the few sharing between them the absolute power: but, in proportions at all times variable; because, at all times, depending upon and varying with the degree of vigour in the Monarch’s mind, and the direction taken by it. In this case, the horror of all such securities is naturally, not to say necessarily, universal on the part of both: into no one department of Government will the idea of any application made of them be endurable. The Monarch cannot abuse his power to his own benefit without their concurrence; nor therefore without suffering, and even, upon occasion, helping, them to make abuse of power to their benefit: they cannot abuse their power to their own benefit without his concurrence, as above. The ruling one cannot keep his subjects under a system of regulated plunderage, without letting in the sub-ruling or co-ruling few for a proportion of the plunder: they cannot get in that same share, but either through his hands or with his concurrence. He cannot extort a million a-year for the gratification of his own appetites without keeping the official establishment filled with overpaid offices, needless offices, and sinecures, to the amount of ulterior millions shared by them among themselves. He cannot keep up a vast and needless permanent military force on both elements without sharing among them the offices, military and civil, belonging to it.

Instructional.

Art. 36. On the other hand, legislative assemblies, the proceedings of which cannot be carried on without a certain degree of publicity, being of the essence of this form of Government, it cannot, easily, if at all, be carried on without suffering the Public-Opinion Tribunal to be in existence, and to exercise, with more or less effect, and with much more than under a pure Monarchy, its abuse-restraining and tutelary power. For, in every such assembly, there will of course be at all times two parties, contending against one another for such parts of the plunderage as are at the disposal of the Monarch, and for all such other power as is open to competition: and their sole means of contending with one another is, on all occasions, a virtual appeal, more or less explicit, to the will and undefinable power of the people, say, to the Public-Opinion Tribunal, by which that same saving power is exercised.

Instructional.

Art. 37. Think now—whether, under any such form of government, for any efficient system of Securities for appropriate aptitude on the part of the Members of the Official Establishment in the several departments, Legislative, Administrative, and Judicial; and, in particular, for that moral aptitude by which, in proportion as it has place, needless expense is excluded,—anything like a favourable reception can on any reasonable grounds be expected. Can it in the Legislative Department? No: for, between the Monarch and the Aristocracy all legislative power is shared. Can it in the Administrative Department? No: for there likewise, through the same channels, afforded by overpaid places, needless places, sinecure places, pensions for retreat, and pensions without even that pretence, whatsoever portion of the matter of wealth can be extorted from those by whose labour it is produced, is shared among these same self-styled pure, and too indisputably exalted, hands.

Instructional.

Art. 38. Can it in the Judiciary? No: for without any the least trouble or odium,—by the hands of their necessary and dependent instruments—the higher class of Judges, the three superior classes of functionaries—King, Lords, and Commons—can carry on, and reap the profit of, abuse of power in cases to an indefinite extent, in which, by so operose a machine as that of Parliament, fear of shame, of public discontent, of resistance, of the trouble of getting through the forms,—would concur in preventing their carrying it on with their own hands. In a chamber called a Court of Justice—half a minute—in some cases, of four men’s, in others of one man’s, time,—not only can do, but is habitually employed in doing, that which, in the two chambers called Houses of Parliament, if in those places it could be done at all, would cost months, not to say years, to do in those forms, without which validity might be questionable, and disobedience not improbable. So much for time: then, as to words, issued from a bush of artificial hair, a word or two, such as conspiracy, Christianity, blasphemy, libel, hurt to feelings, bonos mores,—can convert innoxious acts into crimes, punish men at pleasure and without warning, banish security from property, substitute secret judicature to public, stifle all complaint, bar out all redress; take children out of the hands of fathers; engage booksellers to cheat printers,—extinguish literary property in a book without looking at it. Banish security from property? Yes: and not only from all property, but from whatever else possesses value: for wherever by the name of Common Law, Judge-made law reigns,—security is an empty name.

Instructional.

Art. 39. Add to this the service rendered to Legislators in their individual capacity, by the impunity secured to them in the character of Magistrates:—conferred thereby and established by Common Law, behold accordingly a power of oppression too enormous to be assumed and established by Statute Law.

Instructional.

Art. 40. Under this form of government,—thus conveniently assistant, not to say necessary, to abuse of power in the Legislative and Administrative, is an unrestrained and correspondent abuse of power in the Judiciary department: in this state of things, whether in or for any one of the three departments any efficient securities against such abuse have, under this same form of government, any much better chance of finding acceptance than in or for any other, must be left to experience to declare.*

Instructional.

Art. 41. Securities here provided for appropriate aptitude in the situation of members of the Legislative Body, are these—

Instructional.

Art. 42. I. For appropriate aptitude in all its branches taken together—

1. Locators, those whose interest it is that the happiness of the greatest number be maximized: as per Ch. ii. Ends and Means: Ch. iii. Sovereignty, in whom: Ch. vi. section 4 to 13 inclusive: condition and number of the locating Electors.

2. General responsibility, as per section 2, Responsibility.

3. Shortness of term of service in each Elector: namely, no more than one year, as per section 14, with the accidental addition of the fragment of another, as per section 22, Term of service, continuance.

