admit to be something more plausible, and worthy of a more attentive
examination. It is, that this numerous class of people is mutinous,
disorderly, prone to sedition, and easy to be wrought upon by the
insidious arts of wicked and designing men; that, conscious of this, the
sober, rational, and wealthy part of that body, who are totally of
another character, do by no means desire any participation for
themselves, or for any one else of their description, in the franchises
of the British Constitution.
I have great doubt of the exactness of any part of this observation. But
let us admit that the body of the Catholics are prone to sedition, (of
which, as I have said, I entertain much doubt,) is it possible that any
fair observer or fair reasoner can think of confining this description
to them only? I believe it to be possible for men to be mutinous and
seditious who feel no grievance, but I believe no man will assert
seriously, that, when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to
keep them in order is to furnish them with something substantial to
complain of.
You separate, very properly, the sober, rational, and substantial part
of their description from the rest. You give, as you ought to do, weight
only to the former. What I have always thought of the matter is
this,--that the most poor, illiterate, and uninformed creatures upon
earth are judges of a _practical_ oppression. It is a matter of feeling;
and as such persons generally have felt most of it, and are not of an
over-lively sensibility, they are the best judges of it. But for _the
real cause_, or _the appropriate remedy_, they ought never to be called
into council about the one or the other. They ought to be totally shut
out: because their reason is weak; because, when once roused, their
passions are ungoverned; because they want information; because the
smallness of the property which individually they possess renders them
less attentive to the consequence of the measures they adopt in affairs
of moment. When I find a great cry amongst the people who speculate
little, I think myself called seriously to examine into it, and to
separate the real cause from the ill effects of the passion it may
excite, and the bad use which artful men may make of an irritation of
the popular mind. Here we must be aided by persons of a contrary
character; we must not listen to the desperate or the furious: but it is
therefore necessary for us to distinguish who are the _really_ indigent
and the _really_ intemperate. As to the persons who desire this part in
the Constitution, I have no reason to imagine that they are men who have
nothing to lose and much to look for in public confusion. The popular
meeting from which apprehensions have been entertained has assembled. I
have accidentally had conversation with two friends of mine who know
something of the gentleman who was put into the chair upon that
occasion: one of them has had money transactions with him; the other,
from curiosity, has been to see his concerns: they both tell me he is a
man of some property: but you must be the best judge of this, who by
your office are likely to know his transactions. Many of the others are
certainly persons of fortune; and all, or most, fathers of families,
men in respectable ways of life, and some of them far from contemptible,
either for their information, or for the abilities which they have shown
in the discussion of their interests. What such men think it for their
advantage to acquire ought not, _prima facie_, to be considered as rash
or heady or incompatible with the public safety or welfare.
I admit, that men of the best fortunes and reputations, and of the best
talents and education too, may by accident show themselves furious and
intemperate in their desires. This is a great misfortune, when it
happens; for the first presumptions are undoubtedly in their favor. We
have two standards of judging, in this case, of the sanity and sobriety
of any proceedings,--of unequal certainty, indeed, but neither of them
to be neglected: the first is by the value of the object sought; the
next is by the means through which it is pursued.
The object pursued by the Catholics is, I understand, and have all along
reasoned as if it were so, in some degree or measure to be again
admitted to the franchises of the Constitution. Men are considered as
under some derangement of their intellects, when they see good and evil
in a different light from other men,--when they choose nauseous and
unwholesome food, and reject such as to the rest of the world seems
pleasant and is known to be nutritive. I have always considered the
British Constitution not to be a thing in itself so vicious as that none
but men of deranged understanding and turbulent tempers could desire a
share in it: on the contrary, I should think very indifferently of the
understanding and temper of any body of men who did not wish to partake
of this great and acknowledged benefit. I cannot think quite so
favorably either of the sense or temper of those, if any such there are,
who would voluntarily persuade their brethren that the object is not fit
for them, or they for the object. Whatever may be my thoughts concerning
them, I am quite sure that they who hold such language must forfeit all
credit with the rest. This is infallible,--if they conceive any opinion
of their judgment, they cannot possibly think them their friends. There
is, indeed, one supposition which would reconcile the conduct of such
gentlemen to sound reason, and to the purest affection towards their
fellow-sufferers: it is, that they act under the impression of a
well-grounded fear for the general interest. If they should be told, and
should believe the story, that, if they dare attempt to make their
condition better, they will infallibly make it worse,--that, if they aim
at obtaining liberty, they will have their slavery doubled,--that their
endeavor to put themselves upon anything which approaches towards an
equitable footing with their fellow-subjects will be considered as an
