Mr Vizetelly then
represents
me as giving the House of Commons some very
extraordinary information about both the Calvinistic and the Arminian
Methodists.
extraordinary information about both the Calvinistic and the Arminian
Methodists.
Macaulay
8 or
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of
Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4), by Thomas Babington Macaulay
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4)
Lord Macaulay's Speeches
Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Posting Date: June 14, 2008 [EBook #2170]
Release Date: May, 2000
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF LORD MACAULAY ***
Produced by Mike Alder and Sue Asscher
THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF LORD MACAULAY.
Lord Macaulay's Speeches
By Thomas Babington Macaulay
VOLUME IV.
LORD MACAULAY'S SPEECHES.
TO HENRY, MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE
THESE SPEECHES ARE DEDICATED BY HIS GRATEFUL
AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.
PREFACE.
It was most reluctantly that I determined to suspend, during the last
autumn, a work which is the business and the pleasure of my life,
in order to prepare these Speeches for publication; and it is most
reluctantly that I now give them to the world. Even if I estimated their
oratorical merit much more highly than I do, I should not willingly have
revived, in the quiet times in which we are so happy as to live, the
memory of those fierce contentions in which too many years of my public
life were passed. Many expressions which, when society was convulsed
by political dissensions, and when the foundations of government were
shaking, were heard by an excited audience with sympathy and applause,
may, now that the passions of all parties have subsided, be thought
intemperate and acrimonious. It was especially painful to me to find
myself under the necessity of recalling to my own recollection, and to
the recollection of others, the keen encounters which took place between
the late Sir Robert Peel and myself. Some parts of the conduct of that
eminent man I must always think deserving of serious blame. But, on a
calm review of his long and chequered public life, I acknowledge, with
sincere pleasure, that his faults were much more than redeemed by great
virtues, great sacrifices, and great services. My political hostility to
him was never in the smallest degree tainted by personal ill-will. After
his fall from power a cordial reconciliation took place between us: I
admired the wisdom, the moderation, the disinterested patriotism, which
he invariably showed during the last and best years of his life; I
lamented his untimely death, as both a private and a public calamity;
and I earnestly wished that the sharp words which had sometimes been
exchanged between us might be forgotten.
Unhappily an act, for which the law affords no redress, but which I
have no hesitation in pronouncing to be a gross injury to me and a gross
fraud on the public, has compelled me to do what I should never have
done willingly. A bookseller, named Vizetelly, who seems to aspire to
that sort of distinction which Curll enjoyed a hundred and twenty years
ago, thought fit, without asking my consent, without even giving me any
notice, to announce an edition of my Speeches, and was not ashamed to
tell the world in his advertisement that he published them by special
license. When the book appeared, I found that it contained fifty-six
speeches, said to have been delivered by me in the House of Commons. Of
these speeches a few were reprinted from reports which I had corrected
for the Mirror of Parliament or the Parliamentary Debates, and were
therefore, with the exception of some errors of the pen and the press,
correctly given. The rest bear scarcely the faintest resemblance to
the speeches which I really made. The substance of what I said
is perpetually misrepresented. The connection of the arguments is
altogether lost. Extravagant blunders are put into my mouth in almost
every page. An editor who was not grossly ignorant would have perceived
that no person to whom the House of Commons would listen could possibly
have been guilty of such blunders. An editor who had the smallest
regard for truth, or for the fame of the person whose speeches he had
undertaken to publish, would have had recourse to the various sources of
information which were readily accessible, and, by collating them, would
have produced a book which would at least have contained no absolute
nonsense. But I have unfortunately had an editor whose only object was
to make a few pounds, and who was willing to sacrifice to that object my
reputation and his own. He took the very worst report extant, compared
it with no other report, removed no blemish however obvious or however
ludicrous, gave to the world some hundreds of pages utterly contemptible
both in matter and manner, and prefixed my name to them. The least that
he should have done was to consult the files of The Times newspaper.
I have frequently done so, when I have noticed in his book any passage
more than ordinarily absurd; and I have almost invariably found that
in The Times newspaper, my meaning had been correctly reported, though
often in words different from those which I had used.
I could fill a volume with instances of the injustice with which I have
been treated. But I will confine myself to a single speech, the speech
on the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. I have selected that speech, not
because Mr Vizetelly's version of that speech is worse than his versions
of thirty or forty other speeches, but because I have before me a report
of that speech which an honest and diligent editor would have thought it
his first duty to consult. The report of which I speak was published by
the Unitarian Dissenters, who were naturally desirous that there should
be an accurate record of what had passed in a debate deeply interesting
to them. It was not corrected by me: but it generally, though not
uniformly, exhibits with fidelity the substance of what I said.
Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the principle of our Statutes of
Limitation was to be found in the legislation of the Mexicans and
Peruvians. That is a matter about which, as I know nothing, I certainly
said nothing. Neither in The Times nor in the Unitarian report is there
anything about Mexico or Peru.
Mr Vizetelly next makes me say that the principle of limitation is found
"amongst the Pandects of the Benares. " Did my editor believe that I
uttered these words, and that the House of Commons listened patiently
to them? If he did, what must be thought of his understanding? If he did
not, was it the part of an honest man to publish such gibberish as mine?
The most charitable supposition, which I therefore gladly adopt, is
that Mr Vizetelly saw nothing absurd in the expression which he has
attributed to me. The Benares he probably supposes to be some Oriental
nation. What he supposes their Pandects to be I shall not presume to
guess. If he had examined The Times, he would have found no trace of the
passage. The reporter, probably, did not catch what I said, and, being
more veracious than Mr Vizetelly, did not choose to ascribe to me what
I did not say. If Mr Vizetelly had consulted the Unitarian report, he
would have seen that I spoke of the Pundits of Benares; and he might,
without any very long or costly research, have learned where Benares is,
and what a Pundit is.