4. Non-relocability, till after the lapse of two or three years, reckoned from the expiration of the last preceding term of service, as per section 25, Relocable who: Section 26, Wrongful exclusion obviated: that choice of persons who have had experience, and of whom experience has been had, may never be wanting.

5. General responsibility of the whole body, and its several members, as per section 2, Responsibility, and section 23, Self-suppletive function, and Ch. v. Constitutive, section 6, Securities against Legislative, &c.

6. Special causes of temporary secrecy excepted,—publicity of legislational sittings, as per section 21, Sittings, public and secret.

7. Publicity, permanent as well as immediate, given—to the part taken by the several members, on the occasion of each motion, as per section 29, Members’ Motions. Art. 6.

8. Securities for appropriate aptitude, on the part of all subordinate functionaries,—in the several other departments, administrational and judiciary,—without whose concurrence scarcely can any considerable evil be produced by the ordaining body. See the sections intituled Securities, &c., in the chapters, headed Ch. vii Prime Minister—Ch. ix. Ministers collectively—Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively—Ch. xxv. Local Headmen—Ch. xxvi. Local Registrars.

Instructional.

Art. 43. II. Securities, applying more particularly to moral aptitude.

1. Provision made, against corruption in every shape, as per section 19, Remuneration, and, by constancy of appropriate occupation, to the exclusion of time for corruptive intercourse, as per section 18, Attendance; section 20, Attendance and Remuneration.

2. In case of delinquency, punibility at the hands of succeeding Legislatures, as per section 28, Legislation Penal Judicatory.

3. Special security provided against mutual disturbance to members, during Legislational Sittings; as per section 16.

4. All-comprehensive subjection to the tutelary power of the Public-Opinion Tribunal, through the instrumentality of the Legislator’s Inaugural Declaration, as per Ch. vii.

Instructional.

Art. 44. III. Securities, applying more particularly to intellectual aptitude.

1. Exceptions excepted, original locability of all persons without distinction by the respective Electoral Bodies.

2. After the expiration of the preparation period, as in the case of Ministers and other functionaries belonging to the Administrative Department, as per Ch. ix. Ministers collectively, section 16, Locable who,—sole persons locable, those by whom proof of appropriate aptitude has been given; namely, by means of the Examination Judicatory thereby organized.

3. Provision made, for all comprehensiveness of appropriate information, as per Ch. viii. Prime Minister, section 10, Registration System, and section 11, Publication System; Ch. ix. Ministers collectively, section 7, Statistic function; Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively, section 14, Publicity-recordation publication; Ch. xxi. Immediate and Appellate Judiciary Registrars; Ch. xxvi. Local Registrars; Ch. vi. Legislature, section 27, Legislation Inquiry Judicatory.

4. Provision made, for giving to fresh enactments, on their introduction, the most apt form, in respect of the conjunct qualities of correctness, comprehensiveness, clearness, conciseness, or say succinctness, and methodicalness,—and without diminution of appropriate power,—as per section 29, Members’ Motions: and on the responsibility of a subordinate Minister, located for this purpose; as per Ch. xi. Ministers separately, section 2, Legislation Minister.

5. Provision made, in respect of those same qualities, by needful legislative interpretation and special amendment, according as the need is brought to view in the course of Judicature: as per Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively. Section 19, Judges’ contested-interpretation function. Section 20, Judges’ eventually-emendative function. Section 22, Judges’ preinterpretive function.

Instructional.

Art. 45. IV. Securities, applying more particularly to appropriate active aptitude.

1. Provision made, for the uninterrupted sittings of the Legislative body: as per section 1, Powers and duties; and section 18, Attendance.

2. Provision made, for the uninterrupted attendance of each Member, as per section 18, Attendance, and section 20, Attendance and Remuneration; or, in case of accident, by a Depute of his choice, and for whom he is responsible: as per section 23, Self-suppletive function.

[* ]The work called Radical Reform Bill, was first intended by the author to be termed Election Code. It appears near the end of vol. iii. in this collection, and a list of titles of sections virtually corresponding with the above will be found in p. 563.—Ed.

[* ]Conceptions, to a considerable extent opposite to those which gave birth to the here-proposed arrangements, may be seen in a published letter of the author’s to the then existing Portuguese Cortes Ann. 1821. Supposing those conceptions, and not these, erroneous,—a principal cause of the error may be seen in the want of an idea sufficiently clear, associated at that time with the word experience: a deficiency which, it is hoped, will on the present occasion be found supplied. Another cause is—that the idea of the Continuation Committee had not at that time, as yet presented itself; any more than that of extending, to the situation of Deputy to the Legislature, the principle of self-supply, which, having been originally suggested by the circumstances of the Judicial department, has been since extended to the Administrative, and now, last of all, that is to say, as late as the commencement of the year 1826, to the legislative department.

[* ]See the Author’s Work on Evidence, in vols. vi. and vii.—Ed.

[* ]In English practice, the examinee is, in some cases, preposterously styled the examinant.

[* ]On the subject of this section see farther Essay on Political Tactics, vol. ii. p. 301, et seq.—Ed.

[† ][Pannomion.] From the Greek:—the whole body of the laws.

