For a Repeal of the Corn Laws

I BELIEVE it is now nearly three months since I first proposed, as the organ of her majesty’s government, the measure which I trust is about to receive to-night the sanction of the House of Commons; and, considering the lapse of time—considering the frequent discussions—considering the anxiety of the people of this country that these debates should be brought to a close, I feel that I should be offering an insult to the House—I should be offering an insult to the country, if I were to condescend to bandy personalities upon such an occasion.

Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850)

(1846)

Born in 1788, died in 1850; elected to Parliament as a Tory in 1809; Secretary for Ireland in 1812–18; Home Secretary in 1822 and again in 1828; Prime Minister in 1834; and again in 1841; became a Free-trader in 1846, and secured the repeal of the Corn Laws.



I BELIEVE it is now nearly three months since I first proposed, as the organ of her majesty’s government, the measure which I trust is about to receive to-night the sanction of the House of Commons; and, considering the lapse of time—considering the frequent discussions—considering the anxiety of the people of this country that these debates should be brought to a close, I feel that I should be offering an insult to the House—I should be offering an insult to the country, if I were to condescend to bandy personalities upon such an occasion.

Sir, I foresaw that the course which I have taken from a sense of public duty would expose me to serious sacrifices. I foresaw, as its inevitable result, that I must forfeit friendships which I most highly valued—that I must interrupt political relations in which I felt a sincere pride; but the smallest of all the penalties which I anticipated were the continued venomous attacks of the member for Shrewsbury. (Note: Benjamin Disraeli, afterward Lord Beaconsfield.) Sir, I will only say of that honorable gentleman, that if he, after reviewing the whole of my public life—a life extending over thirty years previously to my accession to office in 1841—if he then entertained the opinion of me which he now professes; if he thought I was guilty of these petty larcenies from Mr. Horner and others, it is a little surprising that in the spring of 1841, after his long experience of my public career, he should have been prepared to give me his confidence.

It is still more surprising that he should have been ready—as I think he was—to unite his fortunes with mine in office, this implying the strongest proof which any public man can give of confidence in the honor and integrity of a minister of the Crown.

Sir, I have explained more than once what were the circumstances under which I felt it my duty to take this course. I did feel in November last that there was just cause for apprehension of scarcity and famine in Ireland. I am stating what were the apprehensions I felt at that time, what were the motives from which I acted; and those apprehensions, though they may be denied now, were at least shared then by those honorable gentlemen who sit below the gangway [the Protectionists]. The honorable member for Somersetshire [Sir T. A. Acland] expressly declared that at the period to which I referred he was prepared to acquiesce in the suspension of the Corn Laws. An honorable member also, a recent addition to this House, who spoke with great ability the other night, the honorable member for Dorsetshire [Mr. Seymer], distinctly declared that he thought I should have abandoned my duty if I had not advised that, considering the circumstances of Ireland, the restrictions on the importation of foreign corn should be temporarily removed.

I may have been wrong, but my impression was, first, that my duty toward a country threatened with famine required that that which had been the ordinary remedy under all similar circumstances should be resorted to—namely, that there should be free access to the food of man from whatever quarter it might come. I was prepared to give the best proof which public men generally can give of the sincerity of their opinions, by tendering my resignation of office and devolving upon others the duty of proposing this measure; and, sir, I felt this—that if these laws were once suspended, and there was unlimited access to food, the produce of other countries, I, and those with whom I acted, felt the strongest conviction that it was not for the public interest, that it was not for the interest of the agricultural party, that an attempt should be made permanently to reimpose restrictions on the importation of food.

And now, after all these debates, I am firmly convinced that it is better for the agricultural interest to contemplate the final settlement of this question, rather than to attempt the introduction of a law giving a diminished protection. My belief is that a diminished protection would in no respect conciliate agricultural feeling; and this I must say, nothing could be so disadvantageous as to give an ineffectual protection and yet incur all the odium of giving an adequate one. What have we been told during this discussion?

I am told that it would have been possible to continue this protection; but after the suspension of it—for I now assume that the suspension would have been assented to on account of the necessities of Ireland—the difficulty of maintaining it would have been greatly increased; because it would have been shown, after the lapse of three years, that, although it had worked tolerably well during the continuance of abundance, or at least of average harvests, yet at the moment it was exposed to the severe trial of scarcity it then ceased to effect the object for which it was enacted, and that, in addition to the state of public feeling with reference to restrictions on imports generally, would have greatly added to the difficulty of maintaining the law. There would have been public proof of its inefficiency for one of the great objects for which it was enacted.

But let me say, although it has not been brought prominently under consideration, that, without any reference to the case of Ireland, the working of the law, as far as Great Britain is concerned, during the present year has not been satisfactory. You would have had to contend not merely with difficulties arising from suspension on account of the case of Ireland, but it would have been shown to you that the rate of duty has been high on account of the apparent lowness in the price of corn; while that lowness of price has arisen not from abundance in quantity, but from deficient quality. It would have been shown, and conclusively, that there are greater disparities of price in most of the principal markets of this country—between corn of the highest quality and of the lowest—than have ever existed in former periods. It would have been proved that there never was a greater demand than there has been during the present year for wheat of fine quality for the purpose of mixing with wheat of inferior quality, which forms the chief article brought for sale into our domestic markets. It would have been shown you that had there been free access to wheat of higher quality than they have assumed, the whole population of this country would for the last four months have been consuming bread of a better quality.

