ordinary charge of a seat in
Parliament
was then
fifteen hundred pounds.
fifteen hundred pounds.
Edmund Burke
?
?
SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
73
to its latest possible hour, -and may it be a very
late one!
This bill, I fear, would precipitate one of two consequences, -I know not which most likely, or which most dangerous: either that the crown, by its constant, stated power, influence, and revenue, would wear out all opposition in elections, or that a violent and furious popular spirit would arise. I must see, to satisfy me, the remedies; I must see, from
their operation in the cure of the old evil, and in
the cure of those new evils which are inseparable
from all remedies, how they balance each other, and
what is the total result. The excellence of mathematics and metaphysics, is, to have but one thing
before you; but he forms the best judgment in all
moral disquisitions who has the greatest number
and variety of considerations in one view before him,
and can take them in with the best possible consideration of the middle results of all.
We of the opposition, who are not friends to the
bill, give this pledge at least of our integrity and
sincerity to the people, -- that in our situation of
systematic opposition to the present ministers, in
which all our ho'pe of rendering it effectual depends
upon popular interest and favor, we will not flatter
them by a surrender of our uninfluenced judgment
and opinion; we give a security, that, if ever we
should be in another situation, no flattery to any
other sort of power and influence would induce-us
to act against the true interests of the people.
All are agreed that Parliaments should not be perpetual; the only question is, What is the most convenient time for their duration? ' on which there are three opinions. We are agreed, too, that the term
? ? ? ? 74 SPEECH. . ON. -. THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
ought nmot to be chosen most likely in its operation
to spread corruption, and to augment the already
overgrown influence- of the: crown. On these principles I mean' to debate the question. It is easy to
pretend a zeal for liberty. : Those who think- themselves not likely to be incumbered with' the performance of their *promises, either from their known inability or total. indifference about the performance,
never fail to. entertain the most lofty ideas. They
are certainly the most: specious; and they cost them
neither: reflection to frame. , nor pains to modify, nor
management to support. The task is: of another nature to those who- mean to promise nothing that it is
not in their:intention,s or may possibly be in their
power -to perform,- to those who are bound and
principled:::no; more:to delude the understandings
than to: violate the liberty of their fellow-subjects.
Faithful watchmen we ought to be over the rights
and privileges; of the people. But our duty, if we
are qualified- for it as we ought, is to give them information, and not to receive it from them: we are
not to go to school to them, to learn the principles of
law and government. In doing so, we should not
dutifully serve, but: we should basely and scandalously-betray. the people, who are not capable of this service by nature,- nor in any instance called to it by the Constitution. - I reverentially look up to the opinion
of the; people, and with! an awe that is almost superstitious. :- I should be ashamed to show my face before
them, if I changed my ground as they cried up or
cried down men or:things or opinions, -if I wavered
and shifted: bout: with every change, and joined in
it or opposed as best answered: any low interest or
passion, -- if I held them up hopes which I knew I
? ? ? ? SPEECH: ON TIHE DURATION:. OF PARLIAMENTS. 75
never. :. intended, or -- promised what I well, knew I
could:not: perform. -:-Of all: these things they are
perfect sovereign judges without -appeal;. : but as to
the. detail of: particular. measures,- or to any general
schemes of:-policy, they have, neither enough of speculation: in the. : closet nor of experience in business to decide upon it. ,. They can well see whether we are
tools of: a court or their honest servants. Of that
theyk can well- judge- and I wish that they always
exercised their judgment; but of the particular merits'of a -measure::I have other standards.
That the frequency of: elections; proposed by this
billihas a tendency to increase the power and consideration of the electors, not lessen corruptibility, I do
most readily. allow:- so Ifar it:is, desirable. This is
what; it has: I'will;tell you now what it has not.
1'st, It has:. no:sort of. tendency to increase their inteigrity and:public spirit, unless. an increase of power
has. an, operation upon voters in elections, that it has
in-no other: situation in'the world, and upon no other
part;:of mankind. . 2nd. This bill has no tendency to
limit' the quantity of influence in the- crown, to render its operation more difficult, or to counteract that
operation:: which it'cannot prevent in any way whatsoever. It. has its full weight, its-full range, and its
uancontrolled; operation. on. the electors exactly as it.
had before:4 3rd. : Nor;: thirdly, does it abate. the interest or inclination of ministers; to apply that influence. to:. -the. :electors: on the contrary, it renders it much more::necessary to them, if they seek to have
a majority: in- Parliament, to. , increase the means of
that: influence, and: redouble their -diligence,: and to
sharpen: dexterity in- the application. The whole effect of the- bill is, therefore, the removing the appli
? ? ? ? 76 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
cation of some part of the influence from the elected
to the electors, and further to strengthen and extend
a court interest already great and powerful in boroughs: here to fix their magazines and places of
arms, and thus to make them the principal, not the
secondary, theatre of their manceuvres for securing
a determined majority in Parliament.
I believe nobody will deny that the electors are
corruptible. They are men, -- it is saying nothing
worse of them; many of them are but ill informed
in their minds, many feeble in their circumstances,
easily overreached, easily seduced. If they are many,
the wages of corruption are, the lower; and would to
God it were not rather a contemptible and hypocritical adulation than a charitable sentiment, to say that
there is already no debauchery, no corruption, no
bribery, no perjury, no blind fury and interested faction among the electors in many parts of this kingdom! -nor is it surprising, or at all blamable, in that class of private men, when they see their neighbors aggrandized, and themselves poor and virtuous
without that celat or dignity which attends men in
higher situations.
Rut admit it were true that the great mass, of the
electors were too vast an object for court influence to
grasp or extend to, and that in despair they must
abandon it; he must be very ignorant of the state
of every popular interest, who does not know that in
all the corporations; all the open boroughs, indeed in
every district of the kingdom, there is some leading
man, some agitator, some wealthy merchant or considerable manufacturer, some active attorney, some
popular preacher, some money-lender, &c. , &c. , who
is followed by the whole flock. This is the style of
all free countries.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. 77
Multum in Fabia valet hice, valet ille VelinD;
Cuilibet hic fasces dabit, eripietque curule.
