Favours are not granted to the public but to the detriment of the public, otherwise, these would not be favours.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 298 to 299 (in French)
Undated

The editor of the website bastiat.org believes that this draft letter was written in January 1834 and was addressed to the count Papin (whose name is not revealed by Guillaumin because of the bad publicity made to the addressee). The arguments appearing in notes 2 and 3 (in French) are rather convincing. In any case and whoever was the addressee, today’s quote remains valid.

This letter is consistent with the first uncompleted draft on page 271 that was exposing Election Sophisms. Indeed, we discover that the candidate who was asking for the vote of Frédéric Bastiat does not care much about political consistency and was simply trying to buy votes, be it through threat or through promises. Frédéric Bastiat was legitimately deeply offended and reminds his addressee that his vote is not for sale. Today’s quote explains rather well why. The seat of a Member of Parliament should not be granted in exchange for services that would be payed by the people but that of a people’s representative who should be in the service of the people rather than in the service of the voter.