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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to O’Connell. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 11 (Memoirs of Bentham Part II and Analytical Index) [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. 11.

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

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Bentham to O’Connell.

Dear O’Connell,

Comes into my head just now an idea which I lose no time in communicating to you.

“On the occasion of your motion for printing Codification matter for use of Honourable House, what say you to another for the printing of Livingston’s Louisiana Codification matter for that same purpose—I say on the occasion; not at the same time: for it would add a drag to a wheel which quite drags enough without it.

“Cases sufficiently apposite, not to say in point, you would have in plenty. Under the name of Regulations, Codes printed by order of Honourable House. From do., enacted and published in various parts in British India: the like from other distant dependencies of the British empire, in particular the West Indies: a complete list might, if needful, be collected for this purpose.

“Objection 1. This is matter of course and of obligation: for, over these subordinate communities we legislate; and to legislate well appropriate information is necessary; but over Louisiana we do not legislate. Answer—True; but unless we are omniscient, something in the way of appropriate information upon a much larger scale than in these cases may be not altogether without its use.

“On the subject of the quondam Nabob of Arcot’s debts, real and pretended, to British individuals, Honourable House has already in print, folio volumes twenty-six, and the series not completed; on the funds belonging to English charities, about as many: this last communication in consequence of the Commission moved for and obtained by Mr Brougham. This Codification-matter of the State of Louisiana would not occupy so much space as is occupied by this or that one of the above-mentioned fifty-two.

“Objection 2. Louisiana is a republic,—a commonwealth. ‘Matchless Constitution’ is a monarchy: it becomes us not to take for a model the laws of a commonwealth.—Answer. True: not the constitutional branch; but on no part of the constitutional branch have these Louisiana codes any bearing. Penal and Procedure,—these are the only branches comprised in the assemblage.

“N. B. For Louisiana there exists, and I believe already in a binding state, moreover, a civil code: but in relation to this, prudence, if my ears deceive me not, commands silence: for Louisiana being a commonwealth, landed property will, of course, be divided among all children, Gavel-kind fashion: of all heresies the most damnable—the most damnable in the eyes of the worshippers of the Dæmon of Oligarchy.

“For his own information, in his quality of Legislator of the French nation, Buonaparte gave publicity in French to the code, a widely comprehensive code, civil or criminal, or both, of another nation,—I believe civil, and that alone: but upon occasion, this matter could be stated with the requisite correctness.

“Should Mr Peel, or any of his lawyers,—should the worthy offspring of the Scarlet Whore, whose sins are red as scarlet, dare to make opposition, remind them of the civil wars of ancient Rome, between the Patricians and the Plebeians: main cause of them, the original policy, inexorably adhered to, of keeping the rule of action in a state of uncognoscibility: the lamp of the law hidden for ever within the impenetrable, light-denying, darkness-securing bushel.

Apropos of Mr Peel. On Saturday I sent to him a copy of the argument against fee-gathering in judiciary offices of both grades, in the state in which I sent it to you: accompaniment to it, letter, in and by which was holden out a hand, which, if so disposed, he may regard as a ‘right hand of fellowship,’ and take hold of accordingly: occasion, the symptoms manifested in a late speech or two of his, in which he is coming round and attacking the army of Chicane in flank, at any rate, not to say in front, and, moreover, issuing a direct declaration of war against ‘Technicalities.’ I even offer to look at those bills of his, if he will send them to me as he did some former ones. To these advances should he oppose a refusal, expressly, or by silence virtually, they will heap coals of fire on his head: for which purpose I have, moreover, some glorious matter, in a letter which he therein gives me leave to publish.”