These spirits, each of which informs and governs his
own little orb, are neither so many, nor so little powerful, nor so incorruptible, but that a minister may, as he does frequently, find means of gaining them,
and through them all their followers. To establish,
therefore; a very general influence among electors
will no more be found an impracticable project than
to gain an undue influence over members of Parliament. Therefore I am apprehensive that this bill, though it shifts the place of the disorder, does by no
means relieve the Constitution. I went through almost every contested election in the beginning of this Parliament, and acted as a manager in very many of
them; by which, though as at a school of pretty severe
and rugged discipline, I came to have some degree
of instruction concerning the means by which Parliamentary interests are in general procured and supported. Theory, I know, would suppose that every general
election is to the representative a day of judgment,
in which he appears before his constituents to account
for the use of the talent with which they intruisted
him, and for the improvement he has made of it for
the public advantage. It would be so, if every corruptible representative were to find an enlightened and incorruptible constituent. But the practice and
knowledge of the world will not suffer us to be ignorant that the Constitution on paper is one thing, and in fact and experience is another. We must know
that the candidate, instead of trusting at his election
to the testimony of his behavior in Parliament, must
bring the testimony of a large sum of money, the ca
? ? ? ? 78 SPEECH' ON THE,DURATION OF: PARLIAMENTS,
pacity of liberal expense in entertainments, the power
of serving and obliging the rulers of corporations,
of winning over the. popular leaders of. political clubs,
associations, and neighborl-oods. It is -ten thousand
times more necessary to, show. himself a mali of power
than a man of integrity, in almost all the. elections
with which. have been acquainted. . Elections, therefore, become a matter of heavy expense; and. if contests are: frequent, to many they will become a matter of an expense totally ruinous, which. no fortunes can
bear, but least of all the landed fortunes, incumbered as they often, indeed as they mostly are, with
debts, with portions, with jointures, and tied up. in
the hands of the possessor by tlhe limitations of settlement. It is a material, it is -in. my opinion a lasting consideration, in all the questions. concerning election. Let no one think "the charges of elections
a trivial matter.
The charge, therefore, of elections ought never to
be lost sight of in a question concerning their frequency;. because the:grand object you seek is. independence. Independence of mind will ever be, more
or less influenced by independence of fortune. ; and if
every three years the exhausting sluices of entertainments, drinkings, open houses, to say nothing of
b)ribery, are to be periodically drawn up and re
newed, -- if government favors, for which now, in
some shape or other, the whole race of men are candidates, are to be called for upon every occasion, I
see that private fortunes will be washed away, and
every, even to. the least, trace of independence borne
down by the torrent. I do not seriously think this
Constitution, even to the wrecks of it, could survive
five triennial elections. If you are to fight. the battle,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE-:-DURATION;. OF. -PARLIAMENTS. 79
you must put on the armor of the ministry, you must
call in the public to the- aid:of private money. The
expense of the last election has been computed:::(and
I am persuaded that it has not. been overrated) at
1,500,0001. ,- three shillings in the pound. more ih'
[than? ] the land-tax. About the close of the last Parliament and the beginning of this, several agents for boroughs went about, and I remember well that it was
in every one of their mouths,. " Sir, your election will
cost you three thousand pounds, if you are -independent; but if the ministry supports you, it may be done for two, and perhaps for less. ' - And, indeed, the thing
spoke itself. Where a living was to be got for 6ne,. a
commission in the army for another,:a lift in the navy
for a third, and custom-house offices scattered about
without measure or number, who doubts but money
may be saved? The Treasury may. even add money:
but, indeed, it is superfluous. A gentleman of two
thousand a year, who meets another of the same fortune, fights with equal arms; but if to one of the candidates you add a -thousand a year in places for
himself, and a power of giving. away as much among
others, one must, or: there is no truth in arithmetical
demonstration, ruin his adversary, if he is to meet
him and to fight with him every third year. It will
be said I do not allow for the operation of character:
but I do; and I know it willH have its weight in most
elections, - perhaps it may be decisive in some; but
there are few in which it will- prevent great expenses. 'The destruction of independent fortunes will be
the consequence on the part of the candidate. What
will be the consequence of triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, triennial lawsuits, litigations, prosecutions, triennial frenzy, - of society
? ? ? ? 80 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. dissolved, industry interrupted, ruined, --of those personal hatreds that will never be suffered to soften, those animosities and feuds which will be rendered immortal, those quarrels which are never to be appeased, - morals vitiated and gangrened to the vitals-? I think no stable and useful advantages
were ever made by the money got at elections by the voter, but all he gets is doubly lost to the public: it
is money given to diminish the general stock of the community, which is in the industry of the subject.
I am sure that it is a good while before he or his family settle again to their business. Their heads will never cool; the temptations of elections will be forever glittering before their eyes. They will all grow politicians; every one, quitting his business, will choose to enrich himself by his vote. They will all take the gauging-rod; new places will be made for them; they will run to the custom-house quay; their looms and ploughs will be deserted.
So was Rome destroyed by the disorders of continual elections, though those of Rome were sober disorders. They had nothing but faction, bribery,, bread, and stage-plays, to debauch them: we have the. inflammation of liquor superadded, a fury hotter than
any of them. There the -contest was only between
citizen and citizen: here you have the. contests of ambitious citizens of one side supported by the crown to
oppose to the efforts ( let it be so) of private and unsupported ambition on the other. Yet Rome was destroyed by the frequency and charge of elections, and the monstrous expense of an unremitted courtship to
the people. I think, therefore, the independent candidate and elector may each be destroyed by it, the
whole body of the community be an infinite sufferer,
and a vicious ministry the. only gainer.
? ? ? ? SPEECH. ON THE':DURATION'; OF'PARLIAMENTS. 81
Gentlemen, I know, feel the weight of this -argument; they agree, that this would be the consequence of more frequent elections, if things. were to continue as they are. But they think the greatness
and frequency. of the evil would itself be a remedy
for it,. - that, sitting but for a short time, the member would not find it worth while to make such vast
expenses, while the fear of their constituents will hold
them the more effectually to their duty.
To this I answer, that experience is full against
them. This is no new thing; we have had triennial
Parliaments; at no period of time were seats more.
eagerly contested. The expenses of elections ran
higher, taking the state of all charges, than they do
now. The expense of entertainments was such, that
an act, equally severe and ineffectual, was. made
against it; every monument of the time bears witness of the expense, and most of the acts against corruption in elections were then made; all the writers talked of it and lamented it. Will any one think
that a corporation will be contented with a bowl of
punch or a piece of beef the less, because elections
are every three, instead of every seven years? Will
they change their wine for ale, because they are to
get more ale three years hence? Don't think it.
Will they make fewer demands for the advantages of
patronage in favors and offices, because their member is brought more under their power? We have
not only our own historical experience in England
upon this subject, but we have the experience coexisting with us in Ireland, where, since their Parliament
has been shortened, the expense of elections has been
so far from being lowered, that it has been very near
doubled. Formerly they sat for the king's life; the
VOL. VII. 6
? ? ? ? 82 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
ordinary charge of a seat in Parliament was then
fifteen hundred pounds. They now sit eight years,
four sessions; it is now twenty-five hundred pounds,
and upwards. The spirit of emulation has also been
extremely increased, and all who are acquainted with
the tone of that country have no doubt that the spirit is still growing, that new candidates will take the field, that the contests will be more violent, and the
expenses of elections larger than ever.
