In the last session, the corps called the "king's friends" made a hardy
attempt, all at once, TO ALTER THE RIGHT OF ELECTION ITSELF; to put
it into the power of the House of Commons to disable any person
disagreeable to them from sitting in parliament, without any other
rule than their own pleasure; to make incapacities, either general for
descriptions of men, or particular for individuals; and to take into
their body, persons who avowedly never been chosen by the majority of
legal electors, nor agreeably to any known rule of law.
The arguments upon which this claim was founded and combated, are not
my business here. Never has a subject been more amply and more learnedly
handled, nor upon one side, in my opinion, more satisfactorily; they
who are not convinced by what is already written would not receive
conviction THOUGH ONE AROSE FROM THE DEAD.
I too have thought on this subject: but my purpose here, is only to
consider it as a part of the favourite project of government; to observe
on the motives which led to it; and to trace its political consequences.
A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was the pretence of the
whole. This gentleman, by setting himself strongly in opposition to the
court cabal, had become at once an object of their persecution, and
of the popular favour. The hatred of the court party pursuing, and the
countenance of the people protecting him, it very soon became not at all
a question on the man, but a trial of strength between the two parties.
The advantage of the victory in this particular contest was the present,
but not the only, nor by any means the principal, object. Its operation
upon the character of the House of Commons was the great point in view.
The point to be gained by the cabal was this; that a precedent should be
established, tending to show, THAT THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE WAS NOT
SO SURE A ROAD AS THE FAVOUR OF THE COURT EVEN TO POPULAR HONOURS AND
POPULAR TRUSTS. A strenuous resistance to every appearance of lawless
power; a spirit of independence carried to some degree of enthusiasm;
an inquisitive character to discover, and a bold one to display, every
corruption and every error of government; these are the qualities which
recommend a man to a seat in the House of Commons, in open and merely
popular elections. An indolent and submissive disposition; a disposition
to think charitably of all the actions of men in power, and to live in
a mutual intercourse of favours with them; an inclination rather
to countenance a strong use of authority, than to bear any sort of
licentiousness on the part of the people; these are unfavourable
qualities in an open election for members of parliament. The instinct
which carries the people towards the choice of the former, is justified
by reason; because a man of such a character, even in its exorbitances,
does not directly contradict the purposes of a trust, the end of which
is a control on power. The latter character, even when it is not in its
extreme, will execute this trust but very imperfectly; and, if deviating
to the least excess, will certainly frustrate instead of forwarding the
purposes of a control on government. But when the House of Commons
was to be new modelled, is principle was not only to be changed but
reversed. Whilst any errors committed in support of power were left to
the law, with every advantage of favourable construction, of mitigation,
and finally of pardon: all excesses on the side of liberty, or
in pursuit of popular favour, or in defence of popular rights and
privileges, were not only to be punished by the rigour of the known
law, but by a DISCRETIONARY proceeding, which brought on THE LOSS OF THE
POPULAR OBJECT ITSELF. Popularity was to be rendered, if not directly
penal, at least highly dangerous. The favour of the people might lead
even to a disqualification of representing them. Their odium might
become, strained through the medium of two or three constructions, the
means of sitting as the trustee of all that was dear to them. This
is punishing the offence in the offending part. Until this time, the
opinion of the people, through the power of an assembly, still in some
sort popular, led to the greatest honours and emoluments in the gift of
the crown. Now the principle is reversed; and the favour of the court is
the only sure way of obtaining and holding those honours which ought to
be in the disposal of the people.
It signifies very little how this matter may be quibbled away. Example,
the only argument of effect in civil life, demonstrates the truth of
my proposition. Nothing can alter my opinion concerning the pernicious
tendency of this example, until I see some man for his indiscretion
in the support of power, for his violent and intemperate servility,
rendered incapable of sitting in parliament. For as it now stands,
the fault of overstraining popular qualities, and, irregularly if you
please, asserting popular privileges, has led to disqualification; the
opposite fault never has produced the slightest punishment. Resistance
to power has shut the door of the House of Commons to one man;
obsequiousness and servility, to none.
Not that I would encourage popular disorder, or any disorder. But I
would leave such offences to the law, to be punished in measure and
proportion. The laws of this country are for the most part constituted,
and wisely so, for the general ends of government, rather than for the
preservation of our particular liberties. Whatever, therefore, is done
in support of liberty, by persons not in public trust, or not acting
merely in that trust, is liable to be more or less out of the ordinary
course of the law; and the law itself is sufficient to animadvert upon
it with great severity. Nothing indeed can hinder that severe letter
from crushing us, except the temperaments it may receive from a trial by
jury. But if the habit prevail OF GOING BEYOND THE LAW, and superseding
this judicature, of carrying offences, real or supposed, into the
legislative bodies, who shall establish themselves into COURTS OF
CRIMINAL EQUITY (so THE STAR CHAMBER has been called by Lord Bacon),
all the evils of the STAR CHAMBER are revived. A large and liberal
construction in ascertaining offences, and a discretionary power in
punishing them, is the idea of CRIMINAL EQUITY; which is in truth a
monster in jurisprudence. It signifies nothing whether a court for this
purpose be a committee of council, or a house of commons, or a house of
lords; the liberty of the subject will be equally subverted by it. The
true end and purpose of that house of parliament which entertains such a
jurisdiction, will be destroyed by it. I will not believe, what no other
man living believes, that Mr. Wilkes was punished for the indecency
of his publications, or the impiety of his ransacked closet. If he had
fallen in a common slaughter of libellers and blasphemers, I could well
believe that nothing more was meant than was pretended. But when I see,
that, for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous,
writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been punished, nor
their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on royal
majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable invectives
against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country, have not
met with the slightest animadversion; I must consider this as a shocking
and shameless pretence. Never did an envenomed scurrility against
everything sacred and civil, public and private, rage through the
kingdom with such a furious and unbridled licence. All this while the
peace of the nation must be shaken, to ruin one libeller, and to tear
from the populace a single favourite.
Nor is it that vice merely skulks in an obscure and contemptible
impunity. Does not the public behold with indignation, persons not only
generally scandalous in their lives, but the identical persons who, by
their society, their instruction, their example, their encouragement,
have drawn this man into the very faults which have furnished the cabal
with a pretence for his persecution, loaded with every kind of favour,
honour, and distinction, which a court can bestow? Add but the crime of
servility (the foedum crimen servitutis) to every other crime, and the
whole mass is immediately transmuted into virtue, and becomes the just
subject of reward and honour. When therefore I reflect upon this method
pursued by the cabal in distributing rewards and punishments, I must
conclude that Mr. Wilkes is the object of persecution, not on account
of what he has done in common with others who are the objects of reward,
but for that in which he differs from many of them: that he is pursued
for the spirited dispositions which are blended with his vices; for
his unconquerable firmness, for his resolute, indefatigable, strenuous
resistance against oppression.
In this case, therefore, it was not the man that was to be punished, nor
his faults that were to be discountenanced. Opposition to acts of power
was to be marked by a kind of civil proscription. The popularity which
should arise from such an opposition was to be shown unable to protect
it. The qualities by which court is made to the people, were to render
every fault inexpiable, and every error irretrievable. The qualities by
which court is made to power, were to cover and to sanctify everything.
He that will have a sure and honourable seat in the House of Commons,
must take care how he adventures to cultivate popular qualities;
otherwise he may remember the old maxim, Breves et infaustos populi
Romani amores. If, therefore, a pursuit of popularity expose a man to
greater dangers than a disposition to servility, the principle which
is the life and soul of popular elections will perish out of the
constitution.