Concluding observations
The Enlightenment’s equation of parliamentary skills with logical conditions of possible experience celebrated a happy marriage. It was, moreover, as
Hatsell, Bentham and Jefferson assumed, a middle-class marriage, with considerable passion in connubiality as well.
The motivation to learn the ropes in any new enterprise grounded human striving for self-betterment. Eighteenthcentury scientists were optimistic about human self-improvement. Their projects enabled legislators to bring to life programs fulfilling national service missions. Parliamentary scientists offered more than a hint of computational social science to back up their claims that civil society was on the road to better days. Even politicians deserved their mercy and encouragement.The classical age of parliamentary procedure made skill acquisition serve as the keystone in the defensive perimeter it constructed to meet threats against political society. When a member of an assembly invested in procedural skills, he was arguably less likely to join in rough-handling of minorities. Mobs have nothing to brag about; their behaviour - if it is ‘collaborative’ - exhibits no grasp of technical or specialised knowledge. An assembly committed to achieve Bentham’s ‘pure expression of will’ via its grasp of specialised knowledge might be less likely to degenerate into one of Hatsell’s ‘tumultuous assemblies’ and bully minorities by the blunt- force of their numbers.48 Moreover, when a member of an assembly (having acquired a minimum level of parliamentary skills) attracted the interest of spectators, these spectators would be motivated to cheer on or critique the member’s performance. A rough familiarity with specialised knowledge permitted outsiders to appreciate developed talent in action.
The willingness of members and non-members to learn procedural rules celebrated risk.
The new member of an assembly took risks as he sought to develop his talent to the level of senior members. Every member shouldered risks for which he was accountable outside the arena. A member needed to acquire some useful knowledge as to the preferences of other members, at least, for the purpose of explaining the action of the assembly to the electorate. Procedures facilitated the acquisition of reliable knowledge gradatim before the assembly was in a position to act totaliter. In this manner individual preferences existed to be tested, retested, discarded, reappraised, vocalised and publicised. Potential defectors existed to be wooed by one side. Or importuned to remain loyal to old friends. Ballot after ballot - or through auction-and-bargaining - individual will was converted into the collective will. This transpired, gradatim, until the body proclaimed its manufactured- for-purpose will. Thereafter the explaining began, facilitated by the mass of quantitative data the assembly’s members had generated. On regular occasions, this data would upend a member’s otherwise persuasive explanation of how he conducted himself in the assembly or in committee.The eighteenth century was fond of its accomplishments in parliamentary science and even more passionate about the quantifiability of these accomplishments. Risks taken by learners could be made explicit to learners and observers alike because the assembly likewise held itself out to be a school for parliamentary skills with plenty of benchmarks along the pathway to senior status.
Machinery metaphors were popular in the study interval because they supplied off-the-shelf visualisation of pathways that were open to legislators. ‘Science’ and ‘system’ above all were favoured terms, with Blackstone’s opening sections of his Commentaries outscoring even Bentham’s Essay in this regard.49 Assemblies saw themselves as collaborative risktaking machines that ran on the energy generated by the ‘animated performance’ of their members when these members engaged each other by doing things with words, numbers and other data. The equation of skills and logics provided the intellectual framing for choreography - guided and governed by codes of rules - in the assembly chamber.
This equation of skills and logics also permitted consumers of articulated, advanced and funded service missions to overlook the stench of political machination because procedure delivered merit to their taste and need. Our parliamentary scientists took in all the tableau that the century offered and got as much of their own mind-share into print as time and gatekeepers would allow.‘Each one in this beautiful political order, is more afraid of losing what he possesses, than desirous of what he has not’.50 Bentham’s promise was straight-forward. As long as parliamentarians and observers alike can value what there is to lose, that is, what is at risk when human beings engage each other in collaborative behaviour, the virtues of a ‘beautiful political order’ survive.
Notes
1 U.S. Constitution, Preamble; Bentham, Political Tactics, Preface, 1.
2 Blackstone, Commentaries, 4:17.
3 Burke, Works, 3:231 at 310; Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
4 Brindley, History, 1.
5 Price, Appeal, 5-6.
6 Pitt’s bill was sent to the Lords (after passage on third reading) 15 May 1786; Commons Journal, 41:811.
7 See text at 110-11.
8 Cone, Sinking Fund, 245.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Commons Journal, 39:782; 5 December 1783.
12 The Report is spread on the record at Commons Journal, 39:771-823.
13 Ibid.
14 See text at 55-57.
15 I rely on Hague’s Pitt, 192-195.
16 Roseveare, Treasury, 61-62.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 62.
19 1 Stat. 73; September 24, 1789.
20 See text at 133-34.
21 Bentham, Essay, 315.
22 Commons Journal, 38:288; 14 March 1781.
23 Bentham, Essay, 303.
24 Howell (in Jefferson, Parliamentary Writings, 8) lists these as the four ‘major parliamentary’ authorities on which TJ relies:Hatsell’s Precedents, Scobell’s Memorials, Hakewill’s Modus Tenendi, and ‘a shadowy author called George Petyt’ to whom tradition has assigned the Lex Parliamentaria. Jefferson cited to that work on 11 occasions in his Manual.
25 The Sowerby catalog records Jefferson’s pre-1815 holdings of More and Harrington, along with Bacon’s Works. Entries 2336, 2335 and 4915, respectively. Jefferson held two copies of Utopia, one dated 1555 and an English translation from 1743. In the 1740 edition of the Works, which Jefferson purchased, New Atlantis appears at 3:235. Jefferson held a first edition of Harrington’s Oceana (1656).
26 James Madison, “Report on Books for Congress, [23 January] 1783,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified December 28, 2016; last retrieved 31 January 2017. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/ Madison/01-06-02-0031.
27 Harrington, Works, 119.
28 Harrington, System, 1:10,8; IV:20.
29 Ibid., IV:16.
30 See text at 107-09.
31 Commons Journal, 35:443; 15 November 1775.
32 “From John Adams to Richard Henry Lee, 15 November 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified December 28, 2016; last retrieved http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-03-02-0163.
33 Jefferson, Papers, 33:134-52.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Burke, Works, 3:231 at 310.
37 Ibid., 3:231 at 359.
38 Ibid.
39 See text at 156-57.
40 Jefferson, Papers, 33:134-52.
41 Ibid.
42 See text at 135.
43 Ibid.
44 See text at 101-02.
45 See text at 88-91.
46 Jefferson, Manual, 397.
47 Jefferson, Papers, 33:148-52, 148.
48 Hatsell, Members/Speaker, 150.
49 Word count by author.
50 Bentham, Essay, 309.
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