It never can be otherwise. A seat in this House,
for good purposes, for bad purposes, for no purposes
at all, (except the mere consideration derived from
being concerned in the public counsels,) will ever be
a first-rate object of ambition in England. Ambition is no exact calculator. Avarice itself does not calculate strictly, when it games. One thing is certain, - that in this political game the great lottery
of power is that into which men will purchase with
millions of chances against them. In Turkey, where
the place, where the fortune, where the head itself
are so insecure that scarcely any have died in their
beds for ages, so that the bowstring is the natural
death of bashaws, yet in no country is power and
distinction (precarious enough, God knows, in all)
sought for with such boundless avidity, --as if the
value of place was enhanced by the danger and insecurity of its tenure. Nothing will ever make a seat in this IHouse not an object of desire to numbers by
any means or at any charge, but the depriving it of
all power and all dignity. This would do it. This
is the true and only nostrum for that purpose. But
an House of Commons without power and without
dignity, either in itself or in its members, is no
House of Commons for the purposes of this Constitution.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. 83
But they will be afraid to act ill, if they know that
the day of their account is always near. I wish it
were true; but it is not: here again we have experience, and experience is against us. The distemper. of this age is a poverty of spirit and of genius: it is
trifling, it is futile, worse than ignorant, superficially
taught, with the politics and morals of girls at a
boarding-school rather than of men and statesmen:
but it is not yet desperately wicked, or so scandalously venal as in former times. Did not a triennial Parliament give up the national dignity, approve the
peace of Utrecht, and almost give up everything else,
in taking every step to defeat the Protestant succession? Was not the Constitution saved by those who had no election at all to go to, the Lords, because the
court applied to electors, and by various means carried them from their true interests, so that the Tory ministry had a majority without an. application to
a single member? Now as to the conduct of the
members, it was then far from pure and independent.
Bribery was infinitely more flagrant. A predecessor
of yours, Mr. Speaker, put the question of his own
expulsion for bribery. Sir William Musgrave was a
wise man, a grave man, an independent man, a man
of good fortune and good family; however, he carried
on, while in opposition, a traffic, a shameful traffic,
with the ministry. Bishop Burnet knew of six thousand pounds which he had received at one payment. I believe the payment. of sums in hard money, plain,
naked bribery, is rare amongst us. It was then far
from uncommon.
A triennial was near ruining, a septennial Parliament saved your Constitution; nor, perhaps, have
you ever known a more flourishing period, for the
? ? ? ? 84 SPEECH ON THE ~DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. union of national prosperity, dignity, and liberty, than the sixty years you have passed under that constitution of Parliament.
The shortness of time in which they are to reap
the profits of iniquity is far: from checking the avidity of corrupt men; it renders them infinitely. more
ravenous. They rush violently and precipitately on
their object; they lose all regard to decorum. The
moments of profits are precious. ; never are men so
wicked as during a general mortality. It was so in
the great plague at Athens, every symptom of which
(and this its worse symptom amongst the rest) is
so finely related by a great historian of antiquity.
It was so in the plague of London in 1665. It appears in soldiers, sailors, &c. Whoever would contrive to render the life of man much shorter than it is would, I am satisfied, find the surest receipt for
increasing the wickedness of our nature.
Thus, in my opinion, the shortness of a triennial
sitting would have the following ill effects: It would
make the member more shamelessly and shockingly
corrupt; it would increase his dependence on those
who could best support him at his election; it would
wrack and tear to pieces the fortunes of those who
stood upon their own fortunes and their private interest; it would make the electors infinitely more
venal; and it would make the whole body of the
people, who are, whether they have votes or not,
concerned in elections, more lawless, more idle, more
debauched; it would utterly destroy the sobriety, the
industry, the integrity, the simplicity of all the people, and undermine, I am much afraid, the deepest
and best-laid foundations of the commonwealth.
Those who have spoken and written upon this sub
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION. '. OF PARLIAMENTS. 85
ject without doors do not; so much deny the probable existence of these inconveniences in their measure as: they trust for their prevention to remedies of various sorts which they propose. First, a place
bill. But if this will not do, as they fear it will not,
then, they' say, We will have a rotation, and a certain number of you shall be rendered incapable of
being elected for ten years. Then for the electors,
they shall ballot. The members of Parliament also
shall decide by ballot. A fifth project is the change
of the present legal representation of the kingdom,
On all this I shall observe, that it will, be very unsuitable- to your wisdom to adopt the project of a
bill to which there are objections insuperable by anything in the bill itself, upon the hope that those objections may be removed by subsequent projects, every one of which is full of difficulties of its own,
and which are all of them very essential alterations
in the Constitution. This seems very irregular and
unusual. If anything should make this a very doubtful measure, what can. - make it more so than that
in the opinion of its;advocates it would aggravate
all our old inconveniences in such a manner as to
require a total alteration in the Constitution of the
kingdomn? If the remedies: are proper in triennial,
they will not be less so in septennial elections. Let
us try them first,. -- see how the House relishes them,
- see how they will operate in the nation, - and
then, having felt your way, and prepared against
these inconveniences. -. . . .
The honorable, gentleman sees that I respect the
principle. upon which he. - goes, as well as his intentions and:his abilities'. He will believe that I do not
differ: from. him: wantonly and on trivial. grounds.
? ? ? ? 86 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
He is very sure that it was not his embracing one
way which determined me to take the other. I have
not in newspapers, to derogate from his fair fame
with the nation, printed the first rude sketch of his
bill with ungenerous and invidious comments. I
have not, in conversations industriously' circulated
about the town, and talked on the benches of this
House, attributed his conduct to motives low and
unworthy, and as groundless as they are injurious.
I do not affect to be frightened with this proposition, as if some hideous spectre had started from hell, which was to be sent back again by every form
of exorcism and every kind of incantation. I invoke
no Acheron to overwhelm him in the whirlpools of
its muddy gulf. I do not tell the respectable mover
and seconder, by a perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition halts between the ridiculous and the dangerous. I am not one of
those who start up, three at a time, and fall upon
and strike at him with so much eagerness that our
daggers hack one another in:his sides. My honorable friend has not brought down a spirited imp of chivalry to win the first achievement and blazon of
arms on his milk-white shield in a field listed against
him, --nor brought out the generous offspring of
lions, and said to them, --" Not against that side of
the forest! beware of that! - here is the prey, where
you are to fasten your paws! " - and seasoning his
unpractised jaws with blood, tell him, -" This is
the milk for which you are to thirst hereafter! "
TWe furnish at his expense no holiday, - nor suspend hell, that a crafty Ixion may have rest from his wheel, -nor give tlie common adversary (if he
be a common adversary) reason to say, -" I would
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. 87 have put in my word to oppose, but the eagerness of your allies in your social war was such that I could not break in upon you. " I hope he sees and feels, and that every member sees and feels along with him, the difference between amicable dissent and civil discord.
? ? ? ? SP E E C H
ON A
MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MAY 7, 1782,
FOR
A COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
MR. SPEAKER, -- We have now discovered, at
the close of the eighteenth century, that the
Constitution of England, which for a series of ages
had been the proud distinction of this country, always the admiration and sometimes the envy of the wise and learned in every other nation,- we have
discovered that this boasted Constitution, in the most
boasted part of it, is a gross imposition upon the understanding of mankind, an insult to their feelings, and acting by contrivances destructive to the best and
most valuable interests of the people. Our political
architects have taken a survey of the fabric of the
British Constitution. It is singular that they report
nothing against the crown, nothing against the lords:
but in the House of Commons everything is unsound;
it is ruinous in every part; it is infested by the dry
rot, and ready to tumble about our ears without their
immediate help. You know by the faults they find
what are their ideas of the alteration. As all government" stands upon opinion, they know that the way utterly to destroy it is to remove that opinion, to take
away all reverence, all confidence from it; and then,
at the first blast of public discontent and popular tumult, it tumbles to the ground.