My belief therefore, is that in seeking the reenactment of the existing law after its suspension you would have had to contend with greater difficulties than you anticipate. Still I am told, “You would have had a majority.” I think a majority might have been obtained. I think you could have continued this law, notwithstanding these increased difficulties, for a short time longer; but I believe that the interval of its maintenance would have been but short, and that there would have been, during the period of its continuance, a desperate conflict between different classes of society; that your arguments in favor of it would have been weak; that you might have had no alternative at an early period, had the cycle of unfavorable harvests returned—and who can give an assurance that they would not?—that you might at an early period have had no alternative but to concede an alteration of this law under circumstances infinitely less favorable than the present to a final settlement of the question.

It was the foresight of these consequences—it was the belief that you were about to enter into a bitter and, ultimately, an unsuccessful struggle, that has induced me to think that for the benefit of all classes, for the benefit of the agricultural class itself, it was desirable to come to a permanent and equitable settlement of this question.

These are the motives on which I acted. I know the penalty to which I must be subject for having so acted; but I declare, even after the continuance of these debates, that I am only the more impressed with the conviction that the policy we advise is correct.

My firm belief is—without yielding to the dictation of the League, or any other body—subjecting myself to that imputation, I will not hesitate to say my firm belief is that it is most consistent with prudence and good policy, most consistent with the real interests of the landed proprietors themselves, most consistent with the maintenance of a territorial aristocracy, seeing by how precarious a tenure, namely, the vicissitudes of seasons, you hold your present protective system—I say, it is my firm belief that it is for the advantage of all classes, in these times of comparative comfort and comparative calm, to anticipate the angry discussions which might arise, by proposing at once a final adjustment of this question.

I have stated the reasons which have induced me to take the present course. You may no doubt say that I am only going on the experience of three years and am acting contrary to the principles of my whole life. Well, I admit that charge—I admit that I have defended the existence of the Corn Laws—yes, and that up to the present period I have refused to acquiesce in the proposition to destroy them. I candidly admit all this; but when I am told that I am acting inconsistently with the principles of my whole life by advocating free trade, I give this statement a peremptory denial. During the last three years I have subjected myself to many taunts on this question, and you have often said to me that Earl Grey had found out something indicating a chance in my opinions.

Sir, I will not enter at this late hour into the discussion of any other topic. I foresaw the consequences that have resulted from the measures which I thought it my duty to propose. We were charged with the heavy responsibility of taking security against a great calamity in Ireland. We did not act lightly. We did not form our opinion upon merely local information—the information of local authorities likely to be influenced by an undue alarm. Before I and those who agreed with me came to that conclusion, we had adopted every means—by local inquiry and by sending perfectly disinterested persons of authority to Ireland—to form a just and correct opinion. Whether we were mistaken or not—I believe we were not mistaken, but even if we were mistaken—a generous construction should be put upon the motives and conduct of those who are charged with the responsibility of protecting millions of the subjects of the Queen from the consequences of scarcity and famine.

Sir, whatever may be the result of these discussions, I feel severely the loss of the confidence of those from whom I heretofore received a most generous support. So far from expecting them, as some have said, to adopt my opinions, I perfectly recognize the sincerity with which they adhere to their own. I recognize their perfect right, on account of the admitted failure of my speculation, to withdraw from me their confidence.

I honor their motives, but I claim, and I always will claim, while entrusted with such powers and subject to such responsibility as the minister of this great country is entrusted with and is subject to—I always will assert the right to give that advice which I conscientiously believe to be conducive to the general well-being. I was not considering, according to the language of the honorable member for Shrewsbury, what was the best bargain to make for a party. I was considering first what were the best measures to avert a great calamity, and, as a secondary consideration, to relieve that interest which I was bound to protect from the odium of refusing to acquiesce in measures which I thought to be necessary for the purpose of averting that calamity. Sir, I can not charge myself or my colleags with having been unfaithful to the trust committed to us. I do not believe that the great institutions of this country have suffered during our administration of power. The noble lord [Lord John Russell] says he hopes that the discussions which have threatened the maintenance of amicable relations with the United States will be brought to a fortunate close.

Sir, I think I can appeal to the course which we have pursued against some obloquy, against some misconstruction, some insinuations that we were abandoning the honor of this country—I think I can appeal to the past experience of this government that it has been our earnest desire, by every effort consistent with the national honor to maintain friendly relations with every country on the face of the globe.

I have a strong belief that the greatest object which we or any other government can contemplate should be to elevate the social condition of that class of the people with whom we are brought into no direct relationship by the exercise of the elective franchise. I wish to convince them that our object has been to apportