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JB/044/015/002

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1821. June 16.
Codification Offer

On this occasion, several circumstances there are
which, while they belong essentially to the case, may be more or less
in danger of being let slip out of men's minds.

1. One is – the nature of the Constitution under which alone,
for an offer of this sort, any expectation of acceptance can reasonably
be entertained: nameless a Constitution under which,
while the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the all-comprehensive
and exclusively acknowledged end of it, if in the
election of their operative rulers, the greatest number of the members
of the whole community have it in their power, by their
suffrages on the occasion of each election of their operative rulers
to give or refuse to give effectual duration to the several arrangements
comprehended in the Code. Under such a Constitution, only
on the supposition that, if pursued in the first instance by a
foreigner, the draught would, after its revisal and completion,
be approved by the majority of such their constituents, could
either the whole body of the Representatives, or any Committee
of that body, find any adequate motive for committing the
preparation of the first draught to any such necessarily and
universally suspected hand.

Thus the matter stands in the case of a Government
having for its object the greatest good of the greatest number,
and consequently, for its operative rulers, a set of persons
chosen by that greatest number, very different, it is true, is the
manner in which it stands in the case of a government
having, for its operative ruler, a Monarch, and consequently, for
the end of in view, the particular and thence sinister interest
of that one individual. Under a Monarch, the choice of a
draughtsman would not be subjected to any such restrictions.
The circumstance on which the Code will, in that case. depend,
as well for its permanence as for its original establishment being
– not the will of the greatest number, depending as of course
upon their conception of their interest, but the will of the Monarch
for the time being, depending, as of course, upon their his conception
of their his interest, his faculty of choice is accordingly unbounded:
and a foreigner, by whose draught not only original acceptance
but sentimised perseverance, might be received might be found with as little difficulty as a native. As to any difference
in respect of approbation or disapprobation on the part
of


Identifier: | JB/044/015/002
"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 44.

Date_1

1822-05-25

Marginal Summary Numbering

Box

044

Main Headings

economy as to office

Folio number

015

Info in main headings field

economy &c

Image

002

Titles

Category

text sheet

Number of Pages

1

Recto/Verso

recto

Page Numbering

e2

Penner

jeremy bentham

Watermarks

c wilmott 1819

Marginals

Paper Producer

andreas louriottis

Corrections

Paper Produced in Year

1819

Notes public

ID Number

13800

Box Contents

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