essential privileges of the House of Commons. It would appear of little
importance, if it were to be judged by its reception in the place where
it was proposed. There it was rejected without debate. The subject
matter may, perhaps, hereafter appear to merit a more serious
consideration. Thinking men will scarcely regard the _penal_ dissolution
of a Parliament as a very trifling concern. Such a dissolution must
operate forcibly as an example; and it much imports the people of this
kingdom to consider what lesson that example is to teach.
The late House of Commons was not accused of an interested compliance to
the will of a court. The charge against them was of a different nature.
They were charged with being actuated by an extravagant spirit of
independency. This species of offence is so closely connected with
merit, this vice bears so near a resemblance to virtue, that the flight
of a House of Commons above the exact temperate medium of independence
ought to be correctly ascertained, lest we give encouragement to
dispositions of a less generous nature, and less safe for the people; we
ought to call for very solid and convincing proofs of the existence, and
of the magnitude, too, of the evils which are charged to an independent
spirit, before we give sanction to any measure, that, by checking a
spirit so easily damped, and so hard to be excited, may affect the
liberty of a part of our Constitution, which, if not free, is worse than
useless.
The Editor does not deny that by possibility such an abuse may exist:
but, _primâ fronte_, there is no reason to presume it. The House of
Commons is not, by its complexion, peculiarly subject to the distempers
of an independent habit. Very little compulsion is necessary, on the
part of the people, to render it abundantly complaisant to ministers and
favorites of all descriptions. It required a great length of time, very
considerable industry and perseverance, no vulgar policy, the union of
many men and many tempers, and the concurrence of events which do not
happen every day, to build up an independent House of Commons. Its
demolition was accomplished in a moment; and it was the work of ordinary
hands. But to construct is a matter of skill; to demolish, force and
fury are sufficient.
The late House of Commons has been punished for its independence. That
example is made. Have we an example on record of a House of Commons
punished for its servility? The rewards of a senate so disposed are
manifest to the world. Several gentlemen are very desirous of altering
the constitution of the House of Commons; but they must alter the frame
and constitution of human nature itself, before they can so fashion it,
by any mode of election, that its conduct will not be influenced by
reward and punishment, by fame and by disgrace. If these examples take
root in the minds of men, what members hereafter will be bold enough
not to be corrupt, especially as the king's highway of obsequiousness is
so very broad and easy? To make a passive member of Parliament, no
dignity of mind, no principles of honor, no resolution, no ability, no
industry, no learning, no experience, are in the least degree necessary.
To defend a post of importance against a powerful enemy requires an
Eliot; a drunken invalid is qualified to hoist a white flag, or to
deliver up the keys of the fortress on his knees.
The gentlemen chosen into this Parliament, for the purpose of this
surrender, were bred to better things, and are no doubt qualified for
other service. But for this strenuous exertion of inactivity, for the
vigorous task of submission and passive obedience, all their learning
and ability are rather a matter of personal ornament to themselves than
of the least use in the performance of their duty.
The present surrender, therefore, of rights and privileges without
examination, and the resolution to support any minister given by the
secret advisers of the crown, determines not only on all the power and
authority of the House, but it settles the character and description of
the men who are to compose it, and perpetuates that character as long as
it may be thought expedient to keep up a phantom of popular
representation.
It is for the chance of some amendment before this new settlement takes
a permanent form, and while the matter is yet soft and ductile, that the
Editor has republished this piece, and added some notes and explanations
to it. His intentions, he hopes, will excuse him to the original mover,
and to the world. He acts from a strong sense of the incurable ill
effects of holding out the conduct of the late House of Commons as an
example to be shunned by future representatives of the people.
MOTION
RELATIVE TO
THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE.
LUNÆ, 14° DIE JUNII, 1784.
A motion was made, That a representation be presented to his Majesty,
most humbly to offer to his royal consideration, that the address of
this House, upon his Majesty's speech from the throne, was dictated
solely by our conviction of his Majesty's own most gracious intentions
towards his people, which, as we feel with gratitude, so we are ever
ready to acknowledge with cheerfulness and satisfaction.
Impressed with these sentiments, we were willing to separate from our
general expressions of duty, respect, and veneration to his Majesty's
royal person and his princely virtues all discussion whatever with
relation to several of the matters suggested and several of the
expressions employed in that speech.
That it was not fit or becoming that any decided opinion should be
formed by his faithful Commons on that speech, without a degree of
deliberation adequate to the importance of the object. Having afforded
ourselves due time for that deliberation, we do now most humbly beg
leave to represent to his Majesty, that, in the speech from the throne,
his ministers have thought proper to use a language of a very alarming
import, unauthorized by the practice of good times, and irreconcilable
to the principles of this government.