In considering this question, they who oppose it
oppose it on different grounds. One is in the nature
of a previous question: that some alterations may be
? ? ? ? 92 SPEECH ON REFORM OF REPRESENTATION
expedient, but that this is not the time for making
them. The other is, that no essential alterations are
at all wanting, and that neither now nor at any time
is it prudent or safe to be meddling with the fundamental principles and ancient tried usages of our Constitution, -- that our representation is as nearly
perfect as the necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to be, -- and
that it is a subject of prudent and honest use and thankful enjoyment, and not of captious criticism and rash experiment.
On the other side there are two parties, who proceed on two grounds, in my opinion, as they state them, utterly irreconcilable. The one is juridical,
the other political. The one is in the nature of a
claim of right, on the supposed rights of man as
man: this party desire the decision: of a suit. The
other ground, as far as I can divine what it directly
means, is, that the representation is not so politically
framed as to answer the theory of its institution. As
to the claim of right, the meanest petitioner, the most
gross and ignorant, is as good as the best: in some
respects his claim: is more favorable, on account of
his ignorance; his weakness, his poverty, and distress
only add to his titles; he sues in forma pauperis; he
ought to be a favorite of the court. But when the
other ground is taken, when the question is political,
when a new constitution is to be made on a sound
theory of government, then the presumptuous pride
of didactic ignorance is to be excluded from the counsel in this high and arduous matter, which often bids defiance to the experience of the: wisest. . The first
claims a personal representation; the latter rejects it withl scorn and fervor. The language of the first.
? ? ? ? F OF THE COMMONS IN. PARLIAMENT. 93
party is plain and- intelligible; they who plead an absolute right cannot be satisfied with anything short of. personal representation, because all natural rights
must be the rights of individuals, as by nature there
is no such thing as politic or corporate personality:
all these ideas are mere fictions of law, they are creatures of voluntary institution; men as men are in dividuals, and nothing else. They, therefore, who
reject the principle of natural and personal representation are essentially and eternally'at variance with those who claim it. As to the first sort of reformers, it is ridiculous to talk to them of the Brit
ish Constitution upon any or upon all of its bases:
for they lay it down, that every man ought to govern, himself, and that, where he cannot go, himself, he must send his representative; that all other government is usurpation, and is so far from having a claim to our obedience, it is not only our right, but
our duty, to resist'it. Nine tenths of the reformers.
argue thus, -- that is, on the natural right.
It is impossible not to make some reflection on
the nature of this claim, or avoid a comparison between the extent of the principle and the present object of the demand. If this claim be founded, it
is clear to what it goes. The House of Commons,
in that light, undoubtedly, is no representative of
the people, as a collection of individuals. Nobody
pretends it, nobody can -justify such an assertion.
When you come to examine into this claim of right,
founded on the right of self-government in each
individual, you find the thiing demanded infinitely
short of the principle of the demand. What! one
third only of the legislature, and of the government
no share at all? What sort of treaty of partition
? ? ? ? 94 SPEECH ON REFORM OF REPRESENTATION
is this for those who have an inherent right to the
whole? Give them all they ask, and your grant is
still a cheat: for how comes only a third to be their
younger-children's fortune in this settlement? - How
came they neither to have the choice of kings, or
lords, or judges, or generals, or admirals, or bishops,
or priests,'or ministers, or justices of peace? Why,
what have you to answer in favor of the prior rights
of the crown and peerage but this: Our Constitution is a prescriptive constitution; it is a constitution whose sole authority is, that it has existed time out of mind? It is settled in these two portions against one, legislatively, -- and in the whole
of the judicature, the whole of the federal capacity,
of the executive, the prudential, and the financial
administration, in one alone. Nor was your House
of Lords* and the prerogatives of the crown settled
on any adjudication in favor of natural rights: for
they could never be so partitioned. . Your king, your
lords, your judges, your juries, grand and little, all,
are prescriptive; and what proves it is the disputes,
not yet concluded, and never near becoming so, when.
any of them first originated. Prescription is the
most solid of all titles, not only to property, but,
which is to secure that property, to government.
They harmonize with each other, and give mutual
aid to one another. It is accompanied with another
ground of authority in the constitution of the human mind, presumption. It is a presumption in
favor of any settled scheme of government against
any untried project, that a nation has long existed
and flourished under it. It is a better presumption
even of the choice of a nation, - far better than any
sudden and temporary arrangement by actual elec
? ? ? ? OF THE COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT. 95f
tion. Because a nation is not an idea only of local
extent and individual momentary aggregation, but it
is an idea of continuity which extends in time as well
as in numbers and in space. And this is a choice
not of one day or one set of people, not a tumultuary and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of
ages and of generations; it is a constitution -made
by what is ten thousand times better than choice;
it is made by the peculiar circumstances, occasions,
tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and social
habitudes of'the people, which disclose themselves
only in a long space of time. It is a vestment which
accommodates itself to the body. Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind, unmeaning
prejudices. For man is a most unwise and a most
wise being. The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species, it almost always
acts right.
The reason for the crown as it is, for the lords
as they are, is my reason for the commons as they
are, the electors as they are. Now if the crown, and
the lords, and the judicatures are all prescriptive,
so is the House of Commons of the very same origin,
and of no other. We and our electors have their
powers and privileges both made and circumscribed
by prescription, as much to the full as the other
parts; and as such we have always claimed them,
and on no other title. The House of Commons is
a legislative body corporate by prescription, not made
upon any given theory, but existing prescriptively,
-just like the rest. This prescription has made
it essentially what it is, an aggregate collection of
? ? ? ? 96 SPEECH'ON REFORM OF REPRESENTATION
three parts, knights, citizens, burgesses. The question is, whether this has been always so, since the
House of Commons has taken its present shape and
circumstances, and has been an essential operative
part of the Constitution,. - which, I take it, it: has
been. for at least five hundred years.
This I resolve to myself in the affirmative: and
then another question arises: -. Whether this House
stands firm upon its ancient foundations, and is not,
by time and accidents, so declined from its perpendicular as to want the hand of the wise and experienced architects of the day to set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for duration; --whether it continues true to the principles upon which it
has hitherto stood; -- whether this be de facto the
constitution of the House of Commons, as it has been
since the time that the House of Commons has without dispute become -a necessary and an efficient part
of the British Constitution. To ask whether a thing
which has always been the same stands to its usual
principle seems to me to be perfectly absurd: for how
do you know the principles, but from the construction? and if that remains the same, the principles
remain the same. It is true that to say your Constitution is what it has been is no sufficient defence for
those who say it is a bad constitution. It is an anT
swer to those who say that it is a degenerate constitution. To those who say it is a bad one, I answer,
Look to its effects.
to its latest possible hour, -and may it be a very
late one!