Mr Vizetelly then represents me as giving the House of Commons some very
extraordinary information about both the Calvinistic and the Arminian
Methodists. He makes me say that Whitfield held and taught that the
connection between Church and State was sinful. Whitfield never held
or taught any such thing; nor was I so grossly ignorant of the life and
character of that remarkable man as to impute to him a doctrine which he
would have abhorred. Here again, both in The Times and in the Unitarian
report, the substance of what I said is correctly given.
Mr Vizetelly proceeds to put into my mouth a curious account of the
polity of the Wesleyan Methodists. He makes me say that, after John
Wesley's death, "the feeling in favour of the lay administration of the
Sacrament became very strong and very general: a Conference was applied
for, was constituted, and, after some discussion, it was determined that
the request should be granted. " Such folly could have been uttered only
by a person profoundly ignorant of the history of Methodism. Certainly
nothing of the sort was ever uttered by me; and nothing of the sort will
be found either in The Times or in the Unitarian report.
Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the Great Charter recognises the
principle of limitation, a thing which everybody who has read the Great
Charter knows not to be true. He makes me give an utterly false history
of Lord Nottingham's Occasional Conformity Bill. But I will not weary
my readers by proceeding further. These samples will probably be thought
sufficient. They all lie within a compass of seven or eight pages. It
will be observed that all the faults which I have pointed out are grave
faults of substance. Slighter faults of substance are numerous. As to
faults of syntax and of style, hardly one sentence in a hundred is free
from them.
I cannot permit myself to be exhibited, in this ridiculous and degrading
manner, for the profit of an unprincipled man. I therefore unwillingly,
and in mere self-defence, give this volume to the public. I have
selected, to the best of my judgment, from among my speeches, those
which are the least unworthy to be preserved. Nine of them were
corrected by me while they were still fresh in my memory, and appear
almost word for word as they were spoken. They are the speech of the
second of March 1831, the speech of the twentieth of September 1831,
the speech of the tenth of October 1831, the speech of the sixteenth of
December 1831, the speech on the Anatomy Bill, the speech on the India
Bill, the speech on Serjeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill, the speech on
the Sugar Duties, and the speech on the Irish Church. The substance of
the remaining speeches I have given with perfect ingenuousness. I have
not made alterations for the purpose of saving my own reputation either
for consistency or for foresight. I have not softened down the strong
terms in which I formerly expressed opinions which time and thought may
have modified; nor have I retouched my predictions in order to make them
correspond with subsequent events. Had I represented myself as speaking
in 1831, in 1840, or in 1845, as I should speak in 1853, I should have
deprived my book of its chief value. This volume is now at least a
strictly honest record of opinions and reasonings which were heard
with favour by a large part of the Commons of England at some important
conjunctures; and such a record, however low it may stand in the
estimation of the literary critic, cannot but be of use to the
historian.
I do not pretend to give with accuracy the diction of those speeches
which I did not myself correct within a week after they were delivered.
Many expressions, and a few paragraphs, linger in my memory. But
the rest, including much that had been carefully premeditated, is
irrecoverably lost. Nor have I, in this part of my task, derived much
assistance from any report. My delivery is, I believe, too rapid. Very
able shorthand writers have sometimes complained that they could not
follow me, and have contented themselves with setting down the substance
of what I said. As I am unable to recall the precise words which I used,
I have done my best to put my meaning into words which I might have
used.
I have only, in conclusion, to beg that the readers of this Preface will
pardon an egotism which a great wrong has made necessary, and which is
quite as disagreeable to myself as it can be to them.
CONTENTS.
Parliamentary Reform. (March 2, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (July 5, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (September 20, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (October 10, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (December 16, 1831)
Anatomy Bill. (February 27, 1832)
Parliamentary Reform. (February 28, 1832)
Repeal of the Union with Ireland. (February 6, 1833)
Jewish Disabilities. (April 17, 1833)
Government of India. (July 10, 1833)
Edinburgh Election, 1839. (May 29, 1839)
Confidence in the Ministry of Lord Melbourne. (January 29, 1840)
War with China. (April 7, 1840)
Copyright. (February 5, 1841)
Copyright. (April 6, 1842)
The People's Charter. (May 3, 1842)
The Gates of Somnauth. (March 9, 1843)
The State of Ireland. (February 19, 1844)
Dissenters' Chapels Bill. (June 6, 1844)
The Sugar Duties. (February 26, 1845)
Maynooth. (April 14, 1845)
The Church of Ireland. (April 23, 1845)
Theological Tests in the Scotch Universities. (July 9, 1845)
Corn Laws. (December 2, 1845)
The Ten Hours Bill. (May 22, 1846)
The Literature of Britain. (November 4, 1846)
Education. (April 19, 1847)
Inaugural Speech at Glasgow College. (March 21, 1849)
Re-election to Parliament. (November 2, 1852)
Exclusion of Judges from the House of Commons. (June 1, 1853)
SPEECHES, ETC.
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (MARCH 2, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 2D OF MARCH, 1831.
On Tuesday, the first of March, 1831, Lord John Russell moved the House
of Commons for leave to bring in a bill to amend the representation of
the people in England and Wales. The discussion occupied seven nights.
At length, on the morning of Thursday, the tenth of March, the motion
was carried without a division. The following speech was made on the
second night of the debate.
It is a circumstance, Sir, of happy augury for the motion before
the House, that almost all those who have opposed it have declared
themselves hostile on principle to Parliamentary Reform. Two Members,
I think, have confessed that, though they disapprove of the plan now
submitted to us, they are forced to admit the necessity of a change in
the Representative system. Yet even those gentleman have used, as far as
I have observed, no arguments which would not apply as strongly to the
most moderate change as to that which has been proposed by His Majesty's
Government. I say, Sir, that I consider this as a circumstance of happy
augury. For what I feared was, not the opposition of those who are
averse to all Reform, but the disunion of reformers. I knew that, during
three months, every reformer had been employed in conjecturing what the
plan of the Government would be. I knew that every reformer had imagined
in his own mind a scheme differing doubtless in some points from that
which my noble friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, has developed. I
felt therefore great apprehension that one person would be dissatisfied
with one part of the bill, that another person would be dissatisfied
with another part, and that thus our whole strength would be wasted in
internal dissensions. That apprehension is now at an end. I have seen
with delight the perfect concord which prevails among all who deserve
the name of reformers in this House; and I trust that I may consider it
as an omen of the concord which will prevail among reformers throughout
the country. I will not, Sir, at present express any opinion as to the
details of the bill; but, having during the last twenty-four hours given
the most diligent consideration to its general principles, I have no
hesitation in pronouncing it a wise, noble, and comprehensive measure,
skilfully framed for the healing of great distempers, for the securing
at once of the public liberties, and of the public repose, and for the
reconciling and knitting together of all the orders of the State.
