Chapter VIII (2)

It was accepted as a return of O'Connell, who, however, made no attempt to take his seat, though when he first stood he had assured the electors that there was no law to prevent him from doing so; but the importance of his success was not to be measured by his actual presence or absence in the House of Commons for the remainder of a session. It had made it absolutely impossible to continue the maintenance of the disabilities; what one Irish constituency had done, other Irish constituencies might be depended on to do.[200] And it was quite certain that, as opportunity offered, almost every constituency in Munster and Connaught, and many in Leinster, would follow the example of Clare, and return Roman Catholic representatives; while to retain a law which prevented forty or fifty men duly elected by Irish constituencies from taking their seats must have appeared impossible to all but a few, whom respect for the undoubted sincerity of their attachment to their own religion and to the constitution, as they understood it, is the only consideration which can save them from being regarded as dangerous fanatics. At all events, the ministers were not among them. And the Duke of Wellington, though he had previously hoped, by postponing the farther consideration of the question for a year or two, to gain time for a calmer examination of it when the existing excitement had cooled down,[201] at once admitted the conviction that the result of the Clare election had rendered farther delay impossible. In his view, and that of those of his colleagues whose judgment he estimated most highly, the Irish constituencies and their probable action at future elections were not the only parties whose opinions or feelings must be regarded by a responsible statesman; but to them must be added the constituencies of the larger island also, since, while, to quote the language of Mr. Peel, "the general election of 1826 had taken place under circumstances especially calculated to call forth the manifestation of Protestant feeling throughout the country," they had returned a majority of members in favor of concession, as was proved by the recent division on Sir F. Burdett's motion. Moreover, apart from the merits or demerits of concession, taken by itself, there was a manifest danger that the keeping up of the excitement on the subject by a continued adherence to the policy of restriction might, especially among such a people as the Irish, so impulsive, and, in the lower classes, so absolutely under the dominion of the priests, kindle an excitement on other subjects also, still more difficult to deal with. It was even already certain that the Roman Catholic priests were endeavoring to tamper with the loyalty of the soldiers of their persuasion. Nor was it clerical influence alone that the government had to dread. A year or two before a Catholic Association had been formed, which included among its members all the wealthiest and ablest of the Roman Catholic laymen, noblemen, squires, and barristers. Its organization had been so skilfully conducted, and all its measures had been so carefully kept within the requirements of the law, that the crown lawyers, on being consulted, pronounced it impossible to interfere with it; and, by what may be called a peaceful agitation, it had attained such extraordinary power over the minds of the bulk of the Roman Catholics, that the Lord-lieutenant reported that "he was quite certain that they could lead on the people to open rebellion at a moment's notice, and that their organization was such that, in the hands of desperate and intelligent leaders, they would be extremely formidable[202]."

Under all these circumstances, the Duke had no hesitation in deciding that it had become absolutely necessary to concede the demands of the Roman Catholics and their supporters for a removal of their political disabilities. And it was equally obvious that, the more promptly the concession was made, the more gracious it would seem, and the greater was the probability of its having the conciliatory and tranquillizing effect the hope of which made it so desirable. He was not a man to lose time when he had once made up his mind. It was already too late in the session for anything to be done in 1828; but the Parliament had scarcely been prorogued before he put his views on the subject before the King, and began, in concert with the Home-secretary, to frame a bill such as he hoped might settle the long-agitated question, without doing more violence than was necessary to the feelings of those whose opposition or reluctance he was aware he should have to encounter: among whom was the King himself, who, though thirty years before he had, with an ostentation rather unbecoming, considering his position, put himself forward as an advocate of Emancipation, had subsequently changed his opinion, and had recently taken more than one occasion to declare that he had never doubted that, as the head and protector of the Protestant religion, he was bound to refuse his assent to any relaxation of the existing law.[203] The Duke, however, was too well acquainted with his royal master's character to apprehend any real firmness of resistance from him; but he knew that a great majority of the clergy, and no small portion of the country gentlemen, were conscientiously and immovably fixed in opposition to any concession at all, some refusing to regard the question in any but a purely religious light, and objecting to associate in the task of legislation for those whom they regarded as adherents of an idolatrous superstition; while those who mingled political reasoning with that founded on theology dwelt also on the danger to be apprehended to the state, if political power were given to those whose allegiance to the King was divided with another allegiance which they acknowledged to a foreign prelate. And he had presently an unmistakable proof afforded him how great was the strength of this party in the country. Peel was one of the representatives of the University of Oxford; and, as from his earliest enjoyment of a seat in Parliament he had been a prominent opponent of the Roman Catholic claims, he considered that it was to that maintenance of a policy identified in their eyes with that Protestant ascendency which his supporters took to be both the chief bulwark and one of the most essential parts of the constitution that he owed his position as their member. With a conscientiousness which was rather overstrained, and not quite consistent with the legitimate position of a member of the House of Commons as a representative, and not a delegate, he now conceived that his change of view on the subject made it proper for him to give his constituents an opportunity of making choice of some one else who should more faithfully represent them. He accordingly resigned his seat, offering himself at the same time for re-election. But he was defeated by a very large majority, though his competitor was one who could not possibly be put on a level with him either for university distinction or for parliamentary eminence.

