burgess of Parliament should be shut outside by such votes.
To repeat to you words signed, in September, 1656, by your own ancestor,
Sir John Northcote, M.P. for the County of Devon: "we who have been duly
chosen to be members of the Parliament, have an undoubted right to meet,
sit, and vote in Parliament," and "no part of the representative body are
trusted to consent to anything in the nation's behalf if the whole have
not their free liberty of debating and voting in the matters propounded."
To continue the language of your sturdy ancestor, you have "now declared
that the people's choice cannot give a man a right to sit in Parliament,
but the right must be derived from _your_ gracious will and pleasure."
You reply that you have the force on your side; but Sir John Northcote
declared that: "The violent exclusion of any of the people's deputies
from doing their duties and executing their trust freely in Parliament
doth change the state of the people from freedom into a mere slavery;"
and if you tell me that the majority of the present members of the House
are with you in what you do, I recall Sir John Northcote's protest:
"That all such chosen members for Parliament as shall take upon them to
approve of the forcible exclusion of other chosen members, or shall sit,
vote, and act by the name of the Parliament of England while, to their
knowledge, any of the chosen members are so by force shut out, we say
such ought to be reputed betrayers of the liberties of England."
You cannot now pretend with any hope that sane men will believe you, that
you desire "to prevent the profanation of the oath." In 1880 you
prevented the second reading of the Affirmation Bill, introduced by my
colleague, Mr. Labouchere, under the pretext that such a measure ought to
be introduced by the Government. In 1881, after you yourself had said the
matter should be dealt with by legislation, you prevented the Government
from introducing it. In 1882 your friends blocked the Affirmation measure
again proposed by my colleague, and in 1883 you exerted every influence
to defeat, and successfully defeated, the Affirmation Bill brought
forward by the Government.
If you had really believed the oath profaned by me, you would have been
one of the first to aid in removing the possible profanation by
substituting the right of affirmation. In Ulster you took credit for
keeping an Atheist out of Parliament, but it was not my Atheism you kept
out, for I actually sat with you day by day, speaking, voting, and
serving, from the beginning of July, 1880, until the end of March, 1881.
And, during the whole of that time, my care was to be at least as good
and loyal a member of that House as any sitting within its walls. I do
not plead my conduct there, whilst using all my right, as anything on my
behalf, for I at most could do no more than my duty; but at least I have
the right to say that it was never suggested that I was other than a good
working member of the House, strict in my attendance at and during every
one of its sittings. It cannot be pretended that I used my right of
speech to force upon the House one word which did not relate to the
business then being dealt with, or that in any fashion I obtruded upon
what should be a purely political assembly any views of mine on matters
of religion.
You have permitted in public my conduct to be misstated in your presence,
and utterances in Parliament to be attributed to me which are none of
mine, and you have done this because you hoped that, by exciting
religious and social prejudice against me, you might weaken the
Government, and crawl back into office. To injure the Liberal party, you
have allowed words which you pretend are sacred to be used as party
cries, and you have made hundreds of thousands examine into and declare
in favor of my opinions and expressions on religious questions who but
for you might perhaps have never even known my name. You have allied
yourself at Westminster with men whom you denounced in Ireland as
"traitors and disloyal," in order that, with their help, you might insult
an English constituency; and you have succeeded in bringing Parliamentary
Government into contempt by parading the House of Commons as the chief
law-breaking assembly in the world. In four years against me you have
done your worst to destroy me; with your own purse you have helped the
various projects to ruin me; and you have so failed that clergymen and
Nonconformist ministers have been driven to support me from very
indignation against the injury you have done to the cause of religion.
Your Conservative associations have flooded the country with leaflets
containing garbled and misleading extracts from my speeches and writings,
and have thus excited the curiosity of many whom I could have never
reached. These, procuring my works, and finding that my words have been
distorted and taken out of context, give a favor to me that I should
perhaps have never otherwise won.
Few believe that you are moved by religious motives. Mr. Newdegate is
regarded as sincere, though his sanity is doubted; but when men recollect
the past and even present lives of many of those around you, whose
tongues so loudly declare their piety, they come, not unnaturally, to the
conclusion that he is the worst infidel who trails the banner of his
church in the mire of political warfare, and permits the votes of the
drunken, the dissolute, the dishonest, and the disloyal to be canvassed
by his whips so that they may be counted on the side which he parades as
that of the pure and the holy.
On the 7th February, 1882, I told you and your majority: "If I am not fit
for my constituents, they shall dismiss me, but you never shall." I have
gone since voluntarily to my constituents--to those from whom you
presented a petition with 10,400 mock signatures upon it. The answer has
come at the ballot-box. My constituents bid me resist you, and I will.
They trust me to defeat you, and I will. The law is on my side, and you
fear its pronouncement. You kept me from the possibility of obtaining a
decision as long as you could, but on the 11th February I broke through
your barriers. Then you fruitlessly tried to erase all trace of my
voting, and when you found that I beat you on this by adding a new vote
as you rubbed out the vote before, then, in malicious spite, you shut me
out of the tea-room, dining-room, cloak-room, and library. For shame, Sir
Stafford Northcote! This was worthy of "O'Donnell," but not of the leader
of a great party. You wear knightly orders. You should be above a knave's
spitefulness.
My turn is coming. You have won sympathy for me throughout the land; you
have made Northampton men stand by me closer than ever; you are now
awaking the country to stand by Northampton. Mr. Justice Stephen says
that the appeal is to the constituencies, and I appeal. In the name of
justice, by the hope of liberty, in memory of English struggles for
freedom, I appeal, and I hear the answer growing as you shall hear it,
too, on the day when, from my place in the House, I move: "That all the
resolutions respecting Charles Bradlaugh, member for Northampton,
hindering him from obeying the law, and punishing him for having obeyed
the law, be expunged from the Journals of this House as being subversive
of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom."
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
* * * * *
30, St. James' Place, S.W.
_March 4th, 1884._
SIR,--There are some points in the letter you have addressed to me which
I am unwilling to pass over in silence lest I should be taken to admit
your assertions.
In the first place, it is necessary that I should point out to you that
the action of the House of Commons with respect to yourself has not been
arbitrary or capricious, but has been founded on principles deliberately
adopted by a large majority of its members of various political opinions,
to which principles they have steadily adhered, and which they have
always been prepared to justify.
In the second place it should be clearly understood that in all the steps
which we have taken with respect to yourself, including some which we
took with the greatest reluctance, we were acting on the defensive, in
consequence of your repeated attempts to override or to evade the
repeated decisions of the House of Commons.
The brief history of your case is this. You were duly elected member for
Northampton at the General Election of 1880. On presenting yourself to
take your seat you tendered an affirmation instead of an oath, and
supported your claim to affirm by reference to the fact that you had been
permitted to do so in a court of law under the Evidence Amendment Acts of
1869 and 1870. That claim at once, and necessarily, brought under the
notice of the House that you must either yourself have objected in a
court of law to take an oath, or must have been objected to as
incompetent to do so, and that the presiding judge must have been
satisfied that the taking of an oath would have no binding effect upon
your conscience.
That being so, a Committee was appointed by the House to consider whether
the Evidence Amendment Acts were applicable to the case of a member of
the House of Commons desiring to take his seat and to comply with the
necessary conditions.
It was held by the Committee that they were not so applicable, and this
finding of the Committee was subsequently confirmed by the judgment of
the Court of Appeal.
Upon being refused permission to affirm, you immediately came to the
table of the House and offered to take the oath. This proceeding was
objected to, and the majority of the House (still, as theretofore,
composed of members of different shades of politics) refused to allow you
to go through the form of taking an oath, which, by the hypothesis on
which your original claim to affirm was founded, as well as by the
evidence afforded by a letter of your own, they held you to be
incompetent really to take, and which they considered it would be a
profanation to allow you to pretend to take.
That was the ground taken by the House on the 23rd June, 1880, and it is
the ground which it has maintained ever since.
You have, since the adoption of that resolution, made various attempts to
force the House to admit you to a seat, while still maintaining its
objection; and those attempts have, on more than one occasion, led to
scenes of a very indecent and disorderly character. In its anxiety to
prevent the recurrence of such scenes, the House has felt itself obliged
to adopt measures of rigid exclusion, which it would gladly have avoided.
I do not think it necessary to enter into the details of these scenes.
I am, however, obliged to take notice of your allegation that my action
on the 11th February involved a breach of an arrangement previously made
through Mr. Winn.
The arrangement which I authorised Mr. Winn to make in my name, and which
he did make in a letter to Mr. Labouchere, was as follows:
"If Mr. Bradlaugh will write you a letter to the effect that he
will not go up to the table to take the oath, nor make any
other move with regard to his seat until Monday, February
11th, and will do so on that day, say immediately after
questions, I am quite sure that Sir Stafford will neither move
anything himself respecting Mr. Bradlaugh's seat, nor employ
anyone else to do so, _previous to that day_."
The meaning of this is perfectly obvious, and it was in strict conformity
with it that I myself abstained, and urged my friends to abstain, from
taking any step whatever in relation to Mr. Bradlaugh until the day
named. When, upon that day, you came forward in defiance of the Speaker's
repeated calls to order, and began to go through the form of taking the
oath, I had no option but to support the Chair, and to support also the
repeatedly pronounced resolutions of the House in former sessions.
I do not take notice of other passages in your letter reflecting on the
course of the majority, and more particularly of myself.
But I will add, in conclusion, what your letter does not show, that your
exclusion from the precincts of the House is terminable at any moment
when you may be willing to undertake not to disturb the proceedings of
the House. The inconveniences of which you complain are inconveniences
which you might, if you chose, put an end to to-morrow.
I have the honor to remain,
Your obedient servant,
STAFFORD H. NORTHCOTE.
C. BRADLAUGH, Esq., M.P.
* * * * *
23, Circus Road, St. John's Wood, London, N.W.,
_March 7th, 1884_.
To the Right Hon. SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Bart, M.P.
SIR,--In reply to your favor of the 4th instant, in which you say that
the House held me to be incompetent to take the oath, will you permit me
to answer: 1. That the question of competence or incompetence to take the
oath is one of law, fit only for the decision of a judicial tribunal, to
which tribunal I have always desired and endeavored to refer such
question. 2. That if the "principle deliberately adopted" by a large
majority of the members of the House of Commons had been that they
desired to prevent "a profanation of the oath," then they ought, during
the sessions of 1882--1883, to have gladly facilitated the passage of the
Affirmation Bill, which would have prevented the necessity for the
fulfilling by me of that which you describe as profanation, but which I
contend is the duty imposed on me by law.
In your very temperate historic narrative, you omit the fact that when
the House passed its resolution of the 23rd June, 1880, it had before it
my declaration, made three weeks earlier, in answer to question 102 of
the second Select Committee:
"Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I should
regard as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree. I
would go through no form, I would take no oath, unless I meant
it to be so binding."
And as you refer to my letter of the 20th May, printed in the report of
that committee, it is also fair to recall my answer thereon on the same
day to question 197:
"I ask the Committee in examining it to take it complete, not
to separate one or two words in it and to take those without
the countervailing words, and to remember that in this letter I
declare that the oath, if I take it, would bind me, and I now
repeat that in the most distinct and formal manner; that the
Oath of Allegiance, viz.: 'I do swear that I will be faithful
and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, her
heirs and successors, according to law,' will, when I take it,
be most fully, completely, and unreservedly binding upon my
honor and conscience; and I crave leave to refer to the
unanimous judgment of the full Court of the Exchequer Chamber,
in the case of Miller _v._ Salomons, 17th Jurist, page 463, and
to the case of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company _v._
Heaton, 4th Jurist, new series, page 708, for the
distinguishment between the words of asseveration and the
essential words of an oath. But I also desire to add, and I do
this most solemnly and unreservedly, that the taking and
subscribing, or repeating of those words of asseveration, will
in no degree weaken the binding effect of the oath on my
conscience."
