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274 THE COUNCIL BOARD AND THE SENATE. [ESSAY III. judges? Why should not senates confide in their integrity, believe their statements, give candid attention to their reasonings,--as we attend to, and believe, and confide in what is uttered from the bench? And does any man think so ill of mankind as to believe that if an administration acted thus, they would not actually possess a greater influence upon the minds of men than they do now? Even now, when men are so habituated to the operation of influence and party, I believe that a minister is listened to with much greater confidence and satisfaction when he dissents from his colleagues than when he makes common cause. We then insensibly reflect, that he is no longer the pleader but the judge. The independence of his judgment is unquestioned; and we regard it therefore as the judgment of an honest man.

Uniformity of opinion-or, more properly, unity of exertion-is not at all necessary to the stability of a cabinet. Several recent administrations in our own country have been divided in sentiment upon great questions of national policy, and their members have opposed one another in par liament. With what ill effects? Nay, has not that very contrariety recommended the reasonings of all, as those of sincere integrity? It is usual with some politicians to declaim vehemently against "unnatural coalitions in cabinets." As to individuals, they, no doubt, may be censurable for political tergiversation; but as to cabinets being composed of men of different sentiments,-of sentiments so different as their respect ive judgments may occasion,-it is both allowable and expedient. I is just what a wise community would wish, because it affords a security for that canvass of public measures which is likely to illustrate their character and tendencies. But it is a sorrowful and a sickening sight, to contemplate a number of persons frankly urging their various and disagreeing opinions at a council-board, and as soon as some resolution is come to, all proceeding to a senate, and one-half urging the very arguments against which they have just been contending, and by which they are not yet convinced. Is freedom of canvass for any reasons useful and right at the council-board? Is it not, for the very same reasons, useful and right in a senate? The answer would be, Yes, if public measures were regarded as the measures of the community, and not of the administration; because then the desire and judgment of the community would be sought by the public and independent discussion of the question. Here, then, at last is one great cause of the evil,-that a large proportion of public acts are the measures of administrations; and being such, administrations unitedly support them whatever be the individual opinions of their members. These things ought not so to be. I would not indeed say that, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, there is no soundness in the system, -but the evil is mingled deplorably with the good. It is sometimes in practice almost forgotten that an administration is an executive rather than a legislative body,-that their original and natural business is rather to do what the legislature and constitution directs, than to direct the legislature themselves. I say the original and natural business; for, how congenial soever the great influence of administrations in public affairs may be with the present tenor of policy, and especially of international policy, it is not at all congenial with the original purpose and simple and proper objects of civil government,-the welfare of the community, as determined by an enlightened survey of the national mind.

Of the want of advertence to these simple and proper objects one effect has been that, in this country, administrations have frequently

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given up their offices when the senate has rejected their measures. This is an unequivocal indication of the wrong station in which cabinets are placed in the legislature,-because it indicates, that if a cabinet cannot carry its point it is supposed to be unfit for its office. All this is natural enough upon the present system, but it is very unnatural when cabinets are regarded, either in their ministerial capacity, as executive officers, or in their legislative capacity, as ordinary members of the senate. Executive officers are to do what the constitution and the legislature direct; members of a senate are to assist that legislature in directing aright in all which, no necessity is involved for ministers to resign their offices because the measures which they think best are not thought best by the majority. That a ministry should sometimes judge amiss is to be expected, because it is to be expected of all men: but surely in a sound state of political institutions, their fallibility would not be a necessary argument of unfitness for their offices, nor would the rejection of some of their opinions be a necessary evidence of a loss of the confidence of the public.

CHAPTER VIII.

BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

THAT the British Constitution is relatively good is satisfactorily indicated by its effects. Without indulging in the ordinary gratulations of our "own country being the first country in the world," it is unquestionably, in almost every respect, among the first,-among the first in liberty, in intellectual and moral excellence, and in whatever dignifies and adorns mankind. A country which thus surpasses other nations, and which has, with little interruption, possessed a nearly uniform constitution for ages, may well rest assured that its constitution is good. To say that it is good is however very different from saying that it is theoretically perfect, or practically as good as its theory will allow. Under a king, lords, and commons, we have prospered; but it does not therefore follow that under a king, lords, and commons, we might not have prospered more.

Whatever may be the future allotment of our country as to the form of its government, whether at any period, or at what, the progressive advancement of the human species will occasion an alteration, we are not at present concerned to inquire. Of one thing, indeed, we may be assured, that if it should be the good pleasure of Providence that this advancement in excellence shall take place, the practical principles of the government and its constitutional form, will be gradually moulded and modified into a state of adaptation to the then condition of mankind.