The honourable Baronet who has just sat down (Sir John Walsh. ), has
told us, that the Ministers have attempted to unite two inconsistent
principles in one abortive measure. Those were his very words. He
thinks, if I understand him rightly, that we ought either to leave
the representative system such as it is, or to make it perfectly
symmetrical. I think, Sir, that the Ministers would have acted unwisely
if they had taken either course. Their principle is plain, rational, and
consistent. It is this, to admit the middle class to a large and
direct share in the representation, without any violent shock to the
institutions of our country. I understand those cheers: but surely the
gentlemen who utter them will allow that the change which will be made
in our institutions by this bill is far less violent than that which,
according to the honourable Baronet, ought to be made if we make any
Reform at all. I praise the Ministers for not attempting, at the present
time, to make the representation uniform. I praise them for not effacing
the old distinction between the towns and the counties, and for not
assigning Members to districts, according to the American practice, by
the Rule of Three. The Government has, in my opinion, done all that was
necessary for the removing of a great practical evil, and no more than
was necessary.
I consider this, Sir, as a practical question. I rest my opinion on
no general theory of government. I distrust all general theories of
government. I will not positively say, that there is any form of polity
which may not, in some conceivable circumstances, be the best possible.
I believe that there are societies in which every man may safely be
admitted to vote. Gentlemen may cheer, but such is my opinion. I say,
Sir, that there are countries in which the condition of the labouring
classes is such that they may safely be intrusted with the right of
electing Members of the Legislature. If the labourers of England were
in that state in which I, from my soul, wish to see them, if employment
were always plentiful, wages always high, food always cheap, if a large
family were considered not as an encumbrance but as a blessing, the
principal objections to Universal Suffrage would, I think, be removed.
Universal Suffrage exists in the United States, without producing any
very frightful consequences; and I do not believe that the people of
those States, or of any part of the world, are in any good quality
naturally superior to our own countrymen. But, unhappily, the labouring
classes in England, and in all old countries, are occasionally in a
state of great distress. Some of the causes of this distress are, I
fear, beyond the control of the Government. We know what effect distress
produces, even on people more intelligent than the great body of the
labouring classes can possibly be. We know that it makes even wise men
irritable, unreasonable, credulous, eager for immediate relief, heedless
of remote consequences. There is no quackery in medicine, religion, or
politics, which may not impose even on a powerful mind, when that mind
has been disordered by pain or fear. It is therefore no reflection
on the poorer class of Englishmen, who are not, and who cannot in the
nature of things be, highly educated, to say that distress produces on
them its natural effects, those effects which it would produce on the
Americans, or on any other people, that it blinds their judgment, that
it inflames their passions, that it makes them prone to believe those
who flatter them, and to distrust those who would serve them. For the
sake, therefore, of the whole society, for the sake of the labouring
classes themselves, I hold it to be clearly expedient that, in a
country like this, the right of suffrage should depend on a pecuniary
qualification.
But, Sir, every argument which would induce me to oppose Universal
Suffrage, induces me to support the plan which is now before us. I am
opposed to Universal Suffrage, because I think that it would produce a
destructive revolution. I support this plan, because I am sure that it
is our best security against a revolution. The noble Paymaster of the
Forces hinted, delicately indeed and remotely, at this subject. He spoke
of the danger of disappointing the expectations of the nation; and for
this he was charged with threatening the House. Sir, in the year 1817,
the late Lord Londonderry proposed a suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act. On that occasion he told the House that, unless the measures which
he recommended were adopted, the public peace could not be preserved.
Was he accused of threatening the House? Again, in the year 1819, he
proposed the laws known by the name of the Six Acts. He then told
the House that, unless the executive power were reinforced, all the
institutions of the country would be overturned by popular violence. Was
he then accused of threatening the House? Will any gentleman say that
it is parliamentary and decorous to urge the danger arising from popular
discontent as an argument for severity; but that it is unparliamentary
and indecorous to urge that same danger as an argument for conciliation?
I, Sir, do entertain great apprehension for the fate of my country. I do
in my conscience believe that, unless the plan proposed, or some similar
plan, be speedily adopted, great and terrible calamities will befall us.
Entertaining this opinion, I think myself bound to state it, not as a
threat, but as a reason. I support this bill because it will improve our
institutions; but I support it also because it tends to preserve them.
That we may exclude those whom it is necessary to exclude, we must admit
those whom it may be safe to admit. At present we oppose the schemes of
revolutionists with only one half, with only one quarter of our proper
force. We say, and we say justly, that it is not by mere numbers, but
by property and intelligence, that the nation ought to be governed. Yet,
saying this, we exclude from all share in the government great masses
of property and intelligence, great numbers of those who are most
interested in preserving tranquillity, and who know best how to preserve
it. We do more. We drive over to the side of revolution those whom we
shut out from power. Is this a time when the cause of law and order can
spare one of its natural allies?
