The persons by whose declarations, as hereinafter expressed, this CertiBcate, and thereby the Vote, are given, are we, whose names and descriptions are here, by our several hands respectively, immediately underwritten, in the nipliabetical order of our surnames; to wit, Jackson, Thomas, Arabella Row, No. l9, Hmscholder and Carptnter. House- holder, within the above-mentioned Election District, for upwards of twenty-six weeks, fndins: this day.
LaUkam, Samuel, James.^treet. No. 10, Householder and Glazier. House- holder, within the above-mentioned Election District, for upwards of twenty-six weeks, ending this day.
WiUiums, Joseph, James Street, No. 20, Householder and Carpenter. House- holder, within the above-mentioned Election District, for upwards of ttcenty-six weeks, ending this day.
Tiiat which we hereby certify is — that according to the several true declara- tions followiiiir, as contained in the nine nnmbered paragraphs following, he the said George Simpson is entitled to give a vote in the Polling; District, above- mentioned, on the Election of a Member to serve for tiie Election District above-mentioned, in the above-mentioned ensuins Parhament.
I. At the Honse of Samuel Laldiam, above-written, on the day above- writ ten, on or abont eleven of the clock in the forenoon, we whose names and descrip- tions are above written, did write them; to wit, each of us his own name and description, in the si!{ht, and at the same time in the hearing, of the two others.
IT, In our sight and hearing is now present the above-mentioned George Simp- son. His name and description, his name being herein and now immediately written by his own hand, here follows, to wit, George Simpson, Glazier, Arabella Row, No. 10. Inmate in the Household, whereof the above-mentioned Samuel Lakham is Householder.
III. He declares to us, that, in the above-mentioned Household, to wit, Arabella Raw, No. 10, for upwards of /o«r weeks together, ending with the commencement of this day, 22ud of October, 1821, he has been an Inmate. It is our belief that this declaration is true: IV. He declares to ns, that he is upwards of £1 years of age. It is our be- lief, that this his declaration is true.
V. In the sight and hearing of all of ns together, he has read aloud the whole of the printed part of this certificate.
VI. Also, divers lines, pitched upon by ns at random, in the act of Parlia- ment, by which this Certificate is required.
VII. It is the sincere belief of every one of ns, that the lines so pitched upon by us were really read by him, and that they had not, any of them, been com- mitted by him to memory, for the purpose of their falsely appearing to be read. They were not, in any part, repeated by him from the month of any other person.
VIII. From the manner of his reading, as above, we do believe hinv capable of reading any portion of the ' New Testament,' as printed in the English lan- guage.
IX. He has, in like manner, in onr presence, signed the declaration follow- ing. • I do hereby, seriously, deliberately, and solemnly, declare, and promise to my fellow-countrymen, as follows: — DECLARATION.
my vote was girai.
' u. Should any que^ion be ever jmt t* me, any one word suid lo me, or any sign 55 made to me, having for its object the causing me so to make known my vote; eveiy such question, word, or sign, I shall consider, as the law considers it, as an attempt at oppression.
' / do hereby declare, that wider the sense rf such oppression, no more reliance wight to be placed on any thing I say, than if the same were addressed Inj me to a robber, or to a person insane, for the purpose of saving, from immediate distruction, ■my own life, or that of some person dear to me. Witness my hand.
George Simpson.
Here ends the exemplification of a Filled-«p Vote-making Certificate.
Of the direction for giving the alphabetical order to the names of the Cer- ■tifiers, the use is to prevent dispute, whether from mutual civility, or from claim of right.
To prevent the votes of the resident voters from being, in particular Districts, outnumbered by soldiers or sailors, stationed, witii or without such design, in large bodies.
Note (f) V. Page 7.