Not the less, however, for all their difficulties and discouragements, did the ministers proceed in the course on which they had resolved. They inserted in the speech with which the King opened the session of 1829 a recommendation to the Houses "to take into consideration the whole condition of Ireland, and to review the laws which imposed civil disabilities on his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." And with as little delay as possible they introduced a bill to remove those disabilities. But there was another measure which they felt it to be indispensable should precede it. A previous sentence of the royal speech had described the Catholic Association as one "dangerous to the public peace, and inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution, keeping alive discord and ill-will among his Majesty's subjects, and one which must, if permitted to continue, effectually obstruct every effort permanently to improve the condition of Ireland." And the ministers naturally regarded it as their first duty to suppress a body which could deserve to be so described. They felt, too, that the large measure of concession and conciliation which they were about to announce would lose half its grace, and more than half its effect, if it could possibly be represented as a submission to an agitation and intimidation which they had not the power nor the courage to resist. They determined, therefore, to render such an imputation impossible, by previously suppressing the Association. It was evident that it could not be extinguished by any means short of an act of Parliament. And the course pursued, with the discussions which took place respecting it, show in a very clear and instructive manner the view taken by statesmen of the difference between what is loyal or illegal, constitutional or unconstitutional; their apprehension that conduct may be entirely legal, that is to say, within the letter of the law, but at the same time perfectly unconstitutional, outside of and adverse to the whole spirit of the constitution. The royal speech had not ventured to describe the Association as illegal. The Duke of Wellington expressly admitted that "in the original institution and formation of the society there was nothing strictly illegal."[204] And its founder and chief, Mr. O'Connell, had been at all times careful to inculcate on his followers the necessity of avoiding any violation of the law. But the speech had also declared the association to be "inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution." And its acts, as the Duke proceeded to describe them, certainly bore out that declaration. "Those acts consisted principally in levying a tax upon certain of his Majesty's subjects called Catholic rent, and this by means and acts of extreme violence; by appointing persons to collect these rents; and farther by adopting measures to organize the Catholic population; by appointing persons to superintend that organization; and by assuming to themselves the government of the country; and, still more, affecting to assume it. Besides, they expended this rent in a manner contrary to, and utterly inconsistent with, all law and order and the constitution of the country." No member of either House denied the accuracy of this description of the Association's proceedings. And if it were correct, it was incontrovertible that the denunciation of it as an utterly unconstitutional body was not too strong. Indeed, the fact of its "levying a tax" upon a portion of the King's subjects (to say nothing of the intimidation, amounting to compulsion, by which, as was notorious, it was in many instances exacted) was the assumption of one of the most important functions of the Imperial Parliament; it was the erection of an _imperium in imperio_, which no statesmen intrusted with the government of a country can be justified in tolerating. And this was felt by the Opposition as well as by the ministers; by the Whigs as fully as by the Tories. The most eloquent of the Whig party, Mr. Stanley, was as decided as Mr. Peel himself in affirming that the existence of the Association was "inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution," and that it was "dangerous that the people of a country should look up to any public body distinct from the government, opposed to the government, and monopolizing their attachment and obedience."[205]