My noble friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, happily described the
effect which some parts of our representative system would produce
on the mind of a foreigner, who had heard much of our freedom and
greatness. If, Sir, I wished to make such a foreigner clearly understand
what I consider as the great defects of our system, I would conduct
him through that immense city which lies to the north of Great Russell
Street and Oxford Street, a city superior in size and in population to
the capitals of many mighty kingdoms; and probably superior in opulence,
intelligence, and general respectability, to any city in the world. I
would conduct him through that interminable succession of streets and
squares, all consisting of well built and well furnished houses. I
would make him observe the brilliancy of the shops, and the crowd of
well-appointed equipages. I would show him that magnificent circle of
palaces which surrounds the Regent's Park. I would tell him that the
rental of this district was far greater than that of the whole kingdom
of Scotland, at the time of the Union. And then I would tell him that
this was an unrepresented district. It is needless to give any more
instances. It is needless to speak of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds,
Sheffield, with no representation, or of Edinburgh and Glasgow with a
mock representation. If a property tax were now imposed on the principle
that no person who had less than a hundred and fifty pounds a year
should contribute, I should not be surprised to find that one half in
number and value of the contributors had no votes at all; and it would,
beyond all doubt, be found that one fiftieth part in number and value of
the contributors had a larger share of the representation than the
other forty-nine fiftieths. This is not government by property. It
is government by certain detached portions and fragments of property,
selected from the rest, and preferred to the rest, on no rational
principle whatever.
To say that such a system is ancient, is no defence. My honourable
friend, the Member for the University of Oxford (Sir Robert Harry
Inglis. ), challenges us to show that the Constitution was ever better
than it is. Sir, we are legislators, not antiquaries. The question for
us is, not whether the Constitution was better formerly, but whether we
can make it better now. In fact, however, the system was not in ancient
times by any means so absurd as it is in our age. One noble Lord (Lord
Stormont. ) has to-night told us that the town of Aldborough, which he
represents, was not larger in the time of Edward the First than it is at
present. The line of its walls, he assures us, may still be traced. It
is now built up to that line. He argues, therefore, that as the founders
of our representative institutions gave members to Aldborough when it
was as small as it now is, those who would disfranchise it on account
of its smallness have no right to say that they are recurring to the
original principle of our representative institutions. But does the
noble Lord remember the change which has taken place in the country
during the last five centuries? Does he remember how much England has
grown in population, while Aldborough has been standing still? Does
he consider, that in the time of Edward the First, the kingdom did not
contain two millions of inhabitants? It now contains nearly fourteen
millions. A hamlet of the present day would have been a town of some
importance in the time of our early Parliaments. Aldborough may be
absolutely as considerable a place as ever. But compared with the
kingdom, it is much less considerable, by the noble Lord's own showing,
than when it first elected burgesses. My honourable friend, the Member
for the University of Oxford, has collected numerous instances of the
tyranny which the kings and nobles anciently exercised, both over this
House and over the electors. It is not strange that, in times
when nothing was held sacred, the rights of the people, and of the
representatives of the people, should not have been held sacred. The
proceedings which my honourable friend has mentioned, no more prove
that, by the ancient constitution of the realm, this House ought to be
a tool of the king and of the aristocracy, than the Benevolences and the
Shipmoney prove their own legality, or than those unjustifiable arrests
which took place long after the ratification of the great Charter
and even after the Petition of Right, prove that the subject was not
anciently entitled to his personal liberty. We talk of the wisdom of
our ancestors: and in one respect at least they were wiser than we. They
legislated for their own times. They looked at the England which was
before them. They did not think it necessary to give twice as many
Members to York as they gave to London, because York had been the
capital of Britain in the time of Constantius Chlorus; and they would
have been amazed indeed if they had foreseen, that a city of more than
a hundred thousand inhabitants would be left without Representatives in
the nineteenth century, merely because it stood on ground which in
the thirteenth century had been occupied by a few huts. They framed
a representative system, which, though not without defects and
irregularities, was well adapted to the state of England in their time.
But a great revolution took place. The character of the old corporations
changed. New forms of property came into existence. New portions of
society rose into importance. There were in our rural districts rich
cultivators, who were not freeholders. There were in our capital rich
traders, who were not liverymen. Towns shrank into villages. Villages
swelled into cities larger than the London of the Plantagenets.
Unhappily while the natural growth of society went on, the artificial
polity continued unchanged. The ancient form of the representation
remained; and precisely because the form remained, the spirit departed.
Then came that pressure almost to bursting, the new wine in the old
bottles, the new society under the old institutions. It is now time for
us to pay a decent, a rational, a manly reverence to our ancestors, not
by superstitiously adhering to what they, in other circumstances, did,
but by doing what they, in our circumstances, would have done. All
history is full of revolutions, produced by causes similar to those
which are now operating in England. A portion of the community which had
been of no account expands and becomes strong. It demands a place in the
system, suited, not to its former weakness, but to its present power.
If this is granted, all is well. If this is refused, then comes
the struggle between the young energy of one class and the ancient
privileges of another. Such was the struggle between the Plebeians and
the Patricians of Rome. Such was the struggle of the Italian allies for
admission to the full rights of Roman citizens. Such was the struggle
of our North American colonies against the mother country. Such was
the struggle which the Third Estate of France maintained against the
aristocracy of birth. Such was the struggle which the Roman Catholics
of Ireland maintained against the aristocracy of creed. Such is the
struggle which the free people of colour in Jamaica are now maintaining
against the aristocracy of skin. Such, finally, is the struggle which
the middle classes in England are maintaining against an aristocracy
of mere locality, against an aristocracy the principle of which is to
invest a hundred drunken potwallopers in one place, or the owner of
a ruined hovel in another, with powers which are withheld from cities
renowned to the furthest ends of the earth, for the marvels of their
wealth and of their industry.
But these great cities, says my honourable friend the Member for the
University of Oxford, are virtually, though not directly, represented.
Are not the wishes of Manchester, he asks, as much consulted as those
of any town which sends Members to Parliament? Now, Sir, I do not
understand how a power which is salutary when exercised virtually can
be noxious when exercised directly. If the wishes of Manchester have as
much weight with us as they would have under a system which should give
Representatives to Manchester, how can there be any danger in giving
Representatives to Manchester? A virtual Representative is, I presume,
a man who acts as a direct Representative would act: for surely it
would be absurd to say that a man virtually represents the people
of Manchester, who is in the habit of saying No, when a man directly
representing the people of Manchester would say Aye. The utmost that
can be expected from virtual Representation is that it may be as good
as direct Representation.
