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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

“ Supposed sacrifice of power by George the Third—supposed Independence of the Judges. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

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

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“Supposed sacrifice of power by George the Third—supposed Independence of the Judges.

“Sir,—

Pardon me—but your wonted sagacity has for a moment been laid asleep by the authority of Blackstone. In your character of the late king, in your paper of the 6th instant, that act of his, whereby he deprived his successor of the faculty of removing any of the twelve Judges, seems to be spoken of as if it were a sacrifice made of personal interest on the altar of public welfare. In itself, the thing, as far as it went, was doubtless good; but as to the motive, look again: it was the power of his sucessor, you will see, that paid all the expense of it: his own, so far from diminution, received great and manifest increase from it. Suppose the power of displacing these functionaries to remain to the successor, observe the consequence: as the prospect of a demise of the Crown, from whatever cause, became nearer and nearer, the apprehension of thwarting the will and pleasure of the expected successor would, in those learned breasts, become more and more intense: and in truth, as men die at all ages, while, against all fear of losing their situations these functionaries would have been, as they are, perfectly independent of the monarch in possession, their conduct, in case of ill-humour between him and the monarch in expectancy, would always be at the command of the expected successor. I say in case of ill-humour: and, such is the nature of man, especially of man in that situation, never has there been a reign, in which there has not been war in that sublunary heaven called a Court, between the person who has had the sweets of royalty between his lips, and the person whose mouth was watering for them. This, in particular, has, and in every instance, been the case in the family of the Guelphs, since they mounted the throne of Britain: and whether this could have been a secret to the son of Frederick prince of Wales, let any one imagine.

“As to independence, on the part of those, or any other functionaries—in a monarchy it is not in the nature of the case to be anything like complete. Yes—as against punishment: no—as against reward: and in this country, who does not know, who does not feel, that the quantity of the matter of reward, at the disposal of the monarch, has no bound to it?

“Such is matchless Constitution! Public functionaries independent of Corruptor-general? Where will you find them? Yes—as against punishment—some:—always remembered that in this number cannot be reckoned any of those who at his pleasure may at any time be turned out to starve. Still, however, some there are who are independent as against punishment; but as against the power of reward, look for them as long as you will, not a single one will you find.

“Judges independent indeed? Yes—if there were no such things as peerages or promotions: yes—if a Judge had neither friends, relations, nor dependents.

“No, Sir, in the whole catalogue of vulgar errors, not many will you find that are more pernicious than that which is couched in the phrase—the independency of the Judges. Woe to the defendant in a political prosecution—woe to a politically obnoxious party in any suit, if the falsity of it be, though but for a moment, out of the eyes of jurors.

“In a word, Sir, under this matchless constitution, he who in any of these, or any other promoted or practising lawyers, looks for anything better than a perpetual obsequious instrument in the hands of the monarch and his ministers, what does he see of that which is passing before his eyes? What does he know of human nature?

“In days of yore, when the state of the constitution afforded an opposition, capable of looking to office not altogether without rationally grounded hope, dependence on one party might produce somewhat of the effect of independence as against another. Thus, while you had a Murray who lay constantly prostrate before the throne, you had a Pratt who could stand sometimes on his legs. But these days are gone for ever. The possibility of their return remains nowhere but in the imagination of the Whigs.

“Jeremy Bentham.”

Bentham considered humanity to animals as a duty, reposing on the same foundations as the claims of man to humanity, only modified by the consideration, that the sum of pain and pleasure involved in the sufferings and enjoyments of brutes, is less in amount than that involved in the sufferings and enjoyments of human beings. He wrote to the editor of the Morning Chronicle this letter on the subject:—