indication of a seditious and rebellious disposition,--such a view of
things ought perfectly to restore the gentlemen, who so anxiously
dissuade their countrymen from wishing a participation with the
privileged part of the people, to the good opinion of their fellows. But
what is to _them_ a very full justification is not quite so honorable to
that power from whose maxims and temper so good a ground of rational
terror is furnished. I think arguments of this kind will never be used
by the friends of a government which I greatly respect, or by any of the
leaders of an opposition whom I have the honor to know and the sense to
admire. I remember Polybius tells us, that, during his captivity in
Italy as a Peloponnesian hostage, he solicited old Cato to intercede
with the Senate for his release, and that of his countrymen: this old
politician told him that he had better continue in his present
condition, however irksome, than apply again to that formidable
authority for their relief; that he ought to imitate the wisdom of his
countryman Ulysses, who, when he was once out of the den of the Cyclops,
had too much sense to venture again into the same cavern. But I conceive
too high an opinion of the Irish legislature to think that they are to
their fellow-citizens what the grand oppressors of mankind were to a
people whom the fortune of war had subjected to their power. For though
Cato could use such a parallel with regard to his Senate, I should
really think it nothing short of impious to compare an Irish Parliament
to a den of Cyclops. I hope the people, both here and with you, will
always apply to the House of Commons with becoming modesty, but at the
same time with minds unembarrassed with any sort of terror.
As to the means which the Catholics employ to obtain this object, so
worthy of sober and rational minds, I do admit that such means may be
used in the pursuit of it as may make it proper for the legislature, in
this case, to defer their compliance until the demandants are brought to
a proper sense of their duty. A concession in which the governing power
of our country loses its dignity is dearly bought even by him who
obtains his object. All the people have a deep interest in the dignity
of Parliament. But as the refusal of franchises which are drawn out of
the first vital stamina of the British Constitution is a very serious
thing, we ought to be very sure that the manner and spirit of the
application is offensive and dangerous indeed, before we ultimately
reject all applications of this nature. The mode of application, I hear,
is by petition. It is the manner in which all the sovereign powers of
the world are approached; and I never heard (except in the case of James
the Second) that any prince considered this manner of supplication to be
contrary to the humility of a subject or to the respect due to the
person or authority of the sovereign. This rule, and a correspondent
practice, are observed from the Grand Seignior down to the most petty
prince or republic in Europe.
You have sent me several papers, some in print, some in manuscript. I
think I had seen all of them, except the formula of association. I
confess they appear to me to contain matter mischievous, and capable of
giving alarm, if the spirit in which they are written should be found to
make any considerable progress. But I am at a loss to know how to apply
them as objections to the case now before us. When I find that _the
General Committee_ which acts for the Roman Catholics in Dublin prefers
the association proposed in the written draught you have sent me to a
respectful application in Parliament, I shall think the persons who sign
such a paper to be unworthy of any privilege which may be thought fit to
be granted, and that such men ought, _by name_, to be excepted from any
benefit under the Constitution to which they offer this violence. But I
do not find that this form of a seditious league has been signed by any
person whatsoever, either on the part of the supposed projectors, or on
the part of those whom it is calculated to seduce. I do not find, on
inquiry, that such a thing was mentioned, or even remotely alluded to,
in the general meeting of the Catholics from which so much violence was
apprehended. I have considered the other publications, signed by
individuals on the part of certain societies,--I may mistake, for I have
not the honor of knowing them personally, but I take Mr. Butler and Mr.
Tandy not to be Catholics, but members of the Established Church. Not
_one_ that I recollect of these publications, which you and I equally
dislike, appears to be written by persons of that persuasion. Now, if,
whilst a man is dutifully soliciting a favor from Parliament, any person
should choose in an improper manner to show his inclination towards the
cause depending, and if that _must_ destroy the cause of the petitioner,
then, not only the petitioner, but the legislature itself, is in the
power of any weak friend or artful enemy that the supplicant or that the
Parliament may have. A man must be judged by his own actions only.
Certain Protestant Dissenters make seditious propositions to the
Catholics, which it does not appear that they have yet accepted. It
would be strange that the tempter should escape all punishment, and that
he who, under circumstances full of seduction and full of provocation,
has resisted the temptation should incur the penalty. You know, that,
with regard to the Dissenters, who are _stated_ to be the chief movers
in this vile scheme of altering the principles of election to a right of
voting by the head, you are not able (if you ought even to wish such a
thing) to deprive them of any part of the franchises and privileges
which they hold on a footing of perfect equality with yourselves. _They_
may do what they please with constitutional impunity; but the others
cannot even listen with civility to an invitation from them to an
ill-judged scheme of liberty, without forfeiting forever all hopes of
any of those liberties which we admit to be sober and rational.