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of
Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4), by Thomas Babington Macaulay
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
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Title: The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4)
Lord Macaulay's Speeches
Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Posting Date: June 14, 2008 [EBook #2170]
Release Date: May, 2000
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF LORD MACAULAY ***
Produced by Mike Alder and Sue Asscher
THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF LORD MACAULAY.
Lord Macaulay's Speeches
By Thomas Babington Macaulay
VOLUME IV.
LORD MACAULAY'S SPEECHES.
TO HENRY, MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE
THESE SPEECHES ARE DEDICATED BY HIS GRATEFUL
AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.
PREFACE.
It was most reluctantly that I determined to suspend, during the last
autumn, a work which is the business and the pleasure of my life,
in order to prepare these Speeches for publication; and it is most
reluctantly that I now give them to the world. Even if I estimated their
oratorical merit much more highly than I do, I should not willingly have
revived, in the quiet times in which we are so happy as to live, the
memory of those fierce contentions in which too many years of my public
life were passed. Many expressions which, when society was convulsed
by political dissensions, and when the foundations of government were
shaking, were heard by an excited audience with sympathy and applause,
may, now that the passions of all parties have subsided, be thought
intemperate and acrimonious. It was especially painful to me to find
myself under the necessity of recalling to my own recollection, and to
the recollection of others, the keen encounters which took place between
the late Sir Robert Peel and myself. Some parts of the conduct of that
eminent man I must always think deserving of serious blame. But, on a
calm review of his long and chequered public life, I acknowledge, with
sincere pleasure, that his faults were much more than redeemed by great
virtues, great sacrifices, and great services. My political hostility to
him was never in the smallest degree tainted by personal ill-will. After
his fall from power a cordial reconciliation took place between us: I
admired the wisdom, the moderation, the disinterested patriotism, which
he invariably showed during the last and best years of his life; I
lamented his untimely death, as both a private and a public calamity;
and I earnestly wished that the sharp words which had sometimes been
exchanged between us might be forgotten.
Unhappily an act, for which the law affords no redress, but which I
have no hesitation in pronouncing to be a gross injury to me and a gross
fraud on the public, has compelled me to do what I should never have
done willingly. A bookseller, named Vizetelly, who seems to aspire to
that sort of distinction which Curll enjoyed a hundred and twenty years
ago, thought fit, without asking my consent, without even giving me any
notice, to announce an edition of my Speeches, and was not ashamed to
tell the world in his advertisement that he published them by special
license. When the book appeared, I found that it contained fifty-six
speeches, said to have been delivered by me in the House of Commons. Of
these speeches a few were reprinted from reports which I had corrected
for the Mirror of Parliament or the Parliamentary Debates, and were
therefore, with the exception of some errors of the pen and the press,
correctly given. The rest bear scarcely the faintest resemblance to
the speeches which I really made. The substance of what I said
is perpetually misrepresented. The connection of the arguments is
altogether lost. Extravagant blunders are put into my mouth in almost
every page. An editor who was not grossly ignorant would have perceived
that no person to whom the House of Commons would listen could possibly
have been guilty of such blunders. An editor who had the smallest
regard for truth, or for the fame of the person whose speeches he had
undertaken to publish, would have had recourse to the various sources of
information which were readily accessible, and, by collating them, would
have produced a book which would at least have contained no absolute
nonsense. But I have unfortunately had an editor whose only object was
to make a few pounds, and who was willing to sacrifice to that object my
reputation and his own. He took the very worst report extant, compared
it with no other report, removed no blemish however obvious or however
ludicrous, gave to the world some hundreds of pages utterly contemptible
both in matter and manner, and prefixed my name to them. The least that
he should have done was to consult the files of The Times newspaper.
I have frequently done so, when I have noticed in his book any passage
more than ordinarily absurd; and I have almost invariably found that
in The Times newspaper, my meaning had been correctly reported, though
often in words different from those which I had used.
I could fill a volume with instances of the injustice with which I have
been treated. But I will confine myself to a single speech, the speech
on the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. I have selected that speech, not
because Mr Vizetelly's version of that speech is worse than his versions
of thirty or forty other speeches, but because I have before me a report
of that speech which an honest and diligent editor would have thought it
his first duty to consult. The report of which I speak was published by
the Unitarian Dissenters, who were naturally desirous that there should
be an accurate record of what had passed in a debate deeply interesting
to them. It was not corrected by me: but it generally, though not
uniformly, exhibits with fidelity the substance of what I said.
Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the principle of our Statutes of
Limitation was to be found in the legislation of the Mexicans and
Peruvians. That is a matter about which, as I know nothing, I certainly
said nothing. Neither in The Times nor in the Unitarian report is there
anything about Mexico or Peru.
Mr Vizetelly next makes me say that the principle of limitation is found
"amongst the Pandects of the Benares. " Did my editor believe that I
uttered these words, and that the House of Commons listened patiently
to them? If he did, what must be thought of his understanding? If he did
not, was it the part of an honest man to publish such gibberish as mine?
The most charitable supposition, which I therefore gladly adopt, is
that Mr Vizetelly saw nothing absurd in the expression which he has
attributed to me. The Benares he probably supposes to be some Oriental
nation. What he supposes their Pandects to be I shall not presume to
guess. If he had examined The Times, he would have found no trace of the
passage. The reporter, probably, did not catch what I said, and, being
more veracious than Mr Vizetelly, did not choose to ascribe to me what
I did not say. If Mr Vizetelly had consulted the Unitarian report, he
would have seen that I spoke of the Pundits of Benares; and he might,
without any very long or costly research, have learned where Benares is,
and what a Pundit is.
Mr Vizetelly then represents me as giving the House of Commons some very
extraordinary information about both the Calvinistic and the Arminian
Methodists. He makes me say that Whitfield held and taught that the
connection between Church and State was sinful. Whitfield never held
or taught any such thing; nor was I so grossly ignorant of the life and
character of that remarkable man as to impute to him a doctrine which he
would have abhorred. Here again, both in The Times and in the Unitarian
report, the substance of what I said is correctly given.