It was, therefore, with the almost unanimous approval of both parties that the bill framed for the suppression of the Association was received. The framing of such a bill was not unattended by difficulties, as Peel acknowledged,[206] since "no one wished to declare that every political meeting was illegal;" while at the same time it was necessary to guard against "having its enactments evaded, since a more dangerous precedent than the successful evasion of acts of the Legislature could scarcely be conceived." But the measure, as it was proposed, skilfully steered clear of these difficulties. It met them by intrusting "the enforcement of the law to be enacted to one person alone." The bill proposed "to give to the Lord-lieutenant, and to him alone, the power of suppressing any association or meeting which he might think dangerous to the public peace, or inconsistent with the due administration of the law; together with power to interdict the assembly of any meeting of which previous notice should have been given, and which he should think likely to endanger the public peace, or to prove inconsistent with the due administration of the law." And farther, "to interdict any meeting or association which might be interdicted from assembling, or which might be suppressed under this act, from receiving and placing at their control any moneys by the name of rent, or any other name." But the act was not to be one of perpetual duration. It could not be concealed that such a prohibition or limitation of the general right of public meeting and public discussion was a suspension of a part of the constitution; and therefore the ministers were content to limit its operation "to one year and the end of the then next session of Parliament," feeling "satisfied that there would be no objection to continue it, if there should be any necessity for its continuance." And this limitation was a substantial mitigation of its severity. It made the bill, as Mr. Stanley correctly described it, "not a permanent infringement on the constitution, but a temporary deviation from it, giving those powers which were necessary at the moment," but not maintaining them an hour longer than they were necessary.

And this seems to be the course most in accordance with the spirit of the constitution, with former practice, with common-sense. Deeds which violate the letter of the law can be dealt with by the law. But actions or courses of action which, even if they may be thought to overstep the law, transgress it so narrowly as to elude conviction, can only be reached by enactments which also go in some degree beyond the ordinary law; and, so going beyond it, are to that extent encroachments on the ordinary privileges and rights of the subject, and suspensions of the constitution. But the very term "suspension" shows that the power conferred is but temporary, otherwise it would be synonymous with abrogation. And all parties may wisely agree, as they did in this instance, to a temporary suspension of the people's rights, though there would be none to whom their permanent abrogation would not be intolerable.

The bill, then, for the suppression of the Association passed with universal approval, and it may be regarded as furnishing a model for dealing with similar associations, if ever they should arise. And as soon as it was passed Mr. Peel introduced the greater measure, that for the repeal of the disabilities. In drawing the necessary bill the ministers had had two questions of special importance to consider: firstly, whether it should be unlimited concession which should be granted, such as would throw open to the Roman Catholics every kind of civil office; and, secondly, whether it should be accompanied by any other measure, which might render it more palatable to its adversaries, as diminishing a portion at least of the dangers which those who regarded the question in a purely political light most apprehended. On the first point it was determined that, with the exception of three civil offices, those of the Lord Chancellors of England and Ireland and the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland,[207] and some of a purely ecclesiastical character, such as the Judge of the Court of Arches, every kind of preferment should be opened to the Roman Catholics.[208] The declaration against Transubstantiation and the oath of supremacy, certain expressions in which were the obstacles which had hitherto kept the Roman Catholics out of office and out of Parliament, were to be repealed, and another to be substituted for them which should merely bind him who took it to defend the King, to maintain the Protestant succession, and to declare that "it was not an article of his faith, and that he renounced, rejected, and abjured the opinion, that princes excommunicated or deposed by the Pope might be deposed and murdered; and that he disclaimed, disavowed, and solemnly abjured any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment as settled by law within this realm, and that he would never exercise any privilege to which he was or might become entitled to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in this kingdom."[209]

The second question was, it will probably be confessed, even more important. Pitt, who had always contemplated, and had encouraged the Irish Roman Catholics to contemplate, the abolition of their political disabilities as an indispensable appendage to, or, it may be said, part of the Union, had designed, farther, not to confine his benefits to the laymen, but to endow the Roman Catholic clergy with adequate stipends, a proposal which was received with the greatest thankfulness, not only by the Irish prelates and clergy themselves, but also by the heads of their Church at Rome, who were willing, in return, to give the crown a veto on all the ecclesiastical appointments of their Church in the two islands.[210] The justice of granting such an endowment could hardly be contested. The Reformation in Ireland, if what had taken place there could be called a reformation at all, had been wholly different from the movement which had almost extinguished Popery in England. The great majority of the Irish people had never ceased to adhere to the Romish forms, and the Reformation there had been simply a transfer of the property of the Romish Church to the Church of England, unaccompanied by any corresponding change of belief in the people, who had an undeniable right to claim that the state, while making this transfer, should not deprive of all provision the clergy to whose ministrations they still clung with a zeal and steadiness augmented rather than diminished by the discouragements under which they adhered to them.

