Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches - Volume 4 - Thomas Badington Macaulay (story books to read txt) 📗

dishonest men. I do not, I say, blame him for having used those expressions: but I do say that, knowing how his own expressions had been perverted, he should have hesitated before he threw upon men, not less attached than himself to the cause of law, of order and property, imputations certainly not better founded than those to which he is himself liable.

And now, Sir, to pass by many topics to which, but for the lateness of the hour, I would willingly advert, let me remind the House that the question before us is not a positive question, but a question of comparison. No man, though he may disapprove of some part of the conduct of the present Ministers, is justified in voting for the motion which we are considering, unless he believes that a change would, on the whole, be beneficial. No government is perfect: but some government there must be; and if the present government were worse than its enemies think it, it ought to exist until it can be succeeded by a better. Now I take it to be perfectly clear that, in the event of the removal of Her Majesty's present advisers, an administration must be formed of which the right honourable Baronet the Member for Tamworth will be the head. Towards that right honourable Baronet, and towards many of the noblemen and gentlemen who would probably in that event be associated with him, I entertain none but kind and respectful feelings. I am far, I hope, from that narrowness of mind which makes a man unable to see merit in any party but his own. If I may venture to parody the old Venetian proverb, I would be "First an Englishman; and then a Whig." I feel proud of my country when I think how much ability, uprightness, and patriotism may be found on both sides of the House. Among our opponents stands forth, eminently distinguished by parts, eloquence, knowledge, and, I willingly admit, by public spirit, the right honourable Baronet the Member for Tamworth. Having said this, I shall offer no apology for the remarks which, in the discharge of my public duty, I shall make, without, I hope, any personal discourtesy, on his past conduct, and his present position.

It has been, Sir, I will not say his fault, but his misfortune, his fate, to be the leader of a party with which he has no sympathy. To go back to what is now matter of history, the right honourable Baronet bore a chief part in the restoration of the currency. By a very large proportion of his followers the restoration of the currency is considered as the chief cause of the distresses of the country. The right honourable Baronet cordially supported the commercial policy of Mr Huskisson. But there was no name more odious than that of Mr Huskisson to the rank and file of the Tory party. The right honourable Baronet assented to the Act which removed the disabilities of the Protestant Dissenters. But, a very short time ago, a noble Duke, one of the highest in power and rank of the right honourable Baronet's adherents, positively refused to lend his aid to the executing of that Act. The right honourable Baronet brought in the bill which removed the disabilities of the Roman Catholics: but his supporters make it a chief article of charge against us that we have given practical effect to the law which is his best title to public esteem. The right honourable Baronet has declared himself decidedly favourable to the new Poor Law. Yet, if a voice is raised against the Whig Bastilles and the Kings of Somerset House, it is almost certain to be the voice of some zealous retainer of the right honourable Baronet. On the great question of privilege, the right honourable Baronet has taken a part which entitles him to the gratitude of all who are solicitous for the honour and the usefulness of the popular branch of the legislature. But if any person calls us tyrants, and calls those whom we have imprisoned martyrs, that person is certain to be a partisan of the right honourable Baronet. Even when the right honourable Baronet does happen to agree with his followers as to a conclusion, he seldom arrives at that conclusion by the same process of reasoning which satisfies them. Many great questions which they consider as questions of right and wrong, as questions of moral and religious principle, as questions which must, for no earthly object, and on no emergency, be compromised, are treated by him merely as questions of expediency, of place, and of time. He has opposed many bills introduced by the present Government; but he has opposed them on such grounds that he is at perfect liberty to bring in the same bills himself next year, with perhaps some slight variation. I listened to him as I always listen to him, with pleasure, when he spoke last session on the subject of education. I could not but be amused by the skill with which he performed the hard task of translating the gibberish of bigots into language which might not misbecome the mouth of a man of sense. I felt certain that he despised the prejudices of which he condescended to make use, and that his opinion about the Normal Schools and the Douai Version entirely agreed with my own. I therefore do not think that, in times like these, the right honourable Baronet can conduct the administration with honour to himself or with satisfaction to those who are impatient to see him in office. I will not affect to feel apprehensions from which I am entirely free. I do not fear, and I will not pretend to fear, that the right honourable Baronet will be a tyrant and a persecutor. I do not believe that he will give up Ireland to the tender mercies of those zealots who form, I am afraid, the strongest, and I am sure the loudest, part of his retinue. I do not believe that he will strike the names of Roman Catholics from the Privy Council book, and from the Commissions of the Peace. I do not believe that he will lay on our table a bill for the repeal of that great Act which was introduced by himself in 1829. What I do anticipate is this, that he will attempt to keep his party together by means which will excite grave discontents, and yet that he will not succeed in keeping his party together; that he will lose the support of the Tories without obtaining the support of the nation; and that his government will fall from causes purely internal.