This degree of particularity promises, it is believed, to be of considerable Hse, by fixing the attention of the persons in question to thpse several points of appropriate aptitude, and thereby taking the chance of preventing men, by fear of shame, from giving their recommendation to a person eminently and notoriously deficient in any one of these points, or manifestly inferior to a rival Candidate in all of them taken together. Lower than this mark in the scale of particularity it might not be easy to descend, without giving advan- tage to this or tliat particular party, and thus giving to this instrument the effect of a Test Act. Tyranny and Corruption, under the mask of Rehgion, might, for example, introduce orthodoxy, and thus keep the most conscientious characters out of the House, and force the poison of insincerity into the mouths and hearts of others.
The oaths and other engagements with which the Statute Book svrarms, are, with few, if any, exceptions, a great deal worse than useless. Either they have this exclusionary effect, or by their emptiness and looseness they afford, to those who have taken them, the pretence of acting under a sense of obli- gation, while no such sense is in their hearts. Hear a Judge talk of his oath! what is that oath? a piece of old woman's tattle, that is never seen by any body, means nothing, and has nothing in it that can have any tendency to bind any body. O yes: one thing it has: and that is — a promise never to take a money fee of any body. But this he breaks, in the face of day, and most days of his life. And thus it is that, in the teeth of Magna Charta, he denies justice to all but the rich, and makes them pay him for it.
Note VI. Page 9.
For the reason why all other disqualifications would here be useless, see those which apply to the case of Electors in S. 2.
As to females, the disqualification stands upon grounds, quite different in the two cases.
In the situation of Member, mischievous, no less than obvious, would be the absurdity of an intermixture betwixt sex and sex.
Not so in the situation of Elector: iDcoovenience there might be upon the •whole, absurdity there would be none.
56 Nor even would there be any novelty in it. In the India House, among tl/e self-elected Representatives of sixty millions of Hindoos, are females in any number: ballot is the mode of voting: ballot, with the form of secresy, and as little as any one pleases of the effect.
Every where have females possessed the whole power of a despot; every where but in France without objection. Talk, of ^ivina; them, as here, the smallest fraction of a fraction of such a power, scorn without reason is all the answer you receive. Frosu custom comes prejudice. No gnat too minute to be strained 'ut by it, no camel too grea\ to be swallowed.
As to corruption, this being the disorder which the here proposed arrange- ineiits are employi.' to combat, this part of the remedy, it must be confessed, is not altogether ro.extensi*e with the disease. Of this imperfection the exist- ence will soon be seen, and, at the same time, why it is impossible that perfec- tion should take its place.
The objects of general desire — money, power, factitious dignity, and so forth, compose the nutter, by which, in the handN of Monarch or Minister, corruption, applied to tiie breast of a representative of the people, or that of an Elector, does its work.
Tiu' desires and passions, in and by which it operates, are hope and feari liope of obtaining the desn-able object, or feai of losmg it.
So tar as depends upon tiie induence of hope, so long as the Minister or the Monarch has aiiy thing to give, it is impossible for any disqualifying euactment to guar! tue probity of the Representative. At the next Election, or even im- medidtely up.n acceptance, he loses (suppose) his seat. Good: but, before this, he has secured something which is of more value in his eyes.
If, instead of obtaining it for himself, he obtains it for some person for whoni he would otherwise have had to make provision at his own expense, he may in- deed, if so his constituents please, lose his seat at the next Election. But, in this case, he cannot be made to lose it sooner: for, a provision, causing one per- son to suffer in this way, for the transgression of another over whom he had uo control, would be too manifestly repugnant to justice to be endurable.
It may thus b-' seen, that, against corruption, in so far as it operates only by hope, good Government has no means of contending, but the reducing to the lowest amount possible the somces of that hope: annulling for example all future grants of peerages, baronetcies, ribbons, and sinecures: especially all sacred sinecures, in comparison of which the profane are but as a drop in the bucket; anti-christian sinecures, the very acceptance of which has more of blasphemy in it than many an act which lia-> been styled such, against that reli- gion, on pretence of supporting which they are accepted.