This bill, I fear, would precipitate one of two consequences, -I know not which most likely, or which most dangerous: either that the crown, by its constant, stated power, influence, and revenue, would wear out all opposition in elections, or that a violent and furious popular spirit would arise. I must see, to satisfy me, the remedies; I must see, from
their operation in the cure of the old evil, and in
the cure of those new evils which are inseparable
from all remedies, how they balance each other, and
what is the total result. The excellence of mathematics and metaphysics, is, to have but one thing
before you; but he forms the best judgment in all
moral disquisitions who has the greatest number
and variety of considerations in one view before him,
and can take them in with the best possible consideration of the middle results of all.
We of the opposition, who are not friends to the
bill, give this pledge at least of our integrity and
sincerity to the people, -- that in our situation of
systematic opposition to the present ministers, in
which all our ho'pe of rendering it effectual depends
upon popular interest and favor, we will not flatter
them by a surrender of our uninfluenced judgment
and opinion; we give a security, that, if ever we
should be in another situation, no flattery to any
other sort of power and influence would induce-us
to act against the true interests of the people.
All are agreed that Parliaments should not be perpetual; the only question is, What is the most convenient time for their duration? ' on which there are three opinions. We are agreed, too, that the term
? ? ? ? 74 SPEECH. . ON. -. THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
ought nmot to be chosen most likely in its operation
to spread corruption, and to augment the already
overgrown influence- of the: crown. On these principles I mean' to debate the question. It is easy to
pretend a zeal for liberty. : Those who think- themselves not likely to be incumbered with' the performance of their *promises, either from their known inability or total. indifference about the performance,
never fail to. entertain the most lofty ideas. They
are certainly the most: specious; and they cost them
neither: reflection to frame. , nor pains to modify, nor
management to support. The task is: of another nature to those who- mean to promise nothing that it is
not in their:intention,s or may possibly be in their
power -to perform,- to those who are bound and
principled:::no; more:to delude the understandings
than to: violate the liberty of their fellow-subjects.
Faithful watchmen we ought to be over the rights
and privileges; of the people. But our duty, if we
are qualified- for it as we ought, is to give them information, and not to receive it from them: we are
not to go to school to them, to learn the principles of
law and government. In doing so, we should not
dutifully serve, but: we should basely and scandalously-betray. the people, who are not capable of this service by nature,- nor in any instance called to it by the Constitution. - I reverentially look up to the opinion
of the; people, and with! an awe that is almost superstitious. :- I should be ashamed to show my face before
them, if I changed my ground as they cried up or
cried down men or:things or opinions, -if I wavered
and shifted: bout: with every change, and joined in
it or opposed as best answered: any low interest or
passion, -- if I held them up hopes which I knew I
? ? ? ? SPEECH: ON TIHE DURATION:. OF PARLIAMENTS. 75
never. :. intended, or -- promised what I well, knew I
could:not: perform. -:-Of all: these things they are
perfect sovereign judges without -appeal;. : but as to
the. detail of: particular. measures,- or to any general
schemes of:-policy, they have, neither enough of speculation: in the. : closet nor of experience in business to decide upon it. ,. They can well see whether we are
tools of: a court or their honest servants. Of that
theyk can well- judge- and I wish that they always
exercised their judgment; but of the particular merits'of a -measure::I have other standards.
That the frequency of: elections; proposed by this
billihas a tendency to increase the power and consideration of the electors, not lessen corruptibility, I do
most readily. allow:- so Ifar it:is, desirable. This is
what; it has: I'will;tell you now what it has not.
1'st, It has:. no:sort of. tendency to increase their inteigrity and:public spirit, unless. an increase of power
has. an, operation upon voters in elections, that it has
in-no other: situation in'the world, and upon no other
part;:of mankind. . 2nd. This bill has no tendency to
limit' the quantity of influence in the- crown, to render its operation more difficult, or to counteract that
operation:: which it'cannot prevent in any way whatsoever. It. has its full weight, its-full range, and its
uancontrolled; operation. on. the electors exactly as it.
had before:4 3rd. : Nor;: thirdly, does it abate. the interest or inclination of ministers; to apply that influence. to:. -the. :electors: on the contrary, it renders it much more::necessary to them, if they seek to have
a majority: in- Parliament, to. , increase the means of
that: influence, and: redouble their -diligence,: and to
sharpen: dexterity in- the application. The whole effect of the- bill is, therefore, the removing the appli
? ? ? ? 76 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
cation of some part of the influence from the elected
to the electors, and further to strengthen and extend
a court interest already great and powerful in boroughs: here to fix their magazines and places of
arms, and thus to make them the principal, not the
secondary, theatre of their manceuvres for securing
a determined majority in Parliament.
I believe nobody will deny that the electors are
corruptible. They are men, -- it is saying nothing
worse of them; many of them are but ill informed
in their minds, many feeble in their circumstances,
easily overreached, easily seduced. If they are many,
the wages of corruption are, the lower; and would to
God it were not rather a contemptible and hypocritical adulation than a charitable sentiment, to say that
there is already no debauchery, no corruption, no
bribery, no perjury, no blind fury and interested faction among the electors in many parts of this kingdom! -nor is it surprising, or at all blamable, in that class of private men, when they see their neighbors aggrandized, and themselves poor and virtuous
without that celat or dignity which attends men in
higher situations.
Rut admit it were true that the great mass, of the
electors were too vast an object for court influence to
grasp or extend to, and that in despair they must
abandon it; he must be very ignorant of the state
of every popular interest, who does not know that in
all the corporations; all the open boroughs, indeed in
every district of the kingdom, there is some leading
man, some agitator, some wealthy merchant or considerable manufacturer, some active attorney, some
popular preacher, some money-lender, &c. , &c. , who
is followed by the whole flock. This is the style of
all free countries.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. 77
Multum in Fabia valet hice, valet ille VelinD;
Cuilibet hic fasces dabit, eripietque curule.
