Should the price for which an office is sold form a part of the emoluments of the head of the office, and not be received by the public, this would make no difference in the question of economy as respects giving and selling.That the produce of the sale is afterwards wasted, is an accident unconnected with the sale.The emoluments received by the head of the department may be too large or not: if not too large, the public gains by the operation; since, in suppressing the sale, it would be necessary to increase his emoluments by other means: if too large, the excess might be made applicable to the public service.The Sale of Offices considered with respect to particular departments.Public opinion is at present adverse to the sale of public offices.It more particularly condemns their sale in the three great departments of war, law, and religion.This prejudice has probably arisen from the improper use to which it has sometimes been applied; but whether this be the case or not, the use of the word venal , seldom if ever but in an odious and dysolgystic sense, has tended to preserve it.
``He who has bought the right of judging will sell judgment'', is the sort of reasoning in use upon this subject.Instead of an argument, it is only an epigram.The members of the French parliaments were judges, and they purchased their places; it did not by any means follow that they were disposed to sell their judgments, or that they could have done so with impunity.The greater number of these parliaments were never even suspected of having sold them.Countries may however be cited, in which the judges sell both justice and injustice, though they have not bought their places.The uprightness of a judge does not depend upon these, but upon other circumstances.If the laws be intelligible and known---if the proceedings of the judges are public---if the punishment for injustice surpass the profit to be reaped from it, judges will be upright, even though they purchase their offices.
In England, there are certain judicial offices which the judges sell--sometimes openly, sometimes clandestinely.The purchasers of these offices extract from the suitors as much as they can: if they had not purchased their places, they would not have endeavoured to extract less.The mischief is, not that this right of plundering is sold, but that the right exists.
In the English army, the system of venality has been adopted.Military commissions, from the rank of ensign to that of lieutenant colonel, are sold, with permission to the purchasers to re-sell them.The epigram upon the judges is not applied here.The complaint is, that the patrimony of merit is invaded by wealth.But it ought to be recollected, that in this career the opportunities for the display of merit do not occur every day.It is only upon extraordinary occasions that extraordinary talents cart be displayed; and when these occur, there can be no difficulty, even under this system, of bestowing proportionate and appropriate rewards.
Besides, though the patrimony of merit should by this means be invaded by wealth, it would at the same time be defended from favouritism---a divinity in less esteem even than wealth.The circumstance which ought to recommend the system of venality to suspicious politicians is, that it diminishes the influence of the crown.The whole circle over which it extends is so much reclaimed from the influence of the crown.It may be called a corruption, but it serves as an antidote to a corruption more to be dreaded.
It is the sale of ecclesiastical offices which has occasioned the greatest outcry.It has been made a particular sin, to which has been given the name of simony.In the Acts of the Apostles, we are informed that at Samaria there was a magician named Simon, to whose gainful practices an immediate stop was put by the preaching and miracles of Philip, one of the deacons of the church of Jerusalem, who had been driven to Samaria by persecution.Simon, therefore, regarding Philip as a more fortunate rival, enrolled himself among the number of his proselytes, and when the apostles Peter and John came down from Jerusalem, and by the laying on of their hands communicated to the disciples the gift of the Holy Ghost, Simon, desirous of possessing something more than the rest, offered to them money, saying, ``Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.'' Upon which Peter severely reprimanded him; and the magician, supple as he was intriguing, asked forgiveness---and thus his history closes.It is nowhere said that he was punished.
Upon the strength of this story, the Roman Catholic church has converted the act of buying or selling ecclesiastical benefices into a sin; and the English law, copying from the Catholic church, has constituted such an act a crime.As the Roman Catholic church, among Catholics, is infallible, as to them it must have decided rightly when it declared such acts to be sinful.Our subject, however, leads us only to the consideration of the legal crime: and between this crime and the offence of Simon Magus, there is nothing in common.Presentation to a living, and the reception of the Holy Ghost, are not the same things.If it be the object of this law to exclude improper persons, more direct, simple, and efficacious means might be employed: their qualifications might be ascertained by public examinations; their good conduct by the previous publication of their names, with liberty to all the world to object against them.Their moral and intellectual capacity being thus proved, why should they not be allowed to purchase the employment, or to discharge it gratuitously? An idiot once admitted to priest's orders, may hold an ecclesiastical benefice; but were a man gifted like an apostle to give five guineas to be permitted to discharge the duties of that benefice, he would be borne down by the outcry against the simony be had committed.
What, then, is the effect of these anti-simoniacal laws? A priest may not purchase a benefice for himself; but his friend, whether priest or layman, may purchase it for him: He may not purchase the presentation to a vacant benefice; but he may purchase the right of presentation to a benefice filled by a dying man, or by a person in good health who will have the complaisance to resign.and receive it again with an obligation again to resign whenever his patron requires it.In reading these self-styled anti-simoniacal laws, it is difficult to discover whether they are intended to prohibit or to allow the practice of simony.Their only real effects are to encourage deception and fraud.Blackstone complains of their inexecution: be did not perceive that a law which is not executed is ridiculous.