The policy of granting such endowment was equally conspicuous. No measure could so bind the clergy to the government; and no such security for the loyalty and peaceful, orderly behavior of the poorer classes could be provided, as might be expected from the attachment to the government of those who had over them an influence so powerful in its character and so unbounded in its strength as their priests. And the Duke of Wellington, who had at one time been himself the Irish Secretary, and, as an intimate friend of Lord Castlereagh, who held that office at the time of the Union, had a perfect knowledge of what had been intended at that time--and who was, of course, aware of the very decided favor which the House of Commons had so lately shown to the project--proposed to follow out Pitt's plan in that particular, and to connect a provision[211] for the Roman Catholic clergy with the removal of their political disabilities from the laymen. Unluckily, Peel, who, throughout the whole transaction, was, of all the cabinet, the counsellor on whose judgment he most relied, took a different view of the expediency of making such a provision, having, indeed, "no objection to it in point of principle." But he saw many practical difficulties, which he pressed on the Duke with great earnestness. He argued that for the government "to apply a sum of money to the payment of the ministers of the Church of Rome in Ireland, granting a license for the performance of their spiritual functions, would be a virtual and complete supersession, if not repeal, of the laws which prohibit intercourse with Rome;" and asked, "Could the state affect to be ignorant that the bishop whom it paid derived his right to be a bishop from the See of Rome?" Another difficulty he found in the apprehension that "the admission of the right of the Roman Catholic clergy to an endowment might produce similar claims on the part of the Dissenters in England, who contribute in like manner to the support of their own religion and of the established religion also." He suggested, farther, that, if the Roman Catholic priest were allowed, in addition to his stipend, "to receive dues, Easter offerings, etc., from his parishioners, his condition would then be better than that of the ministers of the Established Church in many of the parishes in Ireland." And, finally, he urged the practical objection, that the endowment would greatly strengthen the opposition to the whole measure, by the reluctance which, "on purely religious grounds," many would feel to the endowment of the Roman Catholic faith, who would yet be inclined to acquiesce in the removal of the disabilities, "on grounds rather political than religious." He was "not insensible to the importance of establishing some bond of connection between the Roman Catholic clergy and the state;" but he believed that the omission of a provision for their endowment "was important to the ultimate success of the government in proposing the measure before them."

It is not probable that the Duke was greatly influenced by the first, or what may be called the constitutional, objection--that any concert with the Papal Court with respect to the appointments or endowments of its clergy would be a violation of the act which prohibited any intercourse with Rome. The removal of the disabilities required the repeal of one act of Parliament; and, if the holding communications with Rome on the subject of clerical appointments should be so construed as to require the repeal of another, it would hardly seem that there could be any greater violation of or departure from the principles of the constitution in repealing two acts than in repealing one. As to the second of Peel's objections, the English Dissenters could not possibly be said to stand on the same ground as the Irish Roman Catholics, since their ministers had certainly never been deprived by any act of the state of any provision which they had previously enjoyed; but their position as unendowed ministers was clearly one of their own making. The possible inferiority in point of emolument of some of the Protestant cures in Ireland to that which might be enjoyed by some of the Roman Catholic clergy could hardly be regarded as the foundation of any argument at all, since no law had ever undertaken, or ever could undertake, to give at all times and under all circumstances equal remuneration to equal labors. But the consideration last suggested was exactly the one to influence such a mind as that of the Duke of Wellington, generally contented to deal with a present difficulty. He was determined to carry Emancipation, because he saw that the Clare election had made it impossible to withhold or even to delay it; and, being so determined, he was desirous to avoid encumbering it with any addition which might increase the opposition to it. At the same time he was far from being sanguine of its effect, "with whatever guards or securities it might be accompanied, to pacify the country or to avert rebellion,"[212] which, in his apprehension, was undoubtedly impending; and, under the influence of these combined feelings, he eventually withdrew that clause from the bill. It was accompanied by another bill, disfranchising the forty-shilling freeholders in Ireland. They were a class of voters sunk in the deepest poverty, and such as certainly could not well be supposed capable of forming, much less of exercising, an independent judgment on political matters. Yet this bill is remarkable as having been the only enactment passed since the Revolution to narrow the franchise. It had no opposition to anticipate from English or Scotch members, and was accepted by the Irish members as the price of Emancipation.

No measure that had ever been framed since the Revolution had caused such excitement in the country; but the preponderance of feeling in its favor was equally marked in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of Commons 320 supported it, while only 142 could be marshalled against it. In the House of Lords 213 divided for it against 109. And in April it received the royal assent.