These spirits, each of which informs and governs his
own little orb, are neither so many, nor so little powerful, nor so incorruptible, but that a minister may, as he does frequently, find means of gaining them,
and through them all their followers. To establish,
therefore; a very general influence among electors
will no more be found an impracticable project than
to gain an undue influence over members of Parliament. Therefore I am apprehensive that this bill, though it shifts the place of the disorder, does by no
means relieve the Constitution. I went through almost every contested election in the beginning of this Parliament, and acted as a manager in very many of
them; by which, though as at a school of pretty severe
and rugged discipline, I came to have some degree
of instruction concerning the means by which Parliamentary interests are in general procured and supported. Theory, I know, would suppose that every general
election is to the representative a day of judgment,
in which he appears before his constituents to account
for the use of the talent with which they intruisted
him, and for the improvement he has made of it for
the public advantage. It would be so, if every corruptible representative were to find an enlightened and incorruptible constituent. But the practice and
knowledge of the world will not suffer us to be ignorant that the Constitution on paper is one thing, and in fact and experience is another. We must know
that the candidate, instead of trusting at his election
to the testimony of his behavior in Parliament, must
bring the testimony of a large sum of money, the ca
? ? ? ? 78 SPEECH' ON THE,DURATION OF: PARLIAMENTS,
pacity of liberal expense in entertainments, the power
of serving and obliging the rulers of corporations,
of winning over the. popular leaders of. political clubs,
associations, and neighborl-oods. It is -ten thousand
times more necessary to, show. himself a mali of power
than a man of integrity, in almost all the. elections
with which. have been acquainted. . Elections, therefore, become a matter of heavy expense; and. if contests are: frequent, to many they will become a matter of an expense totally ruinous, which. no fortunes can
bear, but least of all the landed fortunes, incumbered as they often, indeed as they mostly are, with
debts, with portions, with jointures, and tied up. in
the hands of the possessor by tlhe limitations of settlement. It is a material, it is -in. my opinion a lasting consideration, in all the questions. concerning election. Let no one think "the charges of elections
a trivial matter.
The charge, therefore, of elections ought never to
be lost sight of in a question concerning their frequency;. because the:grand object you seek is. independence. Independence of mind will ever be, more
or less influenced by independence of fortune. ; and if
every three years the exhausting sluices of entertainments, drinkings, open houses, to say nothing of
b)ribery, are to be periodically drawn up and re
newed, -- if government favors, for which now, in
some shape or other, the whole race of men are candidates, are to be called for upon every occasion, I
see that private fortunes will be washed away, and
every, even to. the least, trace of independence borne
down by the torrent. I do not seriously think this
Constitution, even to the wrecks of it, could survive
five triennial elections. If you are to fight. the battle,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE-:-DURATION;. OF. -PARLIAMENTS. 79
you must put on the armor of the ministry, you must
call in the public to the- aid:of private money. The
expense of the last election has been computed:::(and
I am persuaded that it has not. been overrated) at
1,500,0001. ,- three shillings in the pound. more ih'
[than? ] the land-tax. About the close of the last Parliament and the beginning of this, several agents for boroughs went about, and I remember well that it was
in every one of their mouths,. " Sir, your election will
cost you three thousand pounds, if you are -independent; but if the ministry supports you, it may be done for two, and perhaps for less. ' - And, indeed, the thing
spoke itself. Where a living was to be got for 6ne,. a
commission in the army for another,:a lift in the navy
for a third, and custom-house offices scattered about
without measure or number, who doubts but money
may be saved? The Treasury may. even add money:
but, indeed, it is superfluous. A gentleman of two
thousand a year, who meets another of the same fortune, fights with equal arms; but if to one of the candidates you add a -thousand a year in places for
himself, and a power of giving. away as much among
others, one must, or: there is no truth in arithmetical
demonstration, ruin his adversary, if he is to meet
him and to fight with him every third year. It will
be said I do not allow for the operation of character:
but I do; and I know it willH have its weight in most
elections, - perhaps it may be decisive in some; but
there are few in which it will- prevent great expenses. 'The destruction of independent fortunes will be
the consequence on the part of the candidate. What
will be the consequence of triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, triennial lawsuits, litigations, prosecutions, triennial frenzy, - of society
? ? ? ? 80 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. dissolved, industry interrupted, ruined, --of those personal hatreds that will never be suffered to soften, those animosities and feuds which will be rendered immortal, those quarrels which are never to be appeased, - morals vitiated and gangrened to the vitals-? I think no stable and useful advantages
were ever made by the money got at elections by the voter, but all he gets is doubly lost to the public: it
is money given to diminish the general stock of the community, which is in the industry of the subject.
I am sure that it is a good while before he or his family settle again to their business. Their heads will never cool; the temptations of elections will be forever glittering before their eyes. They will all grow politicians; every one, quitting his business, will choose to enrich himself by his vote. They will all take the gauging-rod; new places will be made for them; they will run to the custom-house quay; their looms and ploughs will be deserted.
So was Rome destroyed by the disorders of continual elections, though those of Rome were sober disorders. They had nothing but faction, bribery,, bread, and stage-plays, to debauch them: we have the. inflammation of liquor superadded, a fury hotter than
any of them. There the -contest was only between
citizen and citizen: here you have the. contests of ambitious citizens of one side supported by the crown to
oppose to the efforts ( let it be so) of private and unsupported ambition on the other. Yet Rome was destroyed by the frequency and charge of elections, and the monstrous expense of an unremitted courtship to
the people. I think, therefore, the independent candidate and elector may each be destroyed by it, the
whole body of the community be an infinite sufferer,
and a vicious ministry the. only gainer.
? ? ? ? SPEECH. ON THE':DURATION'; OF'PARLIAMENTS. 81
Gentlemen, I know, feel the weight of this -argument; they agree, that this would be the consequence of more frequent elections, if things. were to continue as they are. But they think the greatness
and frequency. of the evil would itself be a remedy
for it,. - that, sitting but for a short time, the member would not find it worth while to make such vast
expenses, while the fear of their constituents will hold
them the more effectually to their duty.
To this I answer, that experience is full against
them. This is no new thing; we have had triennial
Parliaments; at no period of time were seats more.
eagerly contested. The expenses of elections ran
higher, taking the state of all charges, than they do
now. The expense of entertainments was such, that
an act, equally severe and ineffectual, was. made
against it; every monument of the time bears witness of the expense, and most of the acts against corruption in elections were then made; all the writers talked of it and lamented it. Will any one think
that a corporation will be contented with a bowl of
punch or a piece of beef the less, because elections
are every three, instead of every seven years? Will
they change their wine for ale, because they are to
get more ale three years hence? Don't think it.
Will they make fewer demands for the advantages of
patronage in favors and offices, because their member is brought more under their power? We have
not only our own historical experience in England
upon this subject, but we have the experience coexisting with us in Ireland, where, since their Parliament
has been shortened, the expense of elections has been
so far from being lowered, that it has been very near
doubled. Formerly they sat for the king's life; the
VOL. VII. 6
? ? ? ? 82 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
ordinary charge of a seat in Parliament was then
fifteen hundred pounds. They now sit eight years,
four sessions; it is now twenty-five hundred pounds,
and upwards. The spirit of emulation has also been
extremely increased, and all who are acquainted with
the tone of that country have no doubt that the spirit is still growing, that new candidates will take the field, that the contests will be more violent, and the
expenses of elections larger than ever.