Against the influence of fear in this case — fear o( losing tiie good thing which is in hand — thesort of disqualitying enactment in question has more power. The loss is certain: and when, in the two cases, not only the object is the same, but the certainty — in tlie one case of losing it, in the other case of gaining it — is the same, tear is beyond comparison more powerful than hope: — assurance of even- tually losing a thousand a year, which a man has in hand, will be seen by every one to be a ninch more powerful stimulant than any hope of gaining as much can be. It may be so in an infinite degree; since there is no chance so small as not to be capable of giving rise and support tu hope; and a chance of acquiring the greatest quantity of wealth that was ever possessed by man, may be so small as to be worth next to nothing.
As to the wording — Office, Commission, Contract, and Pension, are the words employed on tliis occasion, as being familiar to every ear. The more proper expression would be some general one, under which the particular articles are comprised. For example — source of emolument; meaning source of emoiument hell! at the pleasure of the Crown: and, where the import of it has been tixt, once for all, by an Exposition, inserted in the Appendix to the Statute, and in the text, marked a> such by a particular type — a type employed for all words and phrases thus expounded — ^it should thenceforward be employed without meotiou of any of the details included in it. (See p. 80.) But, for expound- 57 ing it, the only effectual course would be to give a compleat list of all tli« several eources of emelnment to which the disqualification was meant to apply. As to the groimds for disquahfication, they are in this case, three: 1. Guarding the probity of the public trustee, as far as possible, against all temptation to betray his trust: 2. Preventing a man from sitting in judgment in oue character, upon acts of his own done iu another character; and thus, in case of delinquency, being judge in his own cause: 3. Preventing him from bestowingr, on any public function of less importance, any part of that time, the whole of which would not be too great for this highest of all trusts, if executed witii that degree of assiduity, which by the extent and importance of it, it demands.
Were the tirst of those grounds the only one, some offices there are — the office of Justice of the Peace for example — which need not be considered as consti- tuting a disqualification. Not so, when the third of these grounds contes to be considered. Under any system, under which the situation of Representative of the people were considered as a source of obligation, if the Magistrate and the Representative were the same person, the Magistrate could not act without robbing the Representative.
Under the existing mode of sliam representation, of no European Despot is the power so perfectly disencumbered of all sense of public obligation, as is tiiat of the occupant of a seat, belonging to a rotten borougli, or to a county held under the yoke of Election terrorism: and this is one short reason for a Reform, and tiial a radical one. So far as depends upon law, despotism is at the bottom, limited government only on the surface. In Spain the despot is one: in Eng- land, he is Legion: and Legion is composed not only of Tories but of Wliigs. For an as yet luicontested demonstration of this utter absence of all sense of obligation, see Parliamentary Reform Catechism, Introduction, § 14. on Aon. Attendance.
Opportune occuirence. " Votes" of Honourable House, 26 November, 1819. ** Jovis, 25" die Novemhris, 1819. The House met, and Forty Members not being present at four o'clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House." N. B. The day before, met for crushing the small remaining fragments of English liber- ties, 381; professing to oppose it, a few sincerely, ibO: togetlier, out of the ■whole 658 members, 531 attended. Such are the men, who, as Representa- tives, call, not only for obedience, but confidence. Obedience, it is not in my power to withhold: confidence, it is no more in my power to give to them, than to the beloved Ferdinand.
As to Judicial corruption, all great Placemen being thus not only each man a Judge iu his own cause, but knit, by community of sinister inteiest, in a league with the majority of the others — impunity — universal impunity — has been the constant and notorious result.
Among the members of this lea^iue arc the highest Judges: no illusion, there- fore, was ever more complete, than that which trumpets forth the purity of English Judges. No set of men is there, whose interest, as far as depends upon law, has been rendfred more hostile to their duty. Impunity, coupled with superior profit, are the principal features by which they aie distinguished from the most corrupt that can be found any where else. The only obstacle that prevents an English Judge from being Icks corrupt than a Spanish, a Russian, or a Turkish Judge, is the liberty of tlje press; and as far as Judge-made law, called Common Luw, is any tiling, there is no liberty ot the prew but what is contrary to law; and without violation of law, may be crushed at any time.