Humbly to express to his Majesty, that it is the privilege and duty of
this House to guard the Constitution from all infringement on the part
of ministers, and, whenever the occasion requires it, to warn them
against any abuse of the authorities committed to them; but it is very
lately,[59] that, in a manner not more unseemly than irregular and
preposterous, ministers have thought proper, by admonition from the
throne, implying distrust and reproach, to convey the expectations of
the people to us, their sole representatives,[60] and have presumed to
caution us, the natural guardians of the Constitution, against any
infringement of it on our parts.
This dangerous innovation we, his faithful Commons, think it our duty to
mark; and as these admonitions from the throne, by their frequent
repetition, seem intended to lead gradually to the establishment of an
usage, we hold ourselves bound thus solemnly to protest against them.
This House will be, as it ever ought to be, anxiously attentive to the
inclinations and interests of its constituents; nor do we desire to
straiten any of the avenues to the throne, or to either House of
Parliament. But the ancient order in which the rights of the people have
been exercised is not a restriction of these rights. It is a method
providently framed in favor of those privileges which it preserves and
enforces, by keeping in that course which has been found the most
effectual for answering their ends. His Majesty may receive the opinions
and wishes of individuals under their signatures, and of bodies
corporate under their seals, as expressing their own particular sense;
and he may grant such redress as the legal powers of the crown enable
the crown to afford. This, and the other House of Parliament, may also
receive the wishes of such corporations and individuals by petition. The
collective sense of his people his Majesty is to receive from his
Commons in Parliament assembled. It would destroy the whole spirit of
the Constitution, if his Commons were to receive that sense from the
ministers of the crown, or to admit them to be a proper or a regular
channel for conveying it.
That the ministers in the said speech declare, "His Majesty has a just
and confident reliance that we (his faithful Commons) are animated with
the same sentiments of loyalty, and the same attachment to our excellent
Constitution which he had the happiness to see so fully manifested in
every part of the kingdom."
To represent, that his faithful Commons have never foiled in loyalty to
his Majesty. It is new to them to be reminded of it. It is unnecessary
and invidious to press it upon them by any example. This recommendation
of loyalty, after his Majesty has sat for so many years, with the full
support of all descriptions of his subjects, on the throne of this
kingdom, at a time of profound peace, and without any pretence of the
existence or apprehension of war or conspiracy, becomes in itself a
source of no small jealousy to his faithful Commons; as many
circumstances lead us to apprehend that therein the ministers have
reference to some other measures and principles of loyalty, and to some
other ideas of the Constitution, than the laws require, or the practice
of Parliament will admit.
No regular communication of the proofs of loyalty and attachment to the
Constitution, alluded to in the speech from the throne, have been laid
before this House, in order to enable us to judge of the nature,
tendency, or occasion of them, or in what particular acts they were
displayed; but if we are to suppose the manifestations of loyalty (which
are held out to us as an example for imitation) consist in certain
addresses delivered to his Majesty, promising support to his Majesty in
the exercise of his prerogative, and thanking his Majesty for removing
certain of his ministers, on account of the votes they have given upon
bills depending in Parliament,--if this be the example of loyalty
alluded to in the speech from the throne, then we must beg leave to
express our serious concern for the impression which has been made on
any of our fellow-subjects by misrepresentations which have seduced them
into a seeming approbation of proceedings subversive of their own
freedom. We conceive that the opinions delivered in these papers were
not well considered; nor were the parties duly informed of the nature of
the matters on which they were called to determine, nor of those
proceedings of Parliament which they were led to censure.
We shall act more advisedly.--The loyalty we shall manifest will not be
the same with theirs; but, we trust, it will be equally sincere, and
more enlightened. It is no slight authority which shall persuade us (by
receiving as proofs of loyalty the mistaken principles lightly taken up
in these addresses) obliquely to criminate, with the heavy and
ungrounded charge of disloyalty and disaffection, an uncorrupt,
independent, and reforming Parliament.[61] Above all, we shall take care
that none of the rights and privileges, always claimed, and since the
accession of his Majesty's illustrious family constantly exercised by
this House, (and which we hold and exercise in trust for the Commons of
Great Britain, and for their benefit,) shall be constructively
surrendered, or even weakened and impaired, under ambiguous phrases and
implications of censure on the late Parliamentary proceedings. If these
claims are not well founded, they ought to be honestly abandoned; if
they are just, they ought to be steadily and resolutely maintained.
Of his Majesty's own gracious disposition towards the true principles of
our free Constitution his faithful Commons never did or could entertain
a doubt; but we humbly beg leave to express to his Majesty our
uneasiness concerning other new and unusual expressions of his
ministers, declaratory of a resolution "to support in their _just
balance_ the rights and privileges of every branch of the legislature."