It never can be otherwise. A seat in this House,
for good purposes, for bad purposes, for no purposes
at all, (except the mere consideration derived from
being concerned in the public counsels,) will ever be
a first-rate object of ambition in England. Ambition is no exact calculator. Avarice itself does not calculate strictly, when it games. One thing is certain, - that in this political game the great lottery
of power is that into which men will purchase with
millions of chances against them. In Turkey, where
the place, where the fortune, where the head itself
are so insecure that scarcely any have died in their
beds for ages, so that the bowstring is the natural
death of bashaws, yet in no country is power and
distinction (precarious enough, God knows, in all)
sought for with such boundless avidity, --as if the
value of place was enhanced by the danger and insecurity of its tenure. Nothing will ever make a seat in this IHouse not an object of desire to numbers by
any means or at any charge, but the depriving it of
all power and all dignity. This would do it. This
is the true and only nostrum for that purpose. But
an House of Commons without power and without
dignity, either in itself or in its members, is no
House of Commons for the purposes of this Constitution.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. 83
But they will be afraid to act ill, if they know that
the day of their account is always near. I wish it
were true; but it is not: here again we have experience, and experience is against us. The distemper. of this age is a poverty of spirit and of genius: it is
trifling, it is futile, worse than ignorant, superficially
taught, with the politics and morals of girls at a
boarding-school rather than of men and statesmen:
but it is not yet desperately wicked, or so scandalously venal as in former times. Did not a triennial Parliament give up the national dignity, approve the
peace of Utrecht, and almost give up everything else,
in taking every step to defeat the Protestant succession? Was not the Constitution saved by those who had no election at all to go to, the Lords, because the
court applied to electors, and by various means carried them from their true interests, so that the Tory ministry had a majority without an. application to
a single member? Now as to the conduct of the
members, it was then far from pure and independent.
Bribery was infinitely more flagrant. A predecessor
of yours, Mr. Speaker, put the question of his own
expulsion for bribery. Sir William Musgrave was a
wise man, a grave man, an independent man, a man
of good fortune and good family; however, he carried
on, while in opposition, a traffic, a shameful traffic,
with the ministry. Bishop Burnet knew of six thousand pounds which he had received at one payment. I believe the payment. of sums in hard money, plain,
naked bribery, is rare amongst us. It was then far
from uncommon.
A triennial was near ruining, a septennial Parliament saved your Constitution; nor, perhaps, have
you ever known a more flourishing period, for the
? ? ? ? 84 SPEECH ON THE ~DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. union of national prosperity, dignity, and liberty, than the sixty years you have passed under that constitution of Parliament.
The shortness of time in which they are to reap
the profits of iniquity is far: from checking the avidity of corrupt men; it renders them infinitely. more
ravenous. They rush violently and precipitately on
their object; they lose all regard to decorum. The
moments of profits are precious. ; never are men so
wicked as during a general mortality. It was so in
the great plague at Athens, every symptom of which
(and this its worse symptom amongst the rest) is
so finely related by a great historian of antiquity.
It was so in the plague of London in 1665. It appears in soldiers, sailors, &c. Whoever would contrive to render the life of man much shorter than it is would, I am satisfied, find the surest receipt for
increasing the wickedness of our nature.
Thus, in my opinion, the shortness of a triennial
sitting would have the following ill effects: It would
make the member more shamelessly and shockingly
corrupt; it would increase his dependence on those
who could best support him at his election; it would
wrack and tear to pieces the fortunes of those who
stood upon their own fortunes and their private interest; it would make the electors infinitely more
venal; and it would make the whole body of the
people, who are, whether they have votes or not,
concerned in elections, more lawless, more idle, more
debauched; it would utterly destroy the sobriety, the
industry, the integrity, the simplicity of all the people, and undermine, I am much afraid, the deepest
and best-laid foundations of the commonwealth.
Those who have spoken and written upon this sub
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION. '. OF PARLIAMENTS. 85
ject without doors do not; so much deny the probable existence of these inconveniences in their measure as: they trust for their prevention to remedies of various sorts which they propose. First, a place
bill. But if this will not do, as they fear it will not,
then, they' say, We will have a rotation, and a certain number of you shall be rendered incapable of
being elected for ten years. Then for the electors,
they shall ballot. The members of Parliament also
shall decide by ballot. A fifth project is the change
of the present legal representation of the kingdom,
On all this I shall observe, that it will, be very unsuitable- to your wisdom to adopt the project of a
bill to which there are objections insuperable by anything in the bill itself, upon the hope that those objections may be removed by subsequent projects, every one of which is full of difficulties of its own,
and which are all of them very essential alterations
in the Constitution. This seems very irregular and
unusual. If anything should make this a very doubtful measure, what can. - make it more so than that
in the opinion of its;advocates it would aggravate
all our old inconveniences in such a manner as to
require a total alteration in the Constitution of the
kingdomn? If the remedies: are proper in triennial,
they will not be less so in septennial elections. Let
us try them first,. -- see how the House relishes them,
- see how they will operate in the nation, - and
then, having felt your way, and prepared against
these inconveniences. -. . . .
The honorable, gentleman sees that I respect the
principle. upon which he. - goes, as well as his intentions and:his abilities'. He will believe that I do not
differ: from. him: wantonly and on trivial. grounds.
? ? ? ? 86 SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.
He is very sure that it was not his embracing one
way which determined me to take the other. I have
not in newspapers, to derogate from his fair fame
with the nation, printed the first rude sketch of his
bill with ungenerous and invidious comments. I
have not, in conversations industriously' circulated
about the town, and talked on the benches of this
House, attributed his conduct to motives low and
unworthy, and as groundless as they are injurious.
I do not affect to be frightened with this proposition, as if some hideous spectre had started from hell, which was to be sent back again by every form
of exorcism and every kind of incantation. I invoke
no Acheron to overwhelm him in the whirlpools of
its muddy gulf. I do not tell the respectable mover
and seconder, by a perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition halts between the ridiculous and the dangerous. I am not one of
those who start up, three at a time, and fall upon
and strike at him with so much eagerness that our
daggers hack one another in:his sides. My honorable friend has not brought down a spirited imp of chivalry to win the first achievement and blazon of
arms on his milk-white shield in a field listed against
him, --nor brought out the generous offspring of
lions, and said to them, --" Not against that side of
the forest! beware of that! - here is the prey, where
you are to fasten your paws! " - and seasoning his
unpractised jaws with blood, tell him, -" This is
the milk for which you are to thirst hereafter! "
TWe furnish at his expense no holiday, - nor suspend hell, that a crafty Ixion may have rest from his wheel, -nor give tlie common adversary (if he
be a common adversary) reason to say, -" I would
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. 87 have put in my word to oppose, but the eagerness of your allies in your social war was such that I could not break in upon you. " I hope he sees and feels, and that every member sees and feels along with him, the difference between amicable dissent and civil discord.
? ? ? ? SP E E C H
ON A
MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MAY 7, 1782,
FOR
A COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
MR. SPEAKER, -- We have now discovered, at
the close of the eighteenth century, that the
Constitution of England, which for a series of ages
had been the proud distinction of this country, always the admiration and sometimes the envy of the wise and learned in every other nation,- we have
discovered that this boasted Constitution, in the most
boasted part of it, is a gross imposition upon the understanding of mankind, an insult to their feelings, and acting by contrivances destructive to the best and
most valuable interests of the people. Our political
architects have taken a survey of the fabric of the
British Constitution. It is singular that they report
nothing against the crown, nothing against the lords:
but in the House of Commons everything is unsound;
it is ruinous in every part; it is infested by the dry
rot, and ready to tumble about our ears without their
immediate help. You know by the faults they find
what are their ideas of the alteration. As all government" stands upon opinion, they know that the way utterly to destroy it is to remove that opinion, to take
away all reverence, all confidence from it; and then,
at the first blast of public discontent and popular tumult, it tumbles to the ground.