It is known, I believe, that the greater as well as the sounder part of
our excluded countrymen have not adopted the wild ideas and wilder
engagements which have been held out to them, but have rather chosen to
hope small and safe concessions from the legal power than boundless
objects from trouble and confusion. This mode of action seems to me to
mark men of sobriety, and to distinguish them from those who are
intemperate, from circumstance or from nature. But why do they not
instantly disclaim and disavow those who make such advances to them? In
this, too, in my opinion, they show themselves no less sober and
circumspect. In the present moment nothing short of insanity could
induce them to take such a step. Pray consider the circumstances.
Disclaim, says somebody, all union with the Dissenters;--right.--But
when this your injunction is obeyed, shall I obtain the object which I
solicit from _you_?--Oh, no, nothing at all like it!--But, in punishing
us, by an exclusion from the Constitution through the great gate, for
having been invited to enter into it by a postern, will you punish by
deprivation of their privileges, or mulet in any other way, those who
have tempted us?--Far from it;--we mean to preserve all _their_
liberties and immunities, as _our_ life-blood. We mean to cultivate
_them_, as brethren whom we love and respect;--with _you_ we have no
fellowship. We can bear with patience their enmity to ourselves; but
their friendship with you we will not endure. But mark it well! All our
quarrels with _them_ are always to be revenged upon _you_. Formerly, it
is notorious that we should have resented with the highest indignation
your presuming to show any ill-will to them. You must not suffer them,
now, to show any good-will to you. Know--and take it once for all--that
it is, and ever has been, and ever will be, a fundamental maxim in our
politics, that you are not to have any part or shadow or name of
interest whatever in our state; that we look upon you as under an
irreversible outlawry from our Constitution,--as perpetual and
unalliable aliens.
Such, my dear Sir, is the plain nature of the argument drawn from the
Revolution maxims, enforced by a supposed disposition in the Catholics
to unite with the Dissenters. Such it is, though it were clothed in
never such bland and civil forms, and wrapped up, as a poet says, in a
thousand "artful folds of sacred lawn." For my own part, I do not know
in what manner to shape such arguments, so as to obtain admission for
them into a rational understanding. Everything of this kind is to be
reduced at last to threats of power. I cannot say, _Væ victis_! and then
throw the sword into the scale. I have no sword; and if I had, in this
case, most certainly, I would not use it as a makeweight in political
reasoning.
Observe, on these principles, the difference between the procedure of
the Parliament and the Dissenters towards the people in question. One
employs courtship, the other force. The Dissenters offer bribes, the
Parliament nothing but the _front négatif_ of a stern and forbidding
authority. A man may be very wrong in his ideas of what is good for
him. But no man affronts me, nor can therefore justify my affronting
him, by offering to make me as happy as himself, according to his own
ideas of happiness. This the Dissenters do to the Catholics. You are on
the different extremes. The Dissenters offer, with regard to
constitutional rights and civil advantages of all sorts, _everything_;
you refuse _everything_. With them, there is boundless, though not very
assured hope; with you, a very sure and very unqualified despair. The
terms of alliance from the Dissenters offer a representation of the
commons, chosen out of the people by the head. This is absurdly and
dangerously large, in my opinion; and that scheme of election is known
to have been at all times perfectly odious to me. But I cannot think it
right of course to punish the Irish Roman Catholics by an universal
exclusion, because others, whom you would not punish at all, propose an
universal admission. I cannot dissemble to myself, that, in this very
kingdom, many persons who are not in the situation of the Irish
Catholics, but who, on the contrary, enjoy the full benefit of the
Constitution as it stands, and some of whom, from the effect of their
fortunes, enjoy it in a large measure, had some years ago associated to
procure great and undefined changes (they considered them as reforms) in
the popular part of the Constitution. Our friend, the late Mr. Flood,
(no slight man,) proposed in his place, and in my hearing, a
representation not much less extensive than this, for England,--in which
every house was to be inhabited by a voter, _in addition_ to all the
actual votes by other titles (some of the corporate) which we know do
not require a house or a shed. Can I forget that a person of the very
highest rank, of very large fortune, and of the first class of ability,
brought a bill into the House of Lords, in the head-quarters of
aristocracy, containing identically the same project for the supposed
adoption of which by a club or two it is thought right to extinguish all
hopes in the Roman Catholics of Ireland? I cannot say it was very
eagerly embraced or very warmly pursued. But the Lords neither did
disavow the bill, nor treat it with any disregard, nor express any sort
of disapprobation of its noble author, who has never lost, with king or
people, the least degree of the respect and consideration which so
justly belongs to him.
