JB/010/209/001

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1821. Jany 28.
Constitut Code Bowring to J. B. on Non-reeligibility.
(1.)
III. Rationale
Ch. 5. Const Legislative
Non Reeligibility

J. Bo to J. Be Esq (No 20.) Madrid Sunday 13 Jany 1822.
Non-re-eligibility. Objections. Ingratitude for honest service — Not so! Your representative
being good, take him away from that corrupted atmosphere
which would make him bad. Reward him by
keeping him good. He has escaped the plague once.
Don't expose him again.

Weigh that portion of intellectual aptitude which
is gained by the possession of power against that portion
of moral aptitude which is lost. Then by the
quality or character of the intellectual aptitude which
is gained. Is it valuable? Take the instance of England —
of Spain? The Cortes for example. Now the three men
who are most influential are without doubt — Martinez
de la Rosa, Calatrava and Torino. The eloquence of
each, though 3 varied in 2. character, is 1 peculiarly sophistical, embroidered, impassioned — annalize it, it is
worth nothing. In England, what effect does Ricardo's
sober good sense produce, compared with Canning's
decorations? One of Burke's pretty painted delusions
will be quoted a hundred times, still to delude, where
an unadorned unanswerable piece of logic will be
given to the wind. Is logic learnt in popular assemblies?
I wot not!

In the Areopagus (if I remember well) rhetoric
was excluded by the use of a time-piece — a quarter
of an hour is enough for the statement of all the reasons
either for or against any one subject any one probable
subject of deliberation. All the rest is time wasted — talent
mispent — wasted and mispent for a bad object
too — for the purpose of delusion.

In the Cortes here very long speeches are never made
and there is nothing which can be compared in brilliancy
to many of our parliamentary speeches. The advantage is that everybody
speaks, and of the hundred members whom I have heard —
(and this too in a country unused to public discussion) I have
remarked no instance of confusion, or even of hesitation, but the
curse is here, though to a less degree. Man is a gregarious animal.
He learns the game of follow the leader when he is a boy, and
sticks to it all his life. The mass of men don't think — they only feel.
They would think more if their feelings were less excited.

You

Identifier: | JB/010/209/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 10.
Date_1	1821-01-28	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	010	Main Headings	constitutional code
Folio number	209	Info in main headings field	bowring to jb on non-reeligibility
Image	001	Titles	j. bo to j. be esq (no. 20)
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c1
Penner	john flowerdew colls	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public	letter 2841, vol. 11	ID Number	3645
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