I. Of the regal part of the British Constitution I would say little. The sovereign is, in a great degree, identified with an administration; and into the principles which should regulate ministerial conduct the preceding chapters have attempted some inquiry.

Yet it may be observed, that supposing ministerial influence to be "necessary" to the constitution, there appears considerable reason to think that its amount may be safely and rightly diminished. As this influence becomes needless in proportion to the actual rectitude of political measures; as there is some reason to hope that this rectitude is

276

INFLUENCE OF THE CROWN.

[ESSAY III. increasing; and as the public capacity to judge soundly of political measures is manifestly increasing also; it is probable that some portion of the influence of the crown might be given up, without any danger to the constitution or the public weal. And, waiving all reference to the essential moral character of influence, it is to be remembered, that no degree of it is defensible, even by the politician, but that which apparently subserves the reasonable purposes of government.

It is recorded that in 1741, in Scotland, "sixteen peers were chosen literally according to the list transmitted from court." Such a fact would convince a man, without further inquiry, that there must have been something very unsound in the ministerial politics of the day; or, at any rate (which is nearly the same thing), something very discordant with the general mind.

In 1793, and while, of course, the Irish parliament existed, a bill was brought into that parliament to repeal some of the Catholic disabilities. This bill, the" parliament loudly, indignantly, and resolutely rejected." A few months afterward, a similar bill was introduced under the auspices of the government. Pitt had taken counsel of Burke, and wished to grant the Catholics relief: and when the viceroy's secretary accordingly brought in a bill, two members only opposed it; and at the second reading it was opposed but by one vote. Now, whatever may be said of the "necessity" of ministerial influence for the purposes of state, nothing can be said in favour of such influence as this. Every argument which would show its expediency would show even more powerfully the impurity of the system which could require it.

It is common to hear complaints of ministerial influence in parliament. "That kind of influence which the noble lord alludes to," said Fox, in one of his speeches, "I shall ever deem unconstitutional; for by the influence of the crown, he means the influence of the crown in parliament." But if it is concluded that influence is "necessary," it seems idle to complain of its exercise in the senate. Where should it be exerted with effect? Whether it be constitutional it is difficult to say, because it is difficult to define where constitutional acts end and unconstitutional acts begin. But it may safely be concluded that, in such matters, questions of constitutional rectitude are little relevant. Influence, you say-and in a certain sense you say it truly-is necessary. To what purpose then can it be to complain of the exercise of that influence in those places in which only or principally it is effectual? It would be impossible for persons, with our views of political rectitude, to execute the office of minister upon any system that approached, in its character, to the present; but were it otherwise, I would advise a minister openly to avow the exercise of influence, and to defend it. This were the frank and, I think, the rational course. Why should a man affect secrecy or concealment about an act "politically necessary." I would not talk about disinterestedness and independence; but tell the world that influence was needful, and that I exerted it. Not that such an avowal would stop, or ought to stop, the complaints of virtuous men. The morality of politics is not so obscure but that thousands will always perceive that the exertion of influence, and the submission to it, is morally vicious. This conflict will continue. Artifice and deception are "necessary" to a swindler, but all honest men know and feel that the artifice and deception are wrong.

* Smollett: Hist. England, v. iii., p. 71.

+ Fell's Public Life of C. J. Fox.

СНАР. 8.]

CANDIDATES FOR A PEERAGE.

277

II. It appears to have been discovered, or assumed, in most free states, that it is expedient that there should be two deliberative assemblies, of which one shall, from its constitution, possess less of a democratical tendency than the other. Not that, in a purer state of society, two such assemblies would be necessary, but because, while separate individuals or separate classes of men pursue their peculiar interests and are swayed by their peculiar prejudices, it is found needful to obstruct one class of interests and tendencies by another. Such a purpose is answered by the British House of Lords.

