How is the battle of religious freedom to be best fought in behalf of
the oppressed people of Sutherland? We shall attempt throwing out a
few simple suggestions on the subject, which, if in the right track,
the reader may find it easy to follow up and mature.
First, then, let us remember that in this country, in which
opinion is all-potent, and which for at least a century and a half
has been the envy of continental states for the degree of religious
freedom which it enjoys, the policy of the Duke of Sutherland
cannot be known without being condemned. The current which he opposes
has been scooping out its channel for ages. Every great mind
produced by Britain, from the times of Milton and Locke down to
the times of Mackintosh and of Chalmers, has been giving it impetus
in but one direction; and it is scarce likely that it will reverse
its course now, at the bidding of a few intolerant and narrow-minded
aristocrats. British opinion has but to be fairly appealed to, in
order to declare strongly in favour of the oppressed Highlanders of
Sutherland. What we would first remark, then, is, that the policy of
his Grace the Duke cannot be too widely exposed. The press and the
platform must be employed. The frank and generous English must be
told, that that law of religious toleration which did so much at a
comparatively early period to elevate the character of their country
in the eye of the world, and which, in these latter times, men have
been accustomed to regard as somewhat less, after all, than an
adequate embodiment of the rights of conscience, has been virtually
repealed in a populous and very extensive district of the British
empire, through a capricious exercise of power on the part of a
single man. Why, it has been asked, in a matter which lies between
God and conscience, and between God and the conscience only,
should a third party be permitted to interfere so far as even to say,
'I tolerate you? I tolerate your Independency--your Episcopacy--your
Presbyterianism: you are a Baptist, but I tolerate you?' There is an
insult implied, it has been said, in the way in which the liberty
purports to be granted. It bestows as a boon what already exists as
a right. We want no despot to tell us that he gives us leave to
breathe the free air of heaven, or that he permits us to worship God
agreeably to the dictates of our conscience. Such are the views with
which a majority of the British people regard, in these latter times,
the right to tolerate; and regarding a _right_ NOT to tolerate, they
must be more decided still. The Free Church, then, must lay her
complaint before them. She must tell them, that such is the
oppression to which her people are subjected, that she would be
but too happy to see even the beggarly elements of the question
recognised in their behalf; that she would be but too happy to
hear the despot of a province pronounce the deprecated 'I tolerate
you,' seeing that his virtual enunciation at present is, 'I do NOT
tolerate you,' and seeing that he is powerful enough, through a
misapplication of his rights and influence as the most extensive of
British proprietors, to give terrible effect to the unjust and
illiberal determination. The Free Church, on this question, must
raise her appeal everywhere to public opinion, and we entertain no
doubt that she will everywhere find it her friend.
But how is its power to be directed? How bring it to bear upon the
Duke of Sutherland? It is an all-potent lever, but it must be
furnished with a fulcrum on which to rest, and a direction in which to
bear. Let us remark, first, that no signal privilege or right was
ever yet achieved for Britain, that was not preceded by some signal
wrong. From the times of Magna Charta down to the times of the
Revolution, we find every triumph of liberty heralded in by some gross
outrage upon it. The history of the British Constitution is a history
of great natural rights established piecemeal under the immediate
promptings of an indignation elicited by unbearable wrongs. It was not
until the barrier that protected the privileges of the citizen from
the will of the despot gave way at some weak point, that the parties
exposed to the inundation were roused up to re-erect it on a better
principle and a surer foundation. Now, the Duke of Sutherland (with
some of his brother proprietors) has just succeeded in showing us a
signal flaw in our scheme of religious toleration, and this at an
exceedingly critical time. He has been perpetrating a great and
palpable wrong, which, if rightly represented, must have the effect of
leading men, in exactly the old mode, to arouse themselves in behalf
of the corresponding right. If a single proprietor can virtually do
what the sovereign of Great Britain would forfeit the crown for barely
attempting to do--if a single nobleman can do what the House of Lords
in its aggregate capacity would peril its very existence for but
proposing to do--then does there exist in the British Constitution a
palpable flaw, which cannot be too soon remedied. There must be a weak
place in the barrier, if the waters be rushing out; and it cannot be
too soon rebuilt on a surer plan. Here, then, evidently, is the point
on which the generated opinion ought to be brought to bear. It has as
its proper arena the political field. It is a defect in the British
Constitution, strongly exemplified by the case of Sutherland, that the
rights of property may be so stretched as to overbear the rights of
conscience--that though toleration be the law of the land generally,
it may be so set aside by the country's proprietary, as not to be the
law in any particular part of it; and to reverse this state of
things--to make provision in the Constitution that the rights of the
proprietor be not so overstretched, and that a virtual repeal of the
toleration laws in any part of the country be not possible--are
palpably the objects to which the public mind should be directed.