Mr Vizetelly proceeds to put into my mouth a curious account of the
polity of the Wesleyan Methodists. He makes me say that, after John
Wesley's death, "the feeling in favour of the lay administration of the
Sacrament became very strong and very general: a Conference was applied
for, was constituted, and, after some discussion, it was determined that
the request should be granted. " Such folly could have been uttered only
by a person profoundly ignorant of the history of Methodism. Certainly
nothing of the sort was ever uttered by me; and nothing of the sort will
be found either in The Times or in the Unitarian report.
Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the Great Charter recognises the
principle of limitation, a thing which everybody who has read the Great
Charter knows not to be true. He makes me give an utterly false history
of Lord Nottingham's Occasional Conformity Bill. But I will not weary
my readers by proceeding further. These samples will probably be thought
sufficient. They all lie within a compass of seven or eight pages. It
will be observed that all the faults which I have pointed out are grave
faults of substance. Slighter faults of substance are numerous. As to
faults of syntax and of style, hardly one sentence in a hundred is free
from them.
I cannot permit myself to be exhibited, in this ridiculous and degrading
manner, for the profit of an unprincipled man. I therefore unwillingly,
and in mere self-defence, give this volume to the public. I have
selected, to the best of my judgment, from among my speeches, those
which are the least unworthy to be preserved. Nine of them were
corrected by me while they were still fresh in my memory, and appear
almost word for word as they were spoken. They are the speech of the
second of March 1831, the speech of the twentieth of September 1831,
the speech of the tenth of October 1831, the speech of the sixteenth of
December 1831, the speech on the Anatomy Bill, the speech on the India
Bill, the speech on Serjeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill, the speech on
the Sugar Duties, and the speech on the Irish Church. The substance of
the remaining speeches I have given with perfect ingenuousness. I have
not made alterations for the purpose of saving my own reputation either
for consistency or for foresight. I have not softened down the strong
terms in which I formerly expressed opinions which time and thought may
have modified; nor have I retouched my predictions in order to make them
correspond with subsequent events. Had I represented myself as speaking
in 1831, in 1840, or in 1845, as I should speak in 1853, I should have
deprived my book of its chief value. This volume is now at least a
strictly honest record of opinions and reasonings which were heard
with favour by a large part of the Commons of England at some important
conjunctures; and such a record, however low it may stand in the
estimation of the literary critic, cannot but be of use to the
historian.
I do not pretend to give with accuracy the diction of those speeches
which I did not myself correct within a week after they were delivered.
Many expressions, and a few paragraphs, linger in my memory. But
the rest, including much that had been carefully premeditated, is
irrecoverably lost. Nor have I, in this part of my task, derived much
assistance from any report. My delivery is, I believe, too rapid. Very
able shorthand writers have sometimes complained that they could not
follow me, and have contented themselves with setting down the substance
of what I said. As I am unable to recall the precise words which I used,
I have done my best to put my meaning into words which I might have
used.
I have only, in conclusion, to beg that the readers of this Preface will
pardon an egotism which a great wrong has made necessary, and which is
quite as disagreeable to myself as it can be to them.
CONTENTS.
Parliamentary Reform. (March 2, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (July 5, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (September 20, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (October 10, 1831)
Parliamentary Reform. (December 16, 1831)
Anatomy Bill. (February 27, 1832)
Parliamentary Reform. (February 28, 1832)
Repeal of the Union with Ireland. (February 6, 1833)
Jewish Disabilities. (April 17, 1833)
Government of India. (July 10, 1833)
Edinburgh Election, 1839. (May 29, 1839)
Confidence in the Ministry of Lord Melbourne. (January 29, 1840)
War with China. (April 7, 1840)
Copyright. (February 5, 1841)
Copyright. (April 6, 1842)
The People's Charter. (May 3, 1842)
The Gates of Somnauth. (March 9, 1843)
The State of Ireland. (February 19, 1844)
Dissenters' Chapels Bill. (June 6, 1844)
The Sugar Duties. (February 26, 1845)
Maynooth. (April 14, 1845)
The Church of Ireland. (April 23, 1845)
Theological Tests in the Scotch Universities. (July 9, 1845)
Corn Laws. (December 2, 1845)
The Ten Hours Bill. (May 22, 1846)
The Literature of Britain. (November 4, 1846)
Education. (April 19, 1847)
Inaugural Speech at Glasgow College. (March 21, 1849)
Re-election to Parliament. (November 2, 1852)
Exclusion of Judges from the House of Commons. (June 1, 1853)
SPEECHES, ETC.
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (MARCH 2, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 2D OF MARCH, 1831.
On Tuesday, the first of March, 1831, Lord John Russell moved the House
of Commons for leave to bring in a bill to amend the representation of
the people in England and Wales. The discussion occupied seven nights.
At length, on the morning of Thursday, the tenth of March, the motion
was carried without a division. The following speech was made on the
second night of the debate.
It is a circumstance, Sir, of happy augury for the motion before
the House, that almost all those who have opposed it have declared
themselves hostile on principle to Parliamentary Reform. Two Members,
I think, have confessed that, though they disapprove of the plan now
submitted to us, they are forced to admit the necessity of a change in
the Representative system. Yet even those gentleman have used, as far as
I have observed, no arguments which would not apply as strongly to the
most moderate change as to that which has been proposed by His Majesty's
Government. I say, Sir, that I consider this as a circumstance of happy
augury. For what I feared was, not the opposition of those who are
averse to all Reform, but the disunion of reformers. I knew that, during
three months, every reformer had been employed in conjecturing what the
plan of the Government would be. I knew that every reformer had imagined
in his own mind a scheme differing doubtless in some points from that
which my noble friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, has developed. I
felt therefore great apprehension that one person would be dissatisfied
with one part of the bill, that another person would be dissatisfied
with another part, and that thus our whole strength would be wasted in
internal dissensions. That apprehension is now at an end. I have seen
with delight the perfect concord which prevails among all who deserve
the name of reformers in this House; and I trust that I may consider it
as an omen of the concord which will prevail among reformers throughout
the country. I will not, Sir, at present express any opinion as to the
details of the bill; but, having during the last twenty-four hours given
the most diligent consideration to its general principles, I have no
hesitation in pronouncing it a wise, noble, and comprehensive measure,
skilfully framed for the healing of great distempers, for the securing
at once of the public liberties, and of the public repose, and for the
reconciling and knitting together of all the orders of the State.