In your reference to my attempts to take the seat to which I am by law
entitled, you have omitted to state that on the 27th April, 1881, you
personally advised me to wait for legislation, and that when I did so
wait, your friends of the majority and yourself prevented such
legislation.
In recalling the arrangement made by Mr. Winn on your behalf, you have
omitted his most explicit and latest letter:
"Nostell Priory, Wakefield,
"January 28th, 1884.
"DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,--On the distinct understanding and
agreement that Mr. Bradlaugh does not come to the table to take
the oath, or adopt any other course with reference to his seat
in the House of Commons, until immediately after questions on
Monday, the 11th of February next, and that he will on that day
and time come to the table, as he has intimated his intention
of doing, I am prepared to say that Sir Stafford Northcote will
not previous to Monday the 11th make any motion hostile to Mr.
Bradlaugh, nor support any motion coming from any of our
independent friends on the subject.
"I am, yours very truly,
"ROW. WINN.
"H. Labouchere, Esq., M.P."
My charge against you is that, despite this agreement, you had gone down
to the House with a resolution prepared beforehand, and by its wording
showing that it was intended to be moved before I should be able to get
near the table to which you had made me specifically agree then to come.
You conclude by saying that I can put an end to any personal
inconvenience by undertaking not to disturb the proceedings of the House.
I gave such an undertaking last year in express words; it is printed in
the journals of the House, and you did not accept it. Immediately before
you moved your resolution of 21st February, you heard Mr. Speaker read my
undertaking to do nothing until a legal decision was obtained. This you
refused, and I have no reason to suppose that any second offer from me
would be accepted. If what you really desire is that, if the law decides
in my favor, I shall none the less join in your insult to my constituents
by refusing to try to serve in the Parliament to which they have lawfully
returned me, I can only say that I will never give such an undertaking.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
C. BRADLAUGH.
THE LATEST
CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLE:
A REGISTER OF EVENTS
_Which have occurred since April 2nd, 1880._
BY
W. MAWER.
"No, not an oath....
Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor the insuppressive metal of our spirits,
To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath."--_Julius Caesar_, Act II., Scene 1.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1883.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
63, FLEET STREET E.C.
THE LATEST
CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLE.
1880.
April 2nd.--After twelve years' fight and three repulses, Mr. Charles
Bradlaugh is elected member of Parliament for Northampton. The polling
was as follows:--
Labouchere (L.) 4,158
Bradlaugh (R.) 3,827
Phipps (C.) 3,152
Merewether (C.) 2,826
The _Weekly Dispatch_ said: Mr. Bradlaugh's achievement of the position
he has been aiming at so long and so zealously is a notable sign of the
times. Whatever his critics may think of him, he will enter Parliament as
the representative of a vastly larger constituency than the whole
electorate or the whole population of Northampton.
The _Birmingham Daily Mail_: Mr. Bradlaugh holds extreme views on some
subjects, but he will none the less be a useful man in Parliament, his
unflinching courage in the exposure of abuses being unquestionable.
The _Standard_: Mr. Bradlaugh, now that he has got to the House of
Commons, is not likely to efface himself in speechless obscurity.
The _Southampton Times_: The most signal and portentous triumph is that
which has been achieved by Mr. Bradlaugh. His election shows what the
unity of the Liberal party must have been.
The _Christian World_: His contributions to the discussions of the House
may not be without value.
During the election Mr. Samuel Morley telegraphed to Mr. Labouchere as
follows: I strongly urge necessity of united effort in all sections of
Liberal party, and the sinking of minor and personal questions, with many
of which I deeply sympathise, in order to prevent the return, in so
pronounced a constituency as Northampton, of even one Conservative.
