JB/067/061/001

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1818 July 3.
Penal Code

If facility to the experience of all instances of good bad government
be necessary to the maintenance of good government, any no no
pain of mind to which the members of the governing body
may be exposed by such a facility can of itself afford
any tolerably adequate justification for the withholding of such
facility. Better a dozen, a score, a hundred ill grounded
accusations of this breed be brought forward and the pain
of mind produced by them endured than that an instance
of misconduct in the part of the members of the government
should remain unexposed. The mischief from the misrule
operates on the largest scale: the mischief from the calumny
operates on the smallest scale.

The danger to the public from the any discontent produced
by the calumny never reposes such real mischief, till under
the name of riot or tumult, mischief in the a tangible shape, mischief
in the shape of that which is produced by some offence or
offences of the number of those which are included in the
class of offences against individuals has been produced. As
for subversion of the government in no one instance was has it
ever been produced by such a cause. In no one
instance has government ever been subverted, in which the
oppression had not, by the impost for want of the remedy here
advocated, viz. the unbridled liberty of complaint been screwed up to
such a pitch that the subversion of it instead of a curse
was a blessing, witness the subversion of political and religious
tyranny in the Provinces in Scotland and England under Charles
the first: in Scotland and England under James the 2d.
In any government oppression to a greater or less degree is
habitual and constant: witness the enormous standing armies
and the cannon taxes levied for their support: in under no government
is any endeavour on the part of the people to obtain remedy redress by force
in any shape – under no government is nuisance in any shape
other than extremely rare.

Identifier: | JB/067/061/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 67.
Date_1	1818-07-03	Marginal Summary Numbering	8-9
Box	067	Main Headings	penal code
Folio number	061	Info in main headings field	penal code
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c5
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	j whatman 1816
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	john flowerdew colls
Corrections	george bentham	Paper Produced in Year	1816
Notes public		ID Number	21894
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