The honourable Baronet who has just sat down (Sir John Walsh. ), has
told us, that the Ministers have attempted to unite two inconsistent
principles in one abortive measure. Those were his very words. He
thinks, if I understand him rightly, that we ought either to leave
the representative system such as it is, or to make it perfectly
symmetrical. I think, Sir, that the Ministers would have acted unwisely
if they had taken either course. Their principle is plain, rational, and
consistent. It is this, to admit the middle class to a large and
direct share in the representation, without any violent shock to the
institutions of our country. I understand those cheers: but surely the
gentlemen who utter them will allow that the change which will be made
in our institutions by this bill is far less violent than that which,
according to the honourable Baronet, ought to be made if we make any
Reform at all. I praise the Ministers for not attempting, at the present
time, to make the representation uniform. I praise them for not effacing
the old distinction between the towns and the counties, and for not
assigning Members to districts, according to the American practice, by
the Rule of Three. The Government has, in my opinion, done all that was
necessary for the removing of a great practical evil, and no more than
was necessary.
I consider this, Sir, as a practical question. I rest my opinion on
no general theory of government. I distrust all general theories of
government. I will not positively say, that there is any form of polity
which may not, in some conceivable circumstances, be the best possible.
I believe that there are societies in which every man may safely be
admitted to vote. Gentlemen may cheer, but such is my opinion. I say,
Sir, that there are countries in which the condition of the labouring
classes is such that they may safely be intrusted with the right of
electing Members of the Legislature. If the labourers of England were
in that state in which I, from my soul, wish to see them, if employment
were always plentiful, wages always high, food always cheap, if a large
family were considered not as an encumbrance but as a blessing, the
principal objections to Universal Suffrage would, I think, be removed.
Universal Suffrage exists in the United States, without producing any
very frightful consequences; and I do not believe that the people of
those States, or of any part of the world, are in any good quality
naturally superior to our own countrymen. But, unhappily, the labouring
classes in England, and in all old countries, are occasionally in a
state of great distress. Some of the causes of this distress are, I
fear, beyond the control of the Government. We know what effect distress
produces, even on people more intelligent than the great body of the
labouring classes can possibly be. We know that it makes even wise men
irritable, unreasonable, credulous, eager for immediate relief, heedless
of remote consequences. There is no quackery in medicine, religion, or
politics, which may not impose even on a powerful mind, when that mind
has been disordered by pain or fear. It is therefore no reflection
on the poorer class of Englishmen, who are not, and who cannot in the
nature of things be, highly educated, to say that distress produces on
them its natural effects, those effects which it would produce on the
Americans, or on any other people, that it blinds their judgment, that
it inflames their passions, that it makes them prone to believe those
who flatter them, and to distrust those who would serve them. For the
sake, therefore, of the whole society, for the sake of the labouring
classes themselves, I hold it to be clearly expedient that, in a
country like this, the right of suffrage should depend on a pecuniary
qualification.
But, Sir, every argument which would induce me to oppose Universal
Suffrage, induces me to support the plan which is now before us. I am
opposed to Universal Suffrage, because I think that it would produce a
destructive revolution. I support this plan, because I am sure that it
is our best security against a revolution. The noble Paymaster of the
Forces hinted, delicately indeed and remotely, at this subject. He spoke
of the danger of disappointing the expectations of the nation; and for
this he was charged with threatening the House. Sir, in the year 1817,
the late Lord Londonderry proposed a suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act. On that occasion he told the House that, unless the measures which
he recommended were adopted, the public peace could not be preserved.
Was he accused of threatening the House? Again, in the year 1819, he
proposed the laws known by the name of the Six Acts. He then told
the House that, unless the executive power were reinforced, all the
institutions of the country would be overturned by popular violence. Was
he then accused of threatening the House? Will any gentleman say that
it is parliamentary and decorous to urge the danger arising from popular
discontent as an argument for severity; but that it is unparliamentary
and indecorous to urge that same danger as an argument for conciliation?
I, Sir, do entertain great apprehension for the fate of my country. I do
in my conscience believe that, unless the plan proposed, or some similar
plan, be speedily adopted, great and terrible calamities will befall us.
Entertaining this opinion, I think myself bound to state it, not as a
threat, but as a reason. I support this bill because it will improve our
institutions; but I support it also because it tends to preserve them.
That we may exclude those whom it is necessary to exclude, we must admit
those whom it may be safe to admit. At present we oppose the schemes of
revolutionists with only one half, with only one quarter of our proper
force. We say, and we say justly, that it is not by mere numbers, but
by property and intelligence, that the nation ought to be governed. Yet,
saying this, we exclude from all share in the government great masses
of property and intelligence, great numbers of those who are most
interested in preserving tranquillity, and who know best how to preserve
it. We do more. We drive over to the side of revolution those whom we
shut out from power. Is this a time when the cause of law and order can
spare one of its natural allies?