This, Sir, is not mere conjecture. The drama is not a new one. It was performed a few years ago on the same stage and by most of the same actors. In 1827 the right honourable Baronet was, as now, the head of a powerful Tory opposition. He had, as now, the support of a strong minority in this House. He had, as now, a majority in the other House. He was, as now, the favourite of the Church and of the Universities. All who dreaded political change, all who hated religious liberty, rallied round him then, as they rally round him now. Their cry was then, as now, that a government unfriendly to the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm was kept in power by intrigue and court favour, and that the right honourable Baronet was the man to whom the nation must look to defend its laws against revolutionists, and its religion against idolaters. At length that cry became irresistible. Tory animosity had pursued the most accomplished of Tory statesmen and orators to a resting place in Westminster Abbey. The arrangement which was made after his death lasted but a very few months: a Tory government was formed; and the right honourable Baronet became the leading minister of the Crown in the House of Commons. His adherents hailed his elevation with clamorous delight, and confidently expected many years of triumph and dominion. Is it necessary to say in what disappointment, in what sorrow, in what fury, those expectations ended? The right honourable Baronet had been raised to power by prejudices and passions in which he had no share. His followers were bigots. He was a statesman. He was coolly weighing conveniences against inconveniences, while they were ready to resort to a proscription and to hazard a civil war rather than depart from what they called their principles. For a time he tried to take a middle course. He imagined that it might be possible for him to stand well with his old friends, and yet to perform some part of his duty to the state. But those were not times in which he could long continue to halt between two opinions. His elevation, as it had excited the hopes of the oppressors, had excited also the terror and the rage of the oppressed. Agitation, which had, during more than a year, slumbered in Ireland, awoke with renewed vigour, and soon became more formidable than ever. The Roman Catholic Association began to exercise authority such as the Irish Parliament, in the days of its independence, had never possessed. An agitator became more powerful than the Lord Lieutenant. Violence engendered violence. Every explosion of feeling on one side of St George's Channel was answered by a louder explosion on the other. The Clare election, the Penenden Heath meeting showed that the time for evasion and delay was past. A crisis had arrived which made it absolutely necessary for the Government to take one side or the other. A simple issue was proposed to the right honourable Baronet, concession or civil war; to disgust his party, or to ruin his country. He chose the good part. He performed a duty, deeply painful, in some sense humiliating, yet in truth highly honourable to him. He came down to this House and proposed the emancipation of the Roman Catholics. Among his adherents were some who, like himself, had opposed the Roman Catholic claims merely on the ground of political expediency; and these persons readily consented to support his new policy. But not so the great body of his followers. Their zeal for Protestant ascendency was a ruling passion, a passion, too, which they thought it a virtue to indulge. They had exerted themselves to raise to power the man whom they regarded as the ablest and most trusty champion of that ascendency; and he had not only abandoned the good cause, but had become its adversary. Who can forget in what a roar of obloquy their anger burst forth? Never before was such a flood of calumny and invective poured on a single head. All history, all fiction were ransacked by the old friends of the right honourable Baronet, for nicknames and allusions. One right honourable gentleman, who I am sorry not to see in his place opposite, found English prose too weak to express his indignation, and pursued his perfidious chief with reproaches borrowed from the ravings of the deserted Dido. Another Tory explored Holy Writ for parallels, and could find no parallel but Judas Iscariot. The great university which had been proud to confer on the right honourable Baronet the highest marks of favour, was foremost in affixing the brand of infamy. From Cornwall, from Northumberland, clergymen came up by hundreds to Oxford, in order to vote against him whose presence,