The general policy of removing the disabilities it is not necessary to discuss here. It is quite clear that the Clare election had rendered it impossible to maintain them. And if some of those who judge of measures solely by their effects still denounce this act, as one which has failed in its object of tranquillizing Ireland, many of those who admit the failure ascribe it to the omission to accompany it by one securing a state endowment for the Roman Catholic clergy, pronouncing it, without that appendage, a half measure, such as rarely succeeds, and never deserves success. However that may be, it is certain that the measure, coupled with the repeal of the Test Act of the previous year, was one which made a great and permanent change in the practical working of the constitution of the kingdom, as it had been interpreted for the last one hundred and fifty years. Of that constitution one of the leading features, ever since the Restoration, had been understood to be the establishment and maintenance of the political as well as the ecclesiastical ascendency of the Church of England. On that ascendency the repeal of the Test Act in 1828 had made the first, and that a great, inroad, and the present statute entirely abolished it as a principle of government. So far as political privileges went, every Christian sect was now placed on a footing of complete equality. But so to place them may fairly be regarded as having been required not only by justice and expediency, but by reasons drawn from the history of the nation and from the circumstances under which these disabilities had been imposed. Before the Rebellion no one was excluded from the English Parliament on account of his religion, whether he was a Roman Catholic, a Presbyterian, or a member of any other of the various sects which were gradually arising in the country. It was not till after the Restoration that a recollection of the crimes of the Puritans, when they had got the upper-hand, and the fear of machinations and intrigues, incompatible with the freedom and independence of the people, which were imputed to the Roman Catholics, gave birth to the statutes depriving both Protestant and Roman Catholic Non-conformists of all legislative and political power. The restrictions thus imposed on the Presbyterians and other Protestant sects had, as we have seen, been gradually relaxed by a periodical act of indemnity. Indeed, after the Union with Scotland, it was impossible with any show of consistency to maintain them, since, as it has been already pointed out, after Presbyterianism had been recognized as the established religion of Scotland, it would have seemed strangely unreasonable to regard it as a disqualification on the southern side of the Border. But, as long as the Stuart princes were from time to time disquieting the government by their open invasions or secret intrigues, no such relaxation could with safety be granted to the Roman Catholics, since it could hardly be expected that they would forbear to employ any power which they might acquire for the service of a prince of their own religion. That danger, however, which ever since 1745 had been a very shadowy one, had wholly passed away with the life of the last Stuart lay prince, Charles Edward; and his death left the rulers of the kingdom and advisers of the sovereign free to take a different and larger view of their duty to the nation as a whole.

It was notorious that the number of Non-conformists was large. In the middle of the last century it had received a considerable accession through the institution of the new sect of Wesleyan Methodists; which, through the supineness of the clergy of the Established Church in that generation, had gradually increased, till it was estimated that the various Dissenting sects in England equalled at least half the number of the members of the Established Church. In Wales they were believed to form the majority. In Scotland three-fourths of the people were Presbyterians; and in Ireland the Roman Catholics outnumbered the Protestants in nearly the same proportion. Taking England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland together, a calculation which reckoned the different sects of Protestant and Roman Catholic Non-conformists united at half the entire population would probably not have erred very widely from the truth.

It must have been the aim of every statesman deserving of the name to weld these different religious parties into one harmonious whole, as far as their civil position went. And measures which had that tendency could not be foreign to the constitution, properly understood. A constitution which confines its benefits to one-half of a nation hardly merits the title of a constitution at all. For every constitution ought to extend its protection and its privileges equally to every portion of the people, unless there be some peculiarity in the principles or habits of any one portion which makes its participation in them dangerous to the rest. It had undoubtedly been the doctrine of Pitt, and of the greater part of those who since his time had held the reins of government, that if any portion of the King's subjects did cherish a temper dangerous to the rest, it was because they were debarred from privileges to which they conceived themselves to have a just right, and that their discontent and turbulence were the fruit of the restrictions imposed on them. In proposing to remove such a grievance Pitt certainly conceived himself to be acting in accordance with the strictest principles of the constitution, and not so much innovating upon it as restoring it to its original comprehensiveness. And so of the measure, as it was now carried, it will apparently be correct to say that, though it did make an important change in the practical working of the constitution, it made it only by reverting to the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, to which every subject had a right; which had only been temporarily restrained under the apprehension of danger to the state, and which the cessation of that apprehension made it a duty to re-establish in all their fulness.

But it is by no means clear that in the conduct of the measure the constitution was not violated in one very important point, the proper relation subsisting between a constituency and its representative, by Mr. Peel's resignation of his seat for the University of Oxford. That he was sensible that the act stood in need of explanation is proved by the careful statement of the motives and considerations that determined him to it, which he drew up twenty years afterward. They were of a twofold character. To quote his own words: "When I resolved to advise, and to promote to the utmost of my power, the settlement of that question, I resolved at the same time to relinquish, not only my official station,[213] but the representation of the University of Oxford. I thought that such decisive proofs that I could have no object, political or personal, in taking a course different from that which I had previously taken, would add to my influence and authority, so far, at least, as the adjustment of the particular question at issue was concerned." "I cannot deny that in vacating my seat I was acting upon the impulse of private feelings, rather than upon a dispassionate consideration of the constitutional relations between a representative and his constituents. I will not seek to defend the resolution to which I came by arguments drawn from the peculiar character of the academic body, or from the special nature of the trust confided to its members; still less will I contend that my example ought to be followed by others to whom may be offered the same painful alternative of disregarding the dictates of their own consciences, or of acting in opposition to the opinions and disappointing the expectations of their constituents. I will say no more than that my position was a very peculiar one, that I had many painful sacrifices to make, and that it would have been a great aggravation of them, if it could have said with truth that I was exercising an authority derived from the confidence of the University to promote measures injurious, in her deliberate judgment, either to her own interests or to those of the Church."

No one would willingly censure too severely an act dictated by a sense of honor, even if somewhat overstrained and too scrupulously delicate; but when Mr. Peel speaks of "defending" or not defending his deed, he clearly admits it to be one open to impeachment. And when he forbears to "contend that his example ought to be followed," he seems practically to confess a consciousness that any defence against such impeachment must fail; while the last sentence quoted above involves an assertion that a constituency (in this instance one of the two most important constituencies in the kingdom) could be justified in regarding a measure required by the safety, or at least by the welfare, of the state, as injurious to its own interests; and so far admits a possible severance between the interests of a particular class or body and those of the whole community, which can have no real existence. That, however, is not the point to be investigated here. The charge, as it seems, to which Mr. Peel's deed lays him open is, that by it he lowered the position and character of a member of Parliament from those of a representative to those of a delegate. It was an adoption of the principle laid down for his own guidance by a colleague of Mr. Burke above fifty years before, and indignantly repudiated by that great political philosopher, as proceeding from an entire misapprehension of the rights of a constituency and of a member[214] of Parliament. He told the electors of Bristol that "when they had chosen their member, he was not a member of Bristol, but a member of Parliament; and that if the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far as any other from any endeavor to give it effect;" that a representative "owes to his constituents, not his industry only, but his judgment, and betrays instead of serving them, if he sacrifices it to their opinion." And in so saying he carried with him the concurrence and approval of all his contemporaries whose sentiments on such a question were entitled to weight.

In the States-general of France each member was, by the original constitution of that body, a delegate, and not a representative. He could not even remonstrate against the most oppressive grievance of which the previous instructions of the constituent body had not instructed him to complain; and this limitation of his duties and powers was, undoubtedly, one very principal cause which led to the States-general so rapidly falling into utter disrepute. It was no light thing to take a step which had a tendency to bring down the British Parliament to the level of the despised and long-disused States-general. And it is the more necessary to put the case in a clear and true light, because at the present day there is an evident disposition on the part of constituencies to avail themselves of Peel's conduct in this instance as a precedent, in spite of his protest against its being so regarded, and to fetter their representatives with precise instructions; and a corresponding willingness on the part of candidates to purchase support at elections by a submissive giving of pledges on a variety of subjects, so numerous as to leave themselves no freedom of judgment at all. On the great majority of subjects which come before Parliament, a member of Parliament, if he be a sensible and an honest man, has a far better opportunity of obtaining correct information and forming a sound opinion than can be within reach of any constituency, whose proneness to misjudge is usually in exact proportion to the magnitude of its numbers. Every elector justifiably may, and naturally will, seek to ascertain that between the candidate whom he supports and himself there is a general conformity of opinion; an absolute identity he will never find, and he has no right to ask.[215]

Notes:

[Footnote 182: £118,776,000. Alison, c. lxxvi.]

[Footnote 183: See Lord Malmesbury's account of their first interview.--_Diaries of Lord Malmesbury_, iii., 218.]

[Footnote 184: "Parliamentary Debates," series 2, ii., 632.]

[Footnote 185: Mr. Brougham gave his opinion that if the Duke of York, or any other member of the royal family, had been named, it would have been offensive to the Queen; but the measure adopted he regarded as of a neutral character. (Mentioned by Lord Liverpool, "Life of Lord Liverpool," iii., 55.)]

[Footnote 186: "Minutes of Cabinet," dated 10th and 14th February, 1820, forwarded the King by Lord Liverpool ("Life of Lord Liverpool," iii., 35-88).]

