JB/109/071/001

Click Here To Edit

1819 May 19
Parl. Reform or Disfranchisement

(6)

With these effects it is apparent that secret suffrage is absolutely
incompatible. They can not exist together. Assemblies to elect, or Assemblies
during Elections, make all suffrages known. The publicity and
boldness in which voters give their suffrage are of the very essence of
popular Elections, and greatly contribute to their animating effect.
The advocates of Ballot tell us, indeed, that it would destroy canvass
and tumult. But after the destruction of Canvass, elections would no
longer teach humility to the great, nor self esteem to the humble. Were
the causes of tumult destroyed, elections would no longer be nurseries
of political zeal, and instruments for rousing national spirit. The
friends of liberty ought rather to view the turbulence of the people with
indulgence and pardon, powerfully tending to exercise and invigorate
their public spirit. It is not to be extinguished, but to be rendered safe by
countervailing Institutions of an opposite tendency in other parts of
the Constitutional System.

The original fallacy, which is the source of all erroneous reasoning
in favour of ballot, is the assumption that the value of popular
Elections chiefly depends on the exercise of a deliberate judgment by the
Electors. The whole anxiety of its advocates is to remove the causes
which might disturb a considerable considerate choice. In order to obtain such a
choice, which is not the great purpose of popular elections, the speculations speculators
would deprive them of the power to excite and diffuse
public spirit, – the great and inestimable service which a due proportion
of such Elections renders to a free state. In order to make
the forms of democracy universal, their plan would universally
dis extinguish its spirit. In a Commonwealth where Universal
Suffrage was already established, ballot might perhaps be admissible
as an expedient for tempering such an extreme democracy. Even
there, it might be objected to, as one of those remedies for licentiousness
which are likely to endanger liberty by destroying all
democratic spirit. It would be one of those dexterous frauds
by which the people are often weaned from the exertion of their
privileges.

Identifier: | JB/109/071/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 109.
Date_1	1819-05-19	Marginal Summary Numbering	21-27
Box	109	Main Headings	Parliamentary Reform
Folio number	071	Info in main headings field	Parl. Reform or Disfranchising
Image	001	Titles
Category	Copy/fair copy sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	C6
Penner		Watermarks	[[watermarks::I&M [Prince of Wales feathers] 1818]]
Marginals	Jeremy Bentham	Paper Producer	Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
Corrections	Jeremy Bentham	Paper Produced in Year	1818
Notes public		ID Number	35726
Box Contents