April 15th.--Mr. S. Morley, speaking at Bristol said, respecting his
telegram to Northampton: He made no reference to candidates, nor did the
friend who wrote the telegram go into detail, but he advised union. Those
who had known him all his life would believe that he viewed with the
intensest repugnance the supposed opinions, both social and religious, of
one of the candidates. Afterwards, writing to the _Record_, Mr. Morley
said he deeply regretted his telegram.
The _Weekly Dispatch_, commenting on Mr. Morley's conduct, said: Let the
bigots who have taken him to task for his temporary aberration from the
path of pharisaism make what they can of his pitiful excuse. Other people
can only regret that a man so useful in many ways, both as a politician
and a philanthropist, should show himself so narrow-minded.
The _Edinburgh Evening News_: In their disappointment, the defeated party
have eagerly caught at the election of Mr. Bradlaugh as supplying the
most pungent taunt that can be thrown at their victorious opponents.
The _Sheffield Telegraph_: Bradlaugh is an M.P. ... the bellowing
blasphemer of Northampton.
Mr. Bradlaugh announces that he considers he is legally entitled to avail
himself of the Freethinkers' affirmation, and that there is some reason
to hope that other members will join him in that course.
April 17th.--_Sheffield Independent's_ "London Correspondent" says:
Tenets which constitute the religious faith of Mr. Bradlaugh are
understood to constitute an insuperable difficulty in the way of his
being sworn a member of "the faithful Commons."
April 29th.--Parliament opens.
May 3rd.--At the table of the House Mr. Bradlaugh handed in a written
paper to the Clerk of the House; on this were written the words: "To the
Right Honorable the Speaker of the House of Commons. I, the undersigned
Charles Bradlaugh, beg respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm, as
a person for the time being by law permitted to make a solemn affirmation
or declaration, instead of taking an oath. Charles Bradlaugh." Asked if
he desired to state anything to the House, Mr. Bradlaugh said: I have to
submit that the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, gives the right to affirm
to every person for the time being permitted by law to make affirmation.
I am such a person; and under the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the
Evidence Amendment Act, 1870, I have repeatedly, for nine years past,
affirmed in the highest courts of jurisdiction in this realm. I am ready
to make the declaration or affirmation of allegiance.
At the request of the Speaker Mr. Bradlaugh then withdrew, in order that
the House might consider the claim, and Lord F. Cavendish, urging that
it would be manifestly inconvenient that when any hon. member had applied
to take his seat in the House, any unnecessary delay should intervene,
moved the appointment of a committee of inquiry which should lay before
the House the material on which the House itself should found its
decision. Sir Stafford Northcote seconded. Several other members spoke,
and Mr. Beresford Hope said that the grievance of one man was very little
compared with a great principle; at present the House of Commons was only
a half-hatched chicken. The committee was then agreed to.
May 11th.--Appointment of committee carried by 171 votes against 74,
after a two hours' debate.
May 20th.--The committee report: "that in the opinion of the committee,
persons entitled under the provisions of 'the Evidence Amendment Act,
1869,' and 'the Evidence Amendment Act, 1870,' to make a solemn
declaration instead of an oath in courts of justice, can not be admitted
to make an affirmation or declaration instead of an oath in the House of
Commons, in persuance of the Acts 29 and 30 Vict., c. 19, and 31 and 32
Vict., c. 72."
The draft report, proposed by the Attorney-General, was to the effect
that "persons so admitted," etc., _may be_ admitted, etc. This was lost
by the casting vote of the chairman (Mr. Walpole), the other members of
the committee voting as follows. Ayes: Mr. Whitbread, Mr. John Bright,
Mr. Massey, Mr. Sergeant Simon, Sir Henry Jackson, Mr. Attorney General,
Mr. Solicitor-General, Mr. Watkin Williams. Noes: Sir John Holker, Lord
Henry Lennox, Mr. Staveley Hill, Mr. Grantham, Mr. Pemberton, Mr.
Hopwood, Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. Henry Chaplin.