[Footnote 187: "Life of Sir J. Mackintosh," by R.J. Mackintosh, ii., 110, 116.]

[Footnote 188: "Lives of the Chief-justices," iii., 171.]

[Footnote 189: In a letter on the subject to Lord Liverpool, the Duke goes the length of calling the proposed bill "an experiment which, should it fail, must entail the dreadful alternative of the entire ruin of the landed interests of the empire, with which he is decidedly of opinion that the nation must stand or fall."--_Life of Lord Liverpool_, iii., 434.]

[Footnote 190: At one time it was the fashion with writers of the Liberal party to represent Lord Liverpool as led by Lord Castlereagh in the earlier, and by Canning in the later, part of his administration; but Lord Liverpool's correspondence with both these ministers shows clearly that on every subject of foreign as well as of home policy he was the real guide and ruler of his cabinet. Even the recognition of the independence of the South American provinces of Spain--which is so often represented as exclusively the work of Canning--the memorandum on the subject which Lord Liverpool drew up for the cabinet proves that the policy adopted was entirely his own, and that as such he adhered to it resolutely, in spite of the avowed disapproval of the Duke of Wellington and the known unwillingness of the King to sanction it; and it may be remarked (as he and Lord Castlereagh have sometime been described as favoring the Holy Alliance), that the concluding sentence of his letter to the Duke on the subject expresses his hostility, not only to that celebrated treaty, but to the policy which dictated and was embodied in it. (See Lord Liverpool's memorandum for the cabinet and letter to the Duke of Wellington, December 8, 1824.)--_Life of Lord Liverpool_, iii., 297-305.]

[Footnote 191: See ante, p. 222.]

[Footnote 192: "With much prudence or laudable disinterestedness," says Hallam ("Constitutional History," ii., 532).]

[Footnote 193: The last time had been in 1790, when there had been a majority of 187 against it.--_Peel's Memoirs_, i., 99.]

[Footnote 194: 237 to 193.]

[Footnote 195: "Peel's Memoirs," i., 68.]

[Footnote 196: "Wellington's Civil Despatches," iv., 453.]

[Footnote 197: See his letter to Peel, March 23 ("Peel's Memoirs," i., 92-100).]

[Footnote 198: The entry of this bill in Cobbett's "Parliamentary History" is: "The House of Commons testified a very extraordinary zeal in unravelling the Popish Plot, and, to prevent mischief in the interval, passed a bill to disable Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament," to which the Lords, when the bill came up to their House, added a proviso exempting the Duke of York from its operation. An. 1678; October 26 to November 21.---_Parliamentary History_, iv., 1024-1039.]

[Footnote 199: In the House of Commons the majority for Sir F. Burdett's resolution was six--372 to 266. But, in the House of Lords, Lord Lansdowne, moving the same resolution, was defeated by forty-five--182 to 137.]

[Footnote 200: See Fitzgerald's letter to Peel ("Peel's Memoirs," i., 114).]

[Footnote 201: "Peel's Memoirs," i., 121.]

[Footnote 202: See "Lord Anglesey's Letters," _ibid._, pp. 126, 147.]

[Footnote 203: As early as the year 1812, on the negotiations (mentioned in a former chapter) for the entrance of Lord Grenville and Lord Grey into the ministry, the Duke of York mentioned to both those noblemen that the Regent had an insuperable objection to the concession of Emancipation. And it seems probable that it was the knowledge of his sentiments on that point that greatly influenced the course which Lord Liverpool subsequently pursued in regard to that question.--See _Life of Lord Liverpool_, i, 381.]

[Footnote 204: Speech on moving the second reading of the bill in the House of Lords, February 19, 1829 ("Hansard," xx., 389).]

[Footnote 205: Speech on the first reading of the bill, February 10 ("Hansard," xx., 208).]

[Footnote 206: Speech on the first reading ("Hansard," xx., 198).]

[Footnote 207: An amendment was proposed by Lord Chandos to add the office of Prime-minister to these three, on the ground that if a Roman Catholic were Prime-minister "he might have the disposal of all the patronage of the state and the Church vested in his hands." But Mr. Peel pointed out that the law of England "never recognized any such office as that of Prime-minister. In the eyes of the law the ministers were all on an equality." And the position, such as it was, being a conventional one, was not necessarily connected with the office of First Lord of the Treasury. "In a recent instance his late right honorable friend, Mr. Canning, had determined to hold the office of Prime-minister with that of Secretary of State. And when Lord Chatham was Prime-minister, he did not hold the office of First Lord of the Treasury." At the same time he explained that the impropriety of intrusting a Roman Catholic with Church patronage was already guarded against in the bill, a clause of which provided that "it should not be lawful for any person professing the Roman Catholic religion directly or indirectly to advise the crown in any appointment to or disposal of any office or preferment, lay or ecclesiastical, in the united Church of England and Ireland, or of the Church of Scotland."--_Hansard_, xx., 1425.]