Note, that no disquiilifitalion of this sort could have its effect, but in propor- tion as the fact of acceptance were notorious. The ari^ngements ne( essary to secure such notoriety would enter too much into detail to be inserted here. The principal is — that as soon as an appointment is accepted, the instrument of appointment, or a sufficient extract from it, shall be communicated to the House through the Speaker, and to the public through the Government Newspaper. This, too, of necessity in all cases, as now by custom it is in some; and that, oa 58 failure of such cominnnication, the appointmpnt shall be void; void, that is to say, ill such sort as to render the delinquent himself a siifterer by his usurpation; but not so as to extend the suffering to any persons wlio are unconscious of it.
Supposing a list of disqualifying sources of emohiment, made out by authority as above,— a Member on taking his seat should, witli this list in his hand, have to declare to this effect — / am not in possession of any article in this list: to which might, perhaps, be to be added — nor in expectation.
Note (*) VII. Pace lo.
By this clause, the expense of 65l> Officers may be saved. lu a Town Dis- trict, there would, probably, be no need cf Polling Offices, other than the District Election Office, Note (f) VIII. Page 10. Analogous denominations are Posf-Muster-Generalf and Pay-Master-General, Note IX. Page 12.
On the first opening, of this or any other extensive system of Reform, op- position from persons of all classes in all quarters ought to be expected, and, a» effectually as possible, provided for. In some of the offices, disaffection to the reform, and consequent betraying of trust: out of office, from high and low, opposition and artifice in every imaginable shape. The late proceedings at Manchester were not necessary to prove the truth of this observation; but they may help to render the public mind sensible of it.
[fraud,] Every man invested with power in any shape, from the Mwest to the highest, will occasionally be disposed to abuse it: to abuse it in every way that can be imagined. By this maxim should every line be guided in this, and every other Constitutional Code. Whoever contests the truth of it, be sure that it is for the purpose of committing or supporting some abuse. By this maxim the scribe of every monarch is actually guided in the penning of a Penal Code. In speaking of the power that will be abused — in a Penal Code, say, natural power, — in a Constitutional Code, say, political power; — there lies the only difference.
Whenever interest, or prejudice, or passion, prompt, they, on whom the execution of the law depends, will, constantly or occasionally, to the utmost of their power, render it ineffectual, or exceed, or misapply the powers of it.
Complain of the delinquents, the law is bepraised, you are referred for redress to the delinquents themselves, or those who are in league with them: and you are punished, or it is inferred at least that you ought to be punished, for ca- himny against the Ministers of Justice. N. B. Under the Constitution as it stands, all ]Ministers of Justice of the highest order, are in league with the of- ficial delinquents of the higher orders. Situation forms the league of itself; it does so without need of any the least concert between individual and individual.
Think of Grand Juries, whose actings being secret, can not by possibility be otherwise Uian right.
Think of a Coroner, who, lest a jury should give a verdict of Murder, will not suffer it to continue its sittings, till a House of Commons, interested in giving impunity, have had time to give it.
Think of Lord Sidmouth, who, to prevent abuse in a prison, renders the in- terior of it invisible, to all those who have not express leave, either from him- self, or from some person in intimate connection with him, for seeing it. En- quire whether tlti* is not actually the case with the Milbank Penitentiary-house.
59 Tbink of the slow tortures, with deatli, for better conceahnent, at the einJ of them, that might, in any prison, be iniaicted by such means.
Note X. Page 13.
Question 1. Power adequate to the carrying of the plan into effect, why thus lodge the whole of it in a single hand, the Election-Master-General's?
REASONS.