It were desirable that all hazardous theories concerning a balance of
rights and privileges (a mode of expression wholly foreign to
Parliamentary usage) might have been forborne. His Majesty's faithful
Commons are well instructed in their own rights and privileges, which
they are determined to maintain on the footing upon which they were
handed down from their ancestors; they are not unacquainted with the
rights and privileges of the House of Peers; and they know and respect
the lawful prerogatives of the crown: but they do not think it safe to
admit anything concerning the existence of a balance of those rights,
privileges, and prerogatives; nor are they able to discern to what
objects ministers would apply their fiction of a balance, nor what they
would consider as a just one. These unauthorized doctrines have a
tendency to stir improper discussions, and to lead to mischievous
innovations in the Constitution.[62]
That his faithful Commons most humbly recommend, instead of the
inconsiderate speculations of unexperienced men, that, on all occasions,
resort should be had to the happy practice of Parliament, and to those
solid maxims of government which have prevailed since the accession of
his Majesty's illustrious family, as furnishing the only safe principles
on which the crown and Parliament can proceed.
We think it the more necessary to be cautious on this head, as, in the
last Parliament, the present ministers had thought proper to
countenance, if not to suggest, an attack upon the most clear and
undoubted rights and privileges of this House.[63]
Fearing, from these extraordinary admonitions, and from the new
doctrines, which seem to have dictated several unusual expressions, that
his Majesty has been abused by false representations of the late
proceedings in Parliament, we think it our duty respectfully to inform
his Majesty, that no attempt whatever has been made against his lawful
prerogatives, or against the rights and privileges of the Peers, by the
late House of Commons, in any of their addresses, votes, or resolutions;
neither do we know of any proceeding by bill, in which it was proposed
to abridge the extent of his royal prerogative: but, if such provision
had existed in any bill, we protest, and we declare, against all
speeches, acts, or addresses, from any persons whatsoever, which have a
tendency to consider such bills, or the persons concerned in them, as
just objects of any kind of censure and punishment from the throne.
Necessary reformations may hereafter require, as they have frequently
done in former times, limitations and abridgments, and in some cases an
entire extinction, of some branch of prerogative. If bills should be
improper in the form in which they appear in the House where they
originate, they are liable, by the wisdom of this Constitution, to be
corrected, and even to be totally set aside, elsewhere. This is the
known, the legal, and the safe remedy; but whatever, by the
manifestation of the royal displeasure, tends to intimidate individual
members from proposing, or this House from receiving, debating, and
passing bills, tends to prevent even the beginning of every reformation
in the state, and utterly destroys the deliberative capacity of
Parliament. We therefore claim, demand, and insist upon it, as our
undoubted right, that no persons shall be deemed proper objects of
animadversion by the crown, in any mode whatever, for the votes which
they give or the propositions which they make in Parliament.
We humbly conceive, that besides its share of the legislative power, and
its right of impeachment, that, by the law and usage of Parliament, this
House has other powers and capacities, which it is bound to maintain.
This House is assured that our humble advice on the exercise of
prerogative will be heard with the same attention with which it has ever
been regarded, and that it will be followed by the same effects which it
has ever produced, during the happy and glorious reigns of his Majesty's
royal progenitors,--not doubting but that, in all those points, we shall
be considered as a council of wisdom and weight to advise, and not
merely as an accuser of competence to criminate.[64] This House claims
both capacities; and we trust that we shall be left to our free
discretion which of them we shall employ as best calculated for his
Majesty's and the national service. Whenever we shall see it expedient
to offer our advice concerning his Majesty's servants, who are those of
the public, we confidently hope that the personal favor of any minister,
or any set of ministers, will not be more dear to his Majesty than the
credit and character of a House of Commons. It is an experiment full of
peril to put the representative wisdom and justice of his Majesty's
people in the wrong; it is a crooked and desperate design, leading to
mischief, the extent of which no human wisdom can foresee, to attempt
to form a prerogative party in the nation, to be resorted to as occasion
shall require, in derogation, from the authority of the Commons of Great
Britain in Parliament assembled; it is a contrivance full of danger, for
ministers to set up the representative and constituent bodies of the
Commons of this kingdom as two separate and distinct powers, formed to
counterpoise each other, leaving the preference in the hands of secret
advisers of the crown. In such a situation of things, these advisers,
taking advantage of the differences which may accidentally arise or may
purposely be fomented between them, will have it in their choice to
resort to the one or the other, as may best suit the purposes of their
sinister ambition. By exciting an emulation and contest between the
representative and the constituent bodies, as parties contending for
credit and influence at the throne, sacrifices will be made by both; and
the whole can end in nothing else than the destruction of the dearest
rights and liberties of the nation. If there must be another mode of
conveying the collective sense of the people to the throne than that by
the House of Commons, it ought to be fixed and defined, and its
authority ought to be settled: it ought not to exist in so precarious
and dependent a state as that ministers should have it in their power,
at their own mere pleasure, to acknowledge it with respect or to reject
it with scorn.