[Footnote 208: Many years afterward the restriction as to the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland was abolished.]

[Footnote 209: The plan which Pitt had intended to propose was to substitute in lieu of the Sacramental test a political test, to be imposed indiscriminately on all persons sitting in Parliament, or holding state or corporation offices, and also on all ministers of religion, of whatever description, etc., etc. This test was to disclaim in express terms the sovereignty of the people, and was to contain an oath of allegiance and "fidelity to the King's government of the realm, and to the established constitutions of Church and state."--Letter of Lord Grenville, given in _Courts and Cabinets of George III._, and quoted by Lord Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iii., 270. This plan seems very preferable to that now adopted, since it removed every appearance of making a distinction between the professors of the different creeds, when the same oath was to be taken by all indifferently.]

[Footnote 210: The question had been discussed with the highest Papal authorities more than once since the beginning of the century. In 1812 Mgr. Quarantotti, the prelate who, during the detention of the Pope in France by Napoleon, was invested with the chief authority in ecclesiastical affairs at Rome, in a letter to the Vicar-apostolic, Dr. Poynter, formally announced the consent of the Papal See to give the King a veto on all ecclesiastical appointments within the United Kingdom; and, after his return to Rome, Pio VII. himself confirmed the former title by a second addressed, by his instructions, to the same Dr. Poynter, which letter, in 1816, was read by Mr. Grattan in the House of Commons, it being throughout understood that this concession of the veto to the King was conditional on the abolition of the disabilities and the endowment of the priesthood. And in 1825, after Lord Francis Egerton's resolution had been carried in the House of Commons, Dr. Doyle, one of the most eminent of the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, in an examination before a committee of the House of Lords, expressed the willingness of the Roman Catholic clergy to accept a state provision, if it were permanently annexed to each benefice, and accompanied with a concession of an equality of civil rights to the Roman Catholic laity.--See _Life of Lord Liverpool_, ii, 145; _Diary of Lord Colchester, March_ 17, 1835, iii., 373; _Peel's Memoirs_, i., 306, 333 _seq._]

[Footnote 211: The sum to be thus employed seems to have been intended to be £300,000 a year.--_Peel's Memoirs_, i., 197. On the whole question of the payment and Peel's objections to it, see _ibid._, pp. 197, 306.]

[Footnote 212: See his "Civil Despatches," iv., 570. In February, 1829, he said to Lord Sidmouth, "It is a bad business, but we are aground." "Does your Grace think, then," asked Lord Sidmouth, "that this concession will tranquillize Ireland?" "I can't tell; I hope it will," answered the Duke, who shortly discovered, and had the magnanimity to admit, his mistake.--_Life of Lord Sidmouth_, iii., 453. It is remarkable that the question of endowing the Roman Catholic clergy was again considered by Lord John Russell's ministry in 1848. A letter of Prince Albert in October of that year says, with reference to it: "The bishops have protested against Church endowment, being themselves well off; but the clergy would gratefully accept it if offered, but dare not avow this."--_Life of the Prince Consort_, ii., 186.]

[Footnote 213: This first extract refers in part to the proposal which he made to the Duke to resign his office as Secretary of State, and to support the Emancipation as a private member, a design which he only relinquished at the Duke's earnest entreaty. The second extract refers to the seat in Parliament alone.--See _Peel's Memoirs_, i., 310, 312.]

[Footnote 214: Speech to the electors of Bristol on being declared by the sheriffs duly elected member for that city, November 3, 1774.--_Burke's Works_, iii., 11, ed 1803.]

[Footnote 215: It is worth pointing out, however, that, as if it were one of the natural fruits of the Reform Bill, the Liberal Committee of the Livery of London in 1832 passed a series of resolutions asserting the principle of delegation without the slightest modification; one resolution affirming "that members chosen to be representatives in Parliament ought to do such things as their constituents wish and direct them to do;" another, "that a signed engagement should be exacted from every member that he would at all times and in all things act conformably to the wishes of a majority of his constituents, or would at their request resign the trust with which they had honored him."--_Annual Register_, 1832, p. 300; _quoted by Alison_, 2d series, v., 355.]