1. Security against failure. Rule:— Be the plan what it may, leave not in any one adverse hand the faculty of defeating it.
Be the plan what it may, every person whose concurrence is ultimately ne- cessary to the carrying it into effect has a virtual negative upon it. To insure such concurrence, nothing short of a power of removal, in the hands of a per- son well affected to the business, can be sufficient. Punishment, in any the greatest quantity, that on any such occasion, can be employed, — punishment in the form of law,— never can, in any such case, be to be depended upon. By plausible pretence, by substraction of evidence, or by a variety of other means, it may be evaded, or (what comes to the same thing) expected to be evaded: at the worst, indemnification against it may be received, or expected.
No person who, by whatsoever cause, — sinister interest, interest-begotten f)rejudice, authority-begotten prejudice, or original intellectual weakness,— is ikely to be rendered adverse, or determinately indifferent, to the production of the effect, should, therefore, be left in possession of any such negative.
If, as here, the production of the effect is placed within the power of one person— that person well affected to the business, the danger of failure is thus reduced to its minimum. To this one add any number of others, whose con- currence is thus made or left necessary, by every one so added the danger of failure is increased.
If so it be, that, for this all-commanding situation, not so much as a single individual, competent, and at the same time well affected, to the business, is to be found, — accomplishment is, on this supposition hopeless: on the other hand, suppose one such individual, thougti there be no more than one, whom the sys- tem has either found or rendered well affected to it, — the requisite power, as above, being also given to him, — accomplishment may thus be rendered morally sure.
At the recommendation of the Election-Master-General are moreover ap- pointed the Commissioners of Survey and Demarcation, as per Section 9, and by him they are removable. And thus all the functions necessary are put un- der the guidance of one will.
In tlie Duke of Richmond's Radical Reform Bill, the division of the Elec- tion Districts — this first step in the whole course — was allotted to the twelve Judges. As well might it have been allotted to the twelve Caesars. Their time was, even in those days, fully occupied. For this strange mathematico-political function to have been executed by them, well or ill, within any limited time, the concurrence of every one of them would have been necessary: for, by any one, on one pretence or other, or even without pretence, every requisite ope- ration might, during an indefinite length of time, have been delayed. On the part of no one of them, could any such concurrence have reasonably been ex- pected.
After that which wottld never have been done, had been dene, the business was to go, all over the country, to Grand Juries: and, for the occasion every man who had ever been was to be one. No obligation was there upon any one individual to do any one thing in it: if a man who could and would do some- thing were found, no responsibility was there upon him for any thing he did.
The Election-Master-General is an individual. In the hands of an individual, not in those of any board, should any such all-sulficient and indispensably ne- 60 cessary power be lodged. Every board is a screen; and if, to the remembrance of'a proposition of such practical and unquestionable importance, the play upon words is subservient, let it not be despised. Under tlie system of corruption the uses of aboard are manifold: — 1. To afford a screen to abuse in every shape, "What is every body's business is no body's business: what is every body's fault is nobody's fault: by each one the fault is shifted off upon the rest. So many members, so many confederates, all of whom — they and their connexions — join in affording support and protection to whatever misdeeds in any shape are committed by any one of them. — 2. To afford a pretext for multiplication of offices; to each of which is attached its mass of emolument: so many need- less offices, so many sources of waste, so many instruments of corruption. — S. If, upon occasion, any such desire should have place, as that of seeing the business miscarry, to secure the productiou of the so-desired effect.