In considering this question, they who oppose it
oppose it on different grounds. One is in the nature
of a previous question: that some alterations may be
? ? ? ? 92 SPEECH ON REFORM OF REPRESENTATION
expedient, but that this is not the time for making
them. The other is, that no essential alterations are
at all wanting, and that neither now nor at any time
is it prudent or safe to be meddling with the fundamental principles and ancient tried usages of our Constitution, -- that our representation is as nearly
perfect as the necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to be, -- and
that it is a subject of prudent and honest use and thankful enjoyment, and not of captious criticism and rash experiment.
On the other side there are two parties, who proceed on two grounds, in my opinion, as they state them, utterly irreconcilable. The one is juridical,
the other political. The one is in the nature of a
claim of right, on the supposed rights of man as
man: this party desire the decision: of a suit. The
other ground, as far as I can divine what it directly
means, is, that the representation is not so politically
framed as to answer the theory of its institution. As
to the claim of right, the meanest petitioner, the most
gross and ignorant, is as good as the best: in some
respects his claim: is more favorable, on account of
his ignorance; his weakness, his poverty, and distress
only add to his titles; he sues in forma pauperis; he
ought to be a favorite of the court. But when the
other ground is taken, when the question is political,
when a new constitution is to be made on a sound
theory of government, then the presumptuous pride
of didactic ignorance is to be excluded from the counsel in this high and arduous matter, which often bids defiance to the experience of the: wisest. . The first
claims a personal representation; the latter rejects it withl scorn and fervor. The language of the first.
? ? ? ? F OF THE COMMONS IN. PARLIAMENT. 93
party is plain and- intelligible; they who plead an absolute right cannot be satisfied with anything short of. personal representation, because all natural rights
must be the rights of individuals, as by nature there
is no such thing as politic or corporate personality:
all these ideas are mere fictions of law, they are creatures of voluntary institution; men as men are in dividuals, and nothing else. They, therefore, who
reject the principle of natural and personal representation are essentially and eternally'at variance with those who claim it. As to the first sort of reformers, it is ridiculous to talk to them of the Brit
ish Constitution upon any or upon all of its bases:
for they lay it down, that every man ought to govern, himself, and that, where he cannot go, himself, he must send his representative; that all other government is usurpation, and is so far from having a claim to our obedience, it is not only our right, but
our duty, to resist'it. Nine tenths of the reformers.
argue thus, -- that is, on the natural right.
It is impossible not to make some reflection on
the nature of this claim, or avoid a comparison between the extent of the principle and the present object of the demand. If this claim be founded, it
is clear to what it goes. The House of Commons,
in that light, undoubtedly, is no representative of
the people, as a collection of individuals. Nobody
pretends it, nobody can -justify such an assertion.
When you come to examine into this claim of right,
founded on the right of self-government in each
individual, you find the thiing demanded infinitely
short of the principle of the demand. What! one
third only of the legislature, and of the government
no share at all? What sort of treaty of partition
? ? ? ? 94 SPEECH ON REFORM OF REPRESENTATION
is this for those who have an inherent right to the
whole? Give them all they ask, and your grant is
still a cheat: for how comes only a third to be their
younger-children's fortune in this settlement? - How
came they neither to have the choice of kings, or
lords, or judges, or generals, or admirals, or bishops,
or priests,'or ministers, or justices of peace? Why,
what have you to answer in favor of the prior rights
of the crown and peerage but this: Our Constitution is a prescriptive constitution; it is a constitution whose sole authority is, that it has existed time out of mind? It is settled in these two portions against one, legislatively, -- and in the whole
of the judicature, the whole of the federal capacity,
of the executive, the prudential, and the financial
administration, in one alone. Nor was your House
of Lords* and the prerogatives of the crown settled
on any adjudication in favor of natural rights: for
they could never be so partitioned. . Your king, your
lords, your judges, your juries, grand and little, all,
are prescriptive; and what proves it is the disputes,
not yet concluded, and never near becoming so, when.
any of them first originated. Prescription is the
most solid of all titles, not only to property, but,
which is to secure that property, to government.
They harmonize with each other, and give mutual
aid to one another. It is accompanied with another
ground of authority in the constitution of the human mind, presumption. It is a presumption in
favor of any settled scheme of government against
any untried project, that a nation has long existed
and flourished under it. It is a better presumption
even of the choice of a nation, - far better than any
sudden and temporary arrangement by actual elec
? ? ? ? OF THE COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT. 95f
tion. Because a nation is not an idea only of local
extent and individual momentary aggregation, but it
is an idea of continuity which extends in time as well
as in numbers and in space. And this is a choice
not of one day or one set of people, not a tumultuary and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of
ages and of generations; it is a constitution -made
by what is ten thousand times better than choice;
it is made by the peculiar circumstances, occasions,
tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and social
habitudes of'the people, which disclose themselves
only in a long space of time. It is a vestment which
accommodates itself to the body. Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind, unmeaning
prejudices. For man is a most unwise and a most
wise being. The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species, it almost always
acts right.
The reason for the crown as it is, for the lords
as they are, is my reason for the commons as they
are, the electors as they are. Now if the crown, and
the lords, and the judicatures are all prescriptive,
so is the House of Commons of the very same origin,
and of no other. We and our electors have their
powers and privileges both made and circumscribed
by prescription, as much to the full as the other
parts; and as such we have always claimed them,
and on no other title. The House of Commons is
a legislative body corporate by prescription, not made
upon any given theory, but existing prescriptively,
-just like the rest. This prescription has made
it essentially what it is, an aggregate collection of
? ? ? ? 96 SPEECH'ON REFORM OF REPRESENTATION
three parts, knights, citizens, burgesses. The question is, whether this has been always so, since the
House of Commons has taken its present shape and
circumstances, and has been an essential operative
part of the Constitution,. - which, I take it, it: has
been. for at least five hundred years.
This I resolve to myself in the affirmative: and
then another question arises: -. Whether this House
stands firm upon its ancient foundations, and is not,
by time and accidents, so declined from its perpendicular as to want the hand of the wise and experienced architects of the day to set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for duration; --whether it continues true to the principles upon which it
has hitherto stood; -- whether this be de facto the
constitution of the House of Commons, as it has been
since the time that the House of Commons has without dispute become -a necessary and an efficient part
of the British Constitution. To ask whether a thing
which has always been the same stands to its usual
principle seems to me to be perfectly absurd: for how
do you know the principles, but from the construction? and if that remains the same, the principles
remain the same. It is true that to say your Constitution is what it has been is no sufficient defence for
those who say it is a bad constitution. It is an anT
swer to those who say that it is a degenerate constitution. To those who say it is a bad one, I answer,
Look to its effects.