It is the undoubted prerogative of the crown to dissolve Parliament; but
we beg leave to lay before his Majesty, that it is, of all the trusts
vested in his Majesty, the most critical and delicate, and that in which
this House has the most reason to require, not only the good faith, but
the favor of the crown. His Commons are not always upon a par with his
ministers in an application to popular judgment; it is not in the power
of the members of this House to go to their election at the moment the
most favorable for them. It is in the power of the crown to choose a
time for their dissolution whilst great and arduous matters of state and
legislation are depending, which may be easily misunderstood, and which
cannot be fully explained before that misunderstanding may prove fatal
to the honor that belongs and to the consideration that is due to
members of Parliament.
With his Majesty is the gift of all the rewards, the honors,
distinctions, favors, and graces of the state; with his Majesty is the
mitigation of all the rigors of the law: and we rejoice to see the crown
possessed of trusts calculated to obtain good-will, and charged with
duties which are popular and pleasing. Our trusts are of a different
kind. Our duties are harsh and invidious in their nature; and justice
and safety is all we can expect in the exercise of them. We are to offer
salutary, which is not always pleasing counsel: we are to inquire and to
accuse; and the objects of our inquiry and charge will be for the most
part persons of wealth, power, and extensive connections: we are to make
rigid laws for the preservation of revenue, which of necessity more or
less confine some action or restrain some function which before was
free: what is the most critical and invidious of all, the whole body of
the public impositions originate from us, and the hand of the House of
Commons is seen and felt in every burden that presses on the people.
Whilst ultimately we are serving them, and in the first instance whilst
we are serving his Majesty, it will be hard indeed, if we should see a
House of Commons the victim of its zeal and fidelity, sacrificed by his
ministers to those very popular discontents which shall be excited by
our dutiful endeavors for the security and greatness of his throne. No
other consequence can result from such an example, but that, in future,
the House of Commons, consulting its safety at the expense of its
duties, and suffering the whole energy of the state to be relaxed, will
shrink from every service which, however necessary, is of a great and
arduous nature,--or that, willing to provide for the public necessities,
and at the same time to secure the means of performing that task, they
will exchange independence for protection, and will court a subservient
existence through the favor of those ministers of state or those secret
advisers who ought themselves to stand in awe of the Commons of this
realm.
A House of Commons respected by his ministers is essential to his
Majesty's service: it is fit that they should yield to Parliament, and
not that Parliament should be new-modelled until it is fitted to their
purposes. If our authority is only to be held up when we coincide in
opinion with his Majesty's advisers, but is to be set at nought the
moment it differs from them, the House of Commons will sink into a mere
appendage of administration, and will lose that independent character
which, inseparably connecting the honor and reputation with the acts of
this House, enables us to afford a real, effective, and substantial
support to his government. It is the deference shown to our opinion,
when we dissent from the servants of the crown, which alone can give
authority to the proceedings of this House, when it concurs with their
measures.
That authority once lost, the credit of his Majesty's crown will be
impaired in the eyes of all nations. Foreign powers, who may yet wish to
revive a friendly intercourse with this nation, will look in vain for
that hold which gave a connection with Great Britain the preference to
an affiance with any other state. A House of Commons of which ministers
were known to stand in awe, where everything was necessarily discussed
on principles fit to be openly and publicly avowed, and which could not
be retracted or varied without danger, furnished a ground of confidence
in the public faith which the engagement of no state dependent on the
fluctuation of personal favor and private advice can ever pretend to. If
faith with the House of Commons, the grand security for the national
faith itself, can be broken with impunity, a wound is given to the
political importance of Great Britain which will not easily be healed.
That there was a great variance between the late House of Commons and
certain persons, whom his Majesty has been advised to make and continue
as ministers, in defiance of the advice of that House, is notorious to
the world. That House did not confide in those ministers; and they
withheld their confidence from them for reasons for which posterity will
honor and respect the names of those who composed that House of Commons,
distinguished for its independence. They could not confide in persons
who have shown a disposition to dark and dangerous intrigues. By these
intrigues they have weakened, if not destroyed, the clear assurance
which his Majesty's people, and which all nations, ought to have of what
are and what are not the real acts of his government.