We have said that the Duke of Sutherland has succeeded in showing us
this flaw in the Constitution at a peculiarly critical time. A
gentleman resident in England, for whose judgment we entertain the
highest respect, told us only a few days since, that the rising,
all-absorbing party of that kingdom, so far at least as the
Established Church and the aristocracy are concerned, still
continues to be the Puseyite party. If Puseyism does not bid fair
to possess a majority of the people of the country, it bids fair at
least to possess a majority of its acres. And we need scarce remind
the reader how peculiarly this may be the case with Scotland, whose
acres, in such large proportions, are under the control of an
incipient Puseyism already. In both countries, therefore, is it of
peculiar importance, in a time like the present, that the law of
toleration should be placed beyond the control of a hostile or
illiberal proprietary--so placed beyond their control, that they
may be as unable virtually to suspend its operation in any part of
the country, as they already are to suspend its operation in the
whole of the country. We are recommending, be it remembered, no wild
scheme of Chartist aggression on the rights of property--we would
but injure our cause by doing so: our strength in this question must
altogether depend on the soundness of the appeal which we can carry
to the natural justice of the community. We merely recommend that
that be done in behalf of the already recognised law of toleration,
which Parliament has no hesitation in doing in behalf of some railway
or canal, or water or dock company, when, for what is deemed a public
good, it sets aside the absolute control of the proprietor over at
least a portion of his property, and consigns it at a fair price to
the corporation engaged in the undertaking. The principle of the
scheme is already recognised by the Constitution, and its legislative
embodiment would be at once easy and safe. Property would be rendered
not less, but more secure, if, in every instance in which a
regularly-organized congregation of any denomination of Christians
to which the law of toleration itself extended, made application for
ground on which to erect a place of worship, the application would
be backed and made effectual, in virtue of an enacted law, by the
authority of the Constitution. There is no Scotch or English
Dissenter--no true friend of religious liberty in Britain or
Ireland--who would not make common cause with the Free Church in
urging a measure of this character on Parliament, when fairly
convinced, by cases such as that of Sutherland, how imperatively
such a measure is required.
Unavoidably, however, from the nature of things, the relief which
ultimately may be thus secured cannot be other than distant relief.
Much information must first be spread, and the press and the platform
extensively employed. Can there be nothing done for Sutherland through
an already existing political agency? We are of opinion there can.
Sutherland itself is even more thoroughly a _close_ county now, than
it was ere the Reform Bill had swamped the paper votes, and swept away
the close burghs. His Grace the Duke has but to nominate his member,
and his member is straightway returned. But all the political power
which, directly or indirectly, his Grace possesses, is not equally
secure. Sutherland is a close county; but the Northern Burghs are not
rotten burghs; on the contrary, they possess an independent and
intelligent constituency; and in scarce any part of Scotland is the
Free Church equally strong. And his Grace derives no inconsiderable
portion of his political influence from them. The member for
Sutherland is virtually his Grace's nominee, but the member for the
Northern Burghs is not his Grace's nominee at all; and yet certain it
is that the gentleman by whom these burghs are at present represented
in Parliament is his Grace's agent and adviser in all that pertains to
the management of Sutherland, and has been so for many years. His
Grace's member for Sutherland sits in Parliament in virtue of being
his Grace's nominee; but the sort of prime minister through which his
Grace governs his princely domains, sits in Parliament, not in virtue
of being his Grace's nominee, but in virtue of his being himself a man
of liberal opinions, and an enemy to all intolerance. He represents
them in the Whig interest, and in his character as a Whig. His Grace
would very soon have one member less in Parliament, did that member
make common cause with his Grace in suppressing the Free Church in
Sutherland. Now, the bruit shrewdly goeth, that that member does make
common cause with his Grace. The bruit shrewdly goeth, that in this,
as in most other matters, his Grace acts upon that member's advice.
True, the report may be altogether idle--it may be utterly without
foundation; instead of being true, it may be exactly the reverse of
being true; but most unquestionable it is, that, whether true or
otherwise, it exists, and that that member's constituency have a very
direct interest in it. He represents them miserably ill, and must be a
very different sort of Whig from them, if he hold that proprietors do
right in virtually setting aside the Toleration Act. The report does
one of two things,--it either does him great injustice, or it shows
that he has sat too long in Parliament for the Northern Burghs. It is
in the power, then, of the highly respectable and intelligent Whig
constituency of this district to make such a diversion in favour of
the oppressed people of Sutherland, as can scarce fail to tell upon
the country, and this in thorough consistency with the best and
highest principles of their party. Let them put themselves in instant
communication with their member, and, stating the character of the
report which so generally exists to his prejudice, request a
categorical answer regarding it,--let them request an avowal of his
opinion of the Duke's policy, equally articulate with that opinion
which the Hon. Mr. Fox Maule submitted to the public a few weeks ago
in the columns of the _Witness_,--and then, as the ascertained
circumstances of the case may direct, let them act, and that publicly,
in strict accordance with their principles. Of one thing they may be
assured,--the example will tell.
In order to raise the necessary amount of opinion for carrying the
ulterior object--the enactment of a law--there are various most
justifiable expedients to which the friends of toleration in the
country should find it not difficult to resort. Petitions addressed to
the Lower House in its legislative capacity, and to the members of the
Upper House as a body of men who have, perhaps, of all others the most
direct stake in the matter--we need scarce say how--ought, of course,
to take a very obvious place on the list. Much, too, might be done by
deputations from the General Assembly of the Free Church, instructed
from time to time to ascertain, and then publicly to report on, the
state of Sutherland. Each meeting of the Assembly might be addressed
on the subject by some of its ablest men, in which case their
statements and speeches would go forth, through the medium of the
press, to the country at large. The co-operation and assistance of all
bodies of evangelical Dissenters, both at home and abroad, should be
sedulously sought after, and correct information on the subject
circulated among them extensively. There has been much sympathy
elicited for the Church, during her long struggle, among good men
everywhere. Her cause has been tried, and judgment given in her
favour, in France, Holland, and America, and in not a few of the
colonies. In the case of Sismondi 'On the _Clearing_ of Sutherland,'
we see the opinion of a continental philosopher re-echoed back upon
our own country, not without its marked effect; and it might be well
to try whether the effect of foreign opinion might not be at least
equally influential 'On the Suppression of the Toleration Laws in
Sutherland.' There is one great country with which we hold our
literature in common, and which we can address, and by which we can be
in turn addressed, in our native tongue. Unluckily, what ought to have
existed as a bond of union and amity has been made to subserve a very
different purpose; and we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact, that
our own country has been mainly to blame. The manners, habits, and
tastes of the Americans have been exhibited, by not a few of our
popular writers, in the broadest style of caricature; they have been
described as a nation of unprincipled speculators, devoid not only of
right feeling, but even of common honesty, and remarkable for but
their scoundrelism and conceit. Even were such descriptions just,
which they are not, most assuredly would they be unwise. It is the
American people, rather than the American government, who make peace
and war; and the first American war with England will be one of the
most formidable in which this country has yet been engaged. The
bowie-knife is no trifling weapon; and the English writer laughs at a
very considerable expense, if his satires have the effect of whetting
it. At present, however, the war between the two countries is but a
war of libel and pasquinade, and the advantage hitherto has been on
the side of the aggressor. America has not been happy in her
retaliation. We would fain direct her to aim where her darts, instead
of provoking national hostility, or exciting a bitter spirit among the
entire people of a country, would but subserve the general cause of
liberty and human improvement. It is but idle to satirize our manners
and customs; we think them good. There is nothing to be gained by
casting ridicule on our peculiar modes of thinking; they are the
modes to which we have been accustomed, and we prefer them to any
others. But there are matters of a different kind, regarding which the
country bears a conscience, and is not quite at its ease; and there we
are vulnerable. We speak often, we would fain say, of slavery in your
country, literati of America, and justly deem it a great evil. It
might do us good were you to remind us, in turn, that there are
extensive districts in our own, in which virtually there exists no
toleration law for the religion of the people, though that religion be
Protestantism in its purest form. Cast your eyes upon the county of
Sutherland.
THE END.
MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
Transcriber's Notes:
Typographical problems have been changed and are listed below.
Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
Author's punctuation style is preserved.
Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
Transcriber Changes:
(Signed) 'THOMAS CHALMERS.'{** ADDED EXTRA CLOSING SINGLE-QUOTE}
schools of the place: the committee, through their chairman{** Was
'chair man' over line},
Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha{** Was 'Saxe-Cobourg Gotha'} grants to his
subjects a representative
old Babylonish beast, horrid with the blood{** Was 'bood'} of
saints,
They dropped,--and hence "The Holy Haven"{** Added closing
double-quote}
entranced, under the influences{** Was 'inflences'} of fairy-land,
in some
God agreeably{** Was 'agreebly'} to the dictates of our
conscience. Such are