The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the
government of a nation, are,--1. Security to possessors; 2. Facility to
acquirers; and; 3. Hope to all.
* * * * *
A nation is the unity of a people. King and parliament are the unity made
visible. The king and the peers are as integral portions of this manifested
unity as the commons.[1]
In that imperfect state of society in which our system of representation
began, the interests of the country were pretty exactly commensurate with
its municipal divisions. The counties, the towns, and the seaports,
accurately enough represented the only interests then existing; that is
say,--the landed, the shop-keeping or manufacturing, and the mercantile.
But for a century past, at least, this division has become notoriously
imperfect, some of the most vital interests of the empire being now totally
unconnected with any English localities. Yet now, when the evil and the
want are known, we are to abandon the accommodations which the necessity of
the case had worked out for itself, and begin again with a rigidly
territorial plan of representation! The miserable tendency of all is to
destroy our nationality, which consists, in a principal degree, in our
representative government, and to convert it into a degrading delegation of
the populace. There is no unity for a people but in a representation of
national interests; a delegation from the passions or wishes of the
individuals themselves is a rope of sand. Undoubtedly it is a great evil,
that there should be such an evident discrepancy between the law and the
practice of the constitution in the matter of the representation. Such a
direct, yet clandestine, contravention of solemn resolutions and
established laws is immoral, and greatly injurious to the cause of legal
loyalty and general subordination in the minds of the people. But then a
statesman should consider that these very contraventions of law in practice
point out to him the places in the body politic which need a remodelling of
the law. You acknowledge a certain necessity for indirect representation in
the present day, and that such representation has been instinctively
obtained by means contrary to law; why then do you not approximate the
useless law to the useful practice, instead of abandoning both law and
practice for a completely new system of your own?
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge was very fond of quoting George Withers's fine lines:--
"Let not your king and parliament in one,
Much less apart, mistake themselves for that
Which is most worthy to be thought upon:
Nor think _they_ are, essentially, The STATE.
Let them not fancy that th' authority
And privileges upon them bestown,
Conferr'd are to set up a majesty,
A power, or a glory, of their own!
But let them know, 't was for a deeper life,
Which they but _represent_--
That there's on earth a yet auguster thing,
Veil'd though it be, than parliament and king!"--ED.]
* * * * *
The malignant duplicity and unprincipled tergiversations of the specific
Whig newspapers are to me detestable. I prefer the open endeavours of those
publications which seek to destroy the church, and introduce a republic in
effect: there is a sort of honesty in _that_ which I approve, though I
would with joy lay down my life to save my country from the consummation
which is so evidently desired by that section of the periodical press.
_June_ 26. 1831.