My noble friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, happily described the
effect which some parts of our representative system would produce
on the mind of a foreigner, who had heard much of our freedom and
greatness. If, Sir, I wished to make such a foreigner clearly understand
what I consider as the great defects of our system, I would conduct
him through that immense city which lies to the north of Great Russell
Street and Oxford Street, a city superior in size and in population to
the capitals of many mighty kingdoms; and probably superior in opulence,
intelligence, and general respectability, to any city in the world. I
would conduct him through that interminable succession of streets and
squares, all consisting of well built and well furnished houses. I
would make him observe the brilliancy of the shops, and the crowd of
well-appointed equipages. I would show him that magnificent circle of
palaces which surrounds the Regent's Park. I would tell him that the
rental of this district was far greater than that of the whole kingdom
of Scotland, at the time of the Union. And then I would tell him that
this was an unrepresented district. It is needless to give any more
instances. It is needless to speak of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds,
Sheffield, with no representation, or of Edinburgh and Glasgow with a
mock representation. If a property tax were now imposed on the principle
that no person who had less than a hundred and fifty pounds a year
should contribute, I should not be surprised to find that one half in
number and value of the contributors had no votes at all; and it would,
beyond all doubt, be found that one fiftieth part in number and value of
the contributors had a larger share of the representation than the
other forty-nine fiftieths. This is not government by property. It
is government by certain detached portions and fragments of property,
selected from the rest, and preferred to the rest, on no rational
principle whatever.
To say that such a system is ancient, is no defence. My honourable
friend, the Member for the University of Oxford (Sir Robert Harry
Inglis. ), challenges us to show that the Constitution was ever better
than it is. Sir, we are legislators, not antiquaries. The question for
us is, not whether the Constitution was better formerly, but whether we
can make it better now. In fact, however, the system was not in ancient
times by any means so absurd as it is in our age. One noble Lord (Lord
Stormont. ) has to-night told us that the town of Aldborough, which he
represents, was not larger in the time of Edward the First than it is at
present. The line of its walls, he assures us, may still be traced. It
is now built up to that line. He argues, therefore, that as the founders
of our representative institutions gave members to Aldborough when it
was as small as it now is, those who would disfranchise it on account
of its smallness have no right to say that they are recurring to the
original principle of our representative institutions. But does the
noble Lord remember the change which has taken place in the country
during the last five centuries? Does he remember how much England has
grown in population, while Aldborough has been standing still? Does
he consider, that in the time of Edward the First, the kingdom did not
contain two millions of inhabitants? It now contains nearly fourteen
millions. A hamlet of the present day would have been a town of some
importance in the time of our early Parliaments. Aldborough may be
absolutely as considerable a place as ever. But compared with the
kingdom, it is much less considerable, by the noble Lord's own showing,
than when it first elected burgesses. My honourable friend, the Member
for the University of Oxford, has collected numerous instances of the
tyranny which the kings and nobles anciently exercised, both over this
House and over the electors. It is not strange that, in times
when nothing was held sacred, the rights of the people, and of the
representatives of the people, should not have been held sacred. The
proceedings which my honourable friend has mentioned, no more prove
that, by the ancient constitution of the realm, this House ought to be
a tool of the king and of the aristocracy, than the Benevolences and the
Shipmoney prove their own legality, or than those unjustifiable arrests
which took place long after the ratification of the great Charter
and even after the Petition of Right, prove that the subject was not
anciently entitled to his personal liberty. We talk of the wisdom of
our ancestors: and in one respect at least they were wiser than we. They
legislated for their own times. They looked at the England which was
before them. They did not think it necessary to give twice as many
Members to York as they gave to London, because York had been the
capital of Britain in the time of Constantius Chlorus; and they would
have been amazed indeed if they had foreseen, that a city of more than
a hundred thousand inhabitants would be left without Representatives in
the nineteenth century, merely because it stood on ground which in
the thirteenth century had been occupied by a few huts. They framed
a representative system, which, though not without defects and
irregularities, was well adapted to the state of England in their time.
But a great revolution took place. The character of the old corporations
changed. New forms of property came into existence. New portions of
society rose into importance. There were in our rural districts rich
cultivators, who were not freeholders. There were in our capital rich
traders, who were not liverymen. Towns shrank into villages. Villages
swelled into cities larger than the London of the Plantagenets.
Unhappily while the natural growth of society went on, the artificial
polity continued unchanged. The ancient form of the representation
remained; and precisely because the form remained, the spirit departed.
Then came that pressure almost to bursting, the new wine in the old
bottles, the new society under the old institutions. It is now time for
us to pay a decent, a rational, a manly reverence to our ancestors, not
by superstitiously adhering to what they, in other circumstances, did,
but by doing what they, in our circumstances, would have done. All
history is full of revolutions, produced by causes similar to those
which are now operating in England. A portion of the community which had
been of no account expands and becomes strong. It demands a place in the
system, suited, not to its former weakness, but to its present power.
If this is granted, all is well. If this is refused, then comes
the struggle between the young energy of one class and the ancient
privileges of another. Such was the struggle between the Plebeians and
the Patricians of Rome. Such was the struggle of the Italian allies for
admission to the full rights of Roman citizens. Such was the struggle
of our North American colonies against the mother country. Such was
the struggle which the Third Estate of France maintained against the
aristocracy of birth. Such was the struggle which the Roman Catholics
of Ireland maintained against the aristocracy of creed. Such is the
struggle which the free people of colour in Jamaica are now maintaining
against the aristocracy of skin. Such, finally, is the struggle which
the middle classes in England are maintaining against an aristocracy
of mere locality, against an aristocracy the principle of which is to
invest a hundred drunken potwallopers in one place, or the owner of
a ruined hovel in another, with powers which are withheld from cities
renowned to the furthest ends of the earth, for the marvels of their
wealth and of their industry.
But these great cities, says my honourable friend the Member for the
University of Oxford, are virtually, though not directly, represented.
Are not the wishes of Manchester, he asks, as much consulted as those
of any town which sends Members to Parliament? Now, Sir, I do not
understand how a power which is salutary when exercised virtually can
be noxious when exercised directly. If the wishes of Manchester have as
much weight with us as they would have under a system which should give
Representatives to Manchester, how can there be any danger in giving
Representatives to Manchester? A virtual Representative is, I presume,
a man who acts as a direct Representative would act: for surely it
would be absurd to say that a man virtually represents the people
of Manchester, who is in the habit of saying No, when a man directly
representing the people of Manchester would say Aye. The utmost that
can be expected from virtual Representation is that it may be as good
as direct Representation.
