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Updated: May 4, 2025
One American defense of bribery is as clever as it is cynical. It amounts to this: that universal suffrage is such a peril to the commonweal that having been given prematurely, it must insidiously be nullified in practice, even at the cost of universal corruption; in short, if the old society is to be preserved, universal franchise must be transformed into universal corruption.
And no marvel: for if the ploughmen that now be were made lords, they would clean give over ploughing; they would leave off their labour, and fall to lording outright, and let the plough stand: and then both ploughs not walking, nothing should be in the commonweal but hunger. For ever since the prelates were made lords and nobles, the plough standeth; there is no work done, the people starve.
Contrary to all human experience and to the course and constitution of nature, the people of England are asked to believe that love of their native land and desire to do the best for the commonweal, are the sole possession of the ignorant and rowdy classes of Irishmen, and notwithstanding the undeniable fact that Nationalist Irishmen of every colour accuse the Nationalist members of self-seeking, and of absolute indifference to everything: outside their own interests, we are asked to give to them exclusively the honour due to men who sacrifice all for their country and care for nothing but her welfare.
Moreover, having in his book of Nature written, that Nature has produced many creatures for the sake of beauty, delighting in pulchritude and pleasing herself with variety, and having added a most absurd expression, that the peacock was made for the sake of his tail and for the beauty of it; he has, in his treatise of a Commonweal, sharply reprehended those who bred peacocks and nightingales, as if he were making laws contrary to the lawgiver of the world, and deriding Nature for pleasing herself in the beauty of animals to which a wise man would not give a place in his city.
These and kindred acts serve to illustrate the history of a king whose personal and selfish interests overruled all sentiments of honor and regard for his subjects, and who publicly declared that "he would govern according to the good of the commonweal, but not according to the common will."
The Believer then who is not in the public service, whose life lies among the operations of private enterprise, must work always on the supposition that the property he administers, the business in which he works, the profession he follows, is destined to be taken over and organized collectively for the commonweal and must be made ready for the taking over; that the private outlook he secures by investment, the provision he makes for his friends and children, are temporary, wasteful, though at present unavoidable devices to be presently merged in and superseded by the broad and scientific previsions of the co-operative commonwealth.
If upon Tiberius at such an age, and after such consummate experience, the violent spirit of unbridled dominion had wrought with such efficacy, as entirely to transport and change him; was it likely that Caligula, he who had scarce outgrown his childhood, a youth ignorant of all things, or nursed and principled in the worst, would follow a course more righteous under the guidance of Macro; the same Macro, who, for destroying Sejanus, was employed as the more wicked of the two, and had since by more mischiefs and cruelties torn and afflicted the Commonweal?
Fronto went further, and desired that "the quantities of silver plate, the expense of furniture, and the number of domestics might be limited;" for it was yet common for senators to depart from the present debate and offer, as their advice, whatever they judged conducing to the interest of the commonweal.
If I might ask a first and last favor, worshipful sir," said Frank, very earnestly, "you would grant me two things: that you would let none go to Freshwater but me and my brother; and that whatsoever we shall bring you back shall be kept as secret as the commonweal and your loyalty shall permit.
Moses was a marvellous man, a good man: Moses was a wonderful fellow, and did his duty, being a married man: we lack such as Moses was. Well, I would all men would look to their duty, as God hath called them, and then we should have a flourishing christian commonweal.
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