Of course, never could any such expectation be entertained, as that of seeing any such plan as this carried successfully into effect, on any other supposition than that of the existence of a prime Minister well affected to the business. Here then is one well-adapted mind necessary: that of an Election-Master- General of his choice, another: and now for effectual accumplishment, these two concurrent minds would, in these two situations, be sufficient. Even witb little aid from the great body of the people, — as for the most abject slavery, so for the perfection of liberty, — the quantity of the matter of corruption in th* hands of a British Prime Minister would suffice.* In the present practice, the sort of business, for the management of which the Election Master's Office is instituted by this Bill, is divided Ijetween two Offiees: that called tire Office of the Messenger of the Great Seal, for sending oat the orders called fVrits, m pursuance of which the Elections are to be made: that called the Office of the Clerk of the Crown, for receiving the several answers called Returns, iu which it is stated what has been done in pursuance of these * British Prime Minister? Upon this occasion, what then shall we say of Ireland '! Answer — Nothing: npon this occasion, as upon thousands and millions of otlier occasions, the learned person, whoever he was, that drew the Irish Union Act, followed by so many pre-eminently learned persons who gave their sanction to it, has not left it possible. King of Great Britain and Ireland — yes: this we are commanded to say — British and Irish King? — no: this v\ e cannot say: constructed as the language is, the form given to the name of the United King- dom will not allow of it. English King — there is: British King, and in him a Scottish King — there is: Irish King — there is none. English and Scottish i«- tercst taken together — you can speak of: for you can say British interests —. Irish interest, in conjunction witb English and Scottish, you cannot so ranch as speak of. (3n no occasion, in the grammatical form of an adjective, can the United Kingdom be spoken of, but Ireland must be left out: left by the writer or speaker unraentioned: left by the reader or hearer unthought of. Such was the skill, or such the good-will, of Pitt the 2nd and his Scribes.
But Ireland, where have been her eyes all the while? How long will she be content to remain thus an outcast? Since the Union, scarce has a day passed that I have not been plagued with the continually recurring necessity of thus dealing by her as if she were unheeded.
One word would supply the remedy: for the United Kingdom, a name, by which, as England and Scotland are by Britain,. M these Nations would be brought to view. A word that would do this I have had in mind and on paper these tliirtcen or fourteen years. But by those to whom good taste, that is their own whim, is every thing, the welfare of mankind nothing, so sure as it were fit for the purpose, so sure would it be scerned: — and of such is the Corporation of the ruling fe\^ composed.
That, in this instance, language should have no influence on conduct is not possible. For in what instance is oot conduct • slave to language?
61 writs. In neither instance does the name of the Office give any the slightest intimation of the nature of the business. Tlie man who sends out these letters knows nothing about the answers: the man who receives the answers knows nothing about tlie letters: neither the one man nor the other know any thing about what has been done in pursuance of the letters. Complication abundant; darkness visible; depredation the necessary and notorious fruit of it: depreda- tion sanctioned and unsanctioned, regular and irregular, limited and unlimited: Candidates contending for undue preference: Officers bribed and giving it. Under the notion or pretence of excluding the corruption, legislators botching, time after time, in the usual style: 53 Geo. III. chap. 89, the date of the last botch: such is the mode, in which that correspondence is carried on by which Honourable House is filled. Object in filling it, mode in which it is filled, cor- respondence by which it is filled — is it not all of a piece i Note XI. Pace 20.
Note XI. Pace 20.
The more effectual, the provision here made for the equality endeavoured at is, the less will be the advantage obtainable by any additional degree of publi- city, capable of being given by undue favour or weight of purse. For repress- ing, by prohibitory' provisions, with penalties, any such undue extra circulation, any endeavour that could be used, would be attended by a degree of compli- cation, the inconvenience of which could not, it is believed, be paid for by th« advantage.
Note XII. Page 25.
In this, as in other cases, powers for extraction of Evidence, would be neces- sary to the persons charged with the enquiry. But, as the details would occupy much room, and would contain little that is peculiar to the present case, they are not here inserted. One thing, almost peculiar to the present case, is — that the object of the inquiry is to administer benefits, namely, rights of suffi-age to those who are the subjects of it, and not burthens, as in the case of taxes. Hence, instead of being shrunk from, the inquiry would generally, if not uni- versally speaking, be met with alacrity.
Note XIII. Page 28.