The privileges of the members of this house are such as to offer considerable temptation to their political virtue. A body of men whose eminence consists in artificial distinctions between them and the rest of the community are likely to desire to make these distinctions needlessly great; and for that purpose to postpone the public welfare to the interests of an order. We all know that there is a collective as well as an individual ambition. It is a truth which a peer should habitually inculcate upon himself, that however rank and title may be conferred for the gratification of the possessor, the legislative privileges of a peer are to be held exclusively subservient to the general good. I use the word exclusively in its strictest sense: so that, if even the question should come, whether any part or the whole of the privileges of the peerage should be withdrawn or the general good should be sacrificed, I should say that no reasonable question could exist respecting the proper alternative. Were I a peer, I should not think myself at liberty to urge the privileges of my order in opposition to the public weal; for this were evidently to postpone the greater interests to the less. If rulers of all kinds, if civil government itself, are simply the officers of the nation, surely no one class of rulers is at liberty to put its pretensions in opposition to the national advantage.

The love of title and of rank constitutes one of the great temptations of the political man. He can obtain them only from the crown; and it is not usual to bestow them except upon those who support the administration of the day. The intensity of the desire which some men feel for these distinctions has a correspondently intense effect. Lord Chatham said "that he had known men of great ambition for power and dominion, many whose characters were tarnished by glaring defects, some with many vices, who nevertheless could be prevailed upon to join in the best public measures; but the moment he found any man who had set himself down as a candidate for a peerage, he despaired of his ever being a friend to his country." This displays a curious political phenomenon. Can the reader give a better solution than the supposition that, in the love itself of title, there is something little and low, and that the minds which can be so anxious for it are commonly too little and too low to sacrifice their hopes to friendship for their country?-Many who are not candidates for peerages nevertheless look upon them with a wishing eye; and some who have attained to the lower honours of the order are equally solicitous for advancement to the higher. So that even upon those on whom the temptation is not so powerful as that of which Chatham speaks -some temptation is laid; a temptation of which it were idle to dispute that the aggregate effect is great.

If, without reference to the existing state of Britain, a man should ask

* Quoted by Fox.-Fell's Memoirs.

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HOUSE OF LORDS-BISHOPS.

[ESSAY III. whether the legislators of a nation ought to be subjected to such temptation,-whether it were a judicious political institution, I should answer, No: because I should judge that a legislative assembly ought to have no inducements or motives foreign to the general good. This appears to be so obviously true that the necessity, if there be a necessity, for an assembly so constituted, only evinces how imperfect the political character of a people is. There would be no need for having recourse to an objectionable species of assembly, if it were not wanted to counteract or to effect purposes which a purely constituted assembly could not

attain.

In estimating the relative worthiness of objects of human pursuit, a peerage does not appear to rank high. I know not indeed how it hap pens that men contemplate it with so much complacency; and that so few are found who appear to doubt whether it is one of the most reasonable and worthy objects of desire. A title! Only think what a title is, and what it is not. It is a thing which philosophy may reasonably hold cheap; a thing which partakes of the character of the tinsel watch, for which the new-breeched urchin looks with anxious eyes, and by which, when he has got it, he thinks he is made a greater man than before. If such be the character of title when brought into comparison with the dignity of man, what is it when it is compared with the dignity of the Christian? Nothing. It may be affirmed, without any apprehension of error, that the greater the degree in which any man is a Christian, the less will be his wish to be called a lord; and that when he attains to the "fulness of the stature" of a Christian man, no wish will remain. If additional motives can be urged to reduce our ambition of title, some perhaps may be found in considering the grounds upon which it has too frequently been conferred. Queen Anne, when once the ministry could not carry a measure in the Upper House, made twelve new peers at once. These, of course, voted for the measure. What honourable and elevated mind would have purchased one of these titles at the expense of the caustic question which a member put when they were going to give their first vote," Are you going to vote by your foreman?"

Whether the heads of a Christian church should possess seats in the legislature is a question that has often been discussed.-If a Christian bishop can attend to legislative affairs without infringing upon the time and attention which is due to his peculiar office, there appears nothing in that office which disqualifies him for legislative functions. The better a man is, the more, as a general rule, he is fit for a legislator; so that, assuming that bishops are peculiarly Christian men, it is not unfit that they should assist in the councils of the nation. Nevertheless, it must be conceded that there is no peculiar congruity between the office of the Christian overseer and that of an agent in political affairs. They are not incompatible indeed, but the connexion is not natural. Politics do not form the proper business of a Christian shepherd. They are wholly foreign to his proper business; and that retirement from the things of the world which Christianity requires of her ministers, and which she must be supposed peculiarly to require of her more elevated ministers, indicates the propriety of meddling but little in affairs of state. But, when it comes to be proposed that all the heads of a Christian church shall be selected for legislators, because they are heads of the church,the impropriety becomes manifest and great. To make a high religious office the qualification for a political office is manifestly wrong. It may

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