The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860

by Charles Duke Yonge

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

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

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

  Notes:

  [Footnote 182: L118,776,000. Alison, c. lxxvi.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  [Footnote 191: See ante, p. 222.]

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

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

  [Footnote 194: 237 to 193.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  [Footnote 211: The sum to be thus employed seems to have been intended to be L300,000 a year.-Peel's Memoirs, i., 197. On the whole question of the payment and Peel's objections to it, see ibid., pp. 197, 306.]

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

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

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

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

  CHAPTER IX. Demand for Parliamentary Reform.-Death of George IV., and Accession of William IV.-French Revolution of 1830.-Growing Feeling in Favor of Reform.-Duke of Wellington's Declaration against Reform.-His Resignation: Lord Grey becomes Prime-minister.-Introduction of the Reform Bill.-Its Details.-Riots at Bristol and Nottingham.-Proposed Creation of Peers.-The King's Message to the Peers.-Character and Consequences of the Reform Bill.-Appointment of a Regency.- Re-arrangement of the Civil List.


  One of Pitt's great measures of domestic, apart from financial or commercial, policy having become law, it seemed in some degree natural to look for the accomplishment of the other, a reform of the House of Commons, which, indeed, after the conclusion of the war, had been made at times the subject of earnest petition, being one in which a far greater number of people had a lively interest than that excited by Catholic Emancipation. The Englishmen who had advocated that measure had been striving for the adoption of a principle rather than for a concession from which they could expect any personal benefit, since very few in any English or Scotch constituency were Roman Catholics, or desired to return a Roman Catholic representative. But thousands in every county, including the whole body of citizens of some of the largest and most flourishing towns, felt a personal concern in the attainment of Parliamentary Reform, as the measure which would give them, and which could alone give them, that voice in the affairs of the kingdom to which they felt themselves entitled, but which they had never yet enjoyed.

  And before the end of the next session the prospect of the early success of their aspirations was greatly increased by the death of the King. George IV., who in his early manhood had attached himself to the Whigs with an ardor and ostentation altogether unbecoming his position as heir to the throne, had formally separated himself from them after the death of Fox in 1806, and had gradually come to regard their adversaries with a favor as exclusive as he had formerly shown to themselves. But the Duke of Clarence, who now succeeded to the throne, had always shown a leaning toward the Whigs, who of late had been commonly regarded as the reforming party. While the war lasted, and during the few remaining years of the reign of George III., no active steps toward Reform were taken in Parliament; but under George IV. more than one borough convicted of gross and habitual corruption, as has been mentioned, was disfranchised. Grampound was so punished in the time of Lord Liverpool, and its members were transferred to Yorkshire, so as to give that largest of the counties four representatives; and it may be remarked that this arrangement caused the Prime-minister to suggest an improvement in the details of an election-which was afterward universally adopted-when, in reply to a remark on the great inconvenience that was found to exist in taking the poll at once in so large a county as Yorkshire, he hinted at the possibility of obviating that difficulty by allowing polls to be taken in different parts of the county. And, since the Duke had been in office, two more boroughs, Penrhyn and East Retford, had also been disfranchised; though the Reformers failed in their endeavor to get the seats thus vacated transferred to Manchester and Birmingham. With the accession of the new sovereign, however, they became more active. They found encouragement in other circumstances also. Many of those who were commonly called the Ultra Tories had been so alienated from the Duke's government by the Emancipation Act, that they were known to be ready to coalesce with almost any party for the sake of overturning his administration. Moreover, as forty years before, the French Revolution of 1789 had caused great political excitement in England, so now the new French revolution of July acted as a strong stimulus on the movement party in this as well as in other countries; and altogether there was a very general feeling that the time for important changes had come. The Duke of Wellington was not blind to the prevalence of the idea; and, being by no means willing to admit that his own policy of the preceding year had in the least contributed to strengthen it, he conceived it to be his duty to discountenance it by every means in his power; but the steps which he took with that object only invigorated and inflamed it. As Prime-minister, he inserted in the speech with which the new sovereign opened his first Parliament in the autumn after his accession a general panegyric on that "happy form of government under which, through the favor of Divine Providence, this country had enjoyed for a long succession of years a greater share of internal peace, of commercial prosperity, of true liberty, of all that constitutes social happiness, than had fallen to the lot of any other country of the world." And in his own character, a few nights afterward, he added a practical commentary on those sentences of the royal speech, when, in allusion to Lord Grey's expression of a hope that the ministers would prepare "to redress the grievances of the people by a reform of the Parliament," he repudiated the suggestion altogether, avowing that the government were contemplating no such measure, and adding that "he would go farther, and say that he had never read or heard of any measure up to that moment which in any degree satisfied his mind that the state of the representation could be improved or rendered more satisfactory to the country at large than at that moment. He was fully convinced that the country possessed at that moment a Legislature which answered all good purposes of legislation to a greater degree than any Legislature had ever answered them in any country whatever.... And he would at once declare that, as far as he was concerned, as long as he held any station in the government of the country, he should always feel it his duty to resist any measure of Reform when proposed by others."