[* ]Prototype and model of this theory, that of the origin of metals, as delivered in the old English Law Book, Plowden’s Commentaries,—case, styled Fogassa’s Case:—father and mother of all metals, mercury and sulphur: in a pure state, they beget the precious, in an impure, the base metals.

For a supposed all-comprehensive and unsophisticated, if preferred to a sophisticated account of motives, see Springs of Action Table, by the Author of this Code; and for elucidation of it, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, (in vol. i. of this collection.)

[* ]The course of experience here alluded to, is it not sufficient? Add then one fact more, with the volumes, as the phrase is, spoken by it. In a work, now for upwards of a twelvemonth past published, and repeatedly advertised,a a knot of English Judges, under the immediate authority, and to the vast profit of the heads of the law,—that is to say, of all the Judges,—and in conjunction with a set of professional lawyers, whom, as is shown, they have even forced into the confederacy,—have been proved to be in the constant and long-continued practice of a crime—“obtainment of money by false pretences”—for which, by an Act of the Legislature,a expressed in these very words, men at large have, for near a century past, been consigned to imprisonment, transportation, or the pillory, at the option of another set of Judges belonging to the same Judicatory. Of the establishment of this demonstration, what has been the consequence? Prosecution of the accused? No. Prosecution of the accuser? No: for by such prosecution the accused, with their guilt upon their heads, would be dragged into the broadest daylight: and though there is but one accuser, yet it is from published works of other persons in considerable number, that the facts constitutive of the matter of accusation are derived: what was done by the accusation being an indication given of the bearing of the law upon those same facts. Meantime, by all Parliament men, by all Judges, by all professional lawyers of all classes,—it is either read or heard of: it is known to be true, and, as if by universal consent,—regarded, or turned aside from, in the most perfectly uninterrupted silence.

All this while, the more deeply and more manifestly the members of this section of the ruling few, are plunged in the habit of those transgressions, a single act of which suffices to consign any one of the subject many to punishment and infamy,—the louder are they in that chorus of protestations, and self-eulogies, and mutual certificates of impeccability, in which, if there were any approach to the truth, all security against deficiency in appropriate moral aptitude, not to speak of intellectual and active, would be needlessly and uselessly vexatious.

Never, till the people have opened their eyes wide, never till they have lifted up their voices likewise in full chorus—giving at once support, confidence, and ulterior impulse to whatsoever men in power their good fortune may have listed in their service,—no, never will the plague of lawyers be stayed. Pruning? Yes, that they will peradventure consent to; but, by appropriate pruning, this poison tree, like any other tree, is not destroyed, but fructified and preserved.

Folly alone can expect criminality in high places to take flight, so long as it continues not only unpunished but respected: respected, and even, in forms prescribed by itself, worshipped.

[* ]The course of experience here alluded to, is it not sufficient? Add then one fact more, with the volumes, as the phrase is, spoken by it. In a work, now for upwards of a twelvemonth past published, and repeatedly advertised,a a knot of English Judges, under the immediate authority, and to the vast profit of the heads of the law,—that is to say, of all the Judges,—and in conjunction with a set of professional lawyers, whom, as is shown, they have even forced into the confederacy,—have been proved to be in the constant and long-continued practice of a crime—“obtainment of money by false pretences”—for which, by an Act of the Legislature,a expressed in these very words, men at large have, for near a century past, been consigned to imprisonment, transportation, or the pillory, at the option of another set of Judges belonging to the same Judicatory. Of the establishment of this demonstration, what has been the consequence? Prosecution of the accused? No. Prosecution of the accuser? No: for by such prosecution the accused, with their guilt upon their heads, would be dragged into the broadest daylight: and though there is but one accuser, yet it is from published works of other persons in considerable number, that the facts constitutive of the matter of accusation are derived: what was done by the accusation being an indication given of the bearing of the law upon those same facts. Meantime, by all Parliament men, by all Judges, by all professional lawyers of all classes,—it is either read or heard of: it is known to be true, and, as if by universal consent,—regarded, or turned aside from, in the most perfectly uninterrupted silence.

All this while, the more deeply and more manifestly the members of this section of the ruling few, are plunged in the habit of those transgressions, a single act of which suffices to consign any one of the subject many to punishment and infamy,—the louder are they in that chorus of protestations, and self-eulogies, and mutual certificates of impeccability, in which, if there were any approach to the truth, all security against deficiency in appropriate moral aptitude, not to speak of intellectual and active, would be needlessly and uselessly vexatious.

Never, till the people have opened their eyes wide, never till they have lifted up their voices likewise in full chorus—giving at once support, confidence, and ulterior impulse to whatsoever men in power their good fortune may have listed in their service,—no, never will the plague of lawyers be stayed. Pruning? Yes, that they will peradventure consent to; but, by appropriate pruning, this poison tree, like any other tree, is not destroyed, but fructified and preserved.

Folly alone can expect criminality in high places to take flight, so long as it continues not only unpunished but respected: respected, and even, in forms prescribed by itself, worshipped.

[a ]Indications respecting Lord Eldon, (vol. v. p. 348.)

[a ]30 G. II. Ch. 24, sect. 1.