I am not at all enamored, as I have told you, with this plan of
representation; as little do I relish any bandings or associations for
procuring it. But if the question was to be put to you and
me,--_Universal_ popular representation, or _none at all for us and
ours_,--we should find ourselves in a very awkward position. I do not
like this kind of dilemmas, especially when they are practical.
Then, since our oldest fundamental laws follow, or rather couple,
freehold with franchise,--since no principle of the Revolution shakes
these liberties,--since the oldest and one of the best monuments of the
Constitution demands for the Irish the privilege which they
supplicate,--since the principles of the Revolution coincide with the
declarations of the Great Charter,--since the practice of the
Revolution, in this point, did not contradict its principles,--since,
from that event, twenty-five years had elapsed, before a domineering
party, on a party principle, had ventured to disfranchise, without any
proof whatsoever of abuse, the greater part of the community,--since the
king's coronation oath does not stand in his way to the performance of
his duty to all his subjects,--since you have given to all other
Dissenters these privileges without limit which are hitherto withheld
without any limitation whatsoever from the Catholics,--since no nation
in the world has ever been known to exclude so great a body of men (not
born slaves) from the civil state, and all the benefits of its
Constitution,--the whole question comes before Parliament as a matter
for its prudence. I do not put the thing on a question of right. That
discretion, which in judicature is well said by Lord Coke to be a
crooked cord, in legislature is a golden rule. Supplicants ought not to
appear too much in the character of litigants. If the subject thinks so
highly and reverently of the sovereign authority as not to claim
anything of right, so that it may seem to be independent of the power
and free choice of its government,--and if the sovereign, on his part,
considers the advantages of the subjects as their right, and all their
reasonable wishes as so many claims,--in the fortunate conjunction of
these mutual dispositions are laid the foundations of a happy and
prosperous commonwealth. For my own part, desiring of all things that
the authority of the legislature under which I was born, and which I
cherish, not only with a dutiful awe, but with a partial and cordial
affection, to be maintained in the utmost possible respect, I never will
suffer myself to suppose that at bottom their discretion will be found
to be at variance with their justice.
The whole being at discretion, I beg leave just to suggest some matters
for your consideration:--Whether the government in Church or State is
likely to be more secure by continuing causes of grounded discontent to
a very great number (say two millions) of the subjects? or whether the
Constitution, combined and balanced as it is, will be rendered more
solid by depriving so large a part of the people of all concern or
interest or share in its representation, actual or _virtual_? I here
mean to lay an emphasis on the word _virtual_. Virtual representation is
that in which there is a communion of interests and a sympathy in
feelings and desires between those who act in the name of any
description of people and the people in whose name they act, though the
trustees are not actually chosen by them. This is virtual
representation. Such a representation I think to be in many cases even
better than the actual. It possesses most of its advantages, and is free
from many of its inconveniences; it corrects the irregularities in the
literal representation, when the shifting current of human affairs or
the acting of public interests in different ways carry it obliquely from
its first line of direction. The people may err in their choice; but
common interest and common sentiment are rarely mistaken. But this sort
of virtual representation cannot have a long or sure existence, if it
has not a substratum in the actual. The member must have some relation
to the constituent. As things stand, the Catholic, as a Catholic, and
belonging to a description, has no _virtual_ relation to the
representative,--but the _contrary_. There is a relation in mutual
obligation. Gratitude may not always have a very lasting power; but the
frequent recurrence of an application for favors will revive and refresh
it, and will necessarily produce some degree of mutual attention. It
will produce, at least, acquaintance. The several descriptions of people
will not be kept so much apart as they now are, as if they were not
only separate nations, but separate species. The stigma and reproach,
the hideous mask will be taken off, and men will see each other as they
are. Sure I am that there have been thousands in Ireland who have never
conversed with a Roman Catholic in their whole lives, unless they
happened to talk to their gardener's workmen, or to ask their way, when
they had lost it in their sports,--or, at best, who had known them only
as footmen, or other domestics, of the second and third order: and so
averse were they, some time ago, to have them near their persons, that
they would not employ even those who could never find their way beyond
the stable. I well remember a great, and in many respects a good man,
who advertised for a blacksmith, but at the same time added, he must be
a Protestant. It is impossible that such a state of things, though
natural goodness in many persons will undoubtedly make exceptions, must
not produce alienation on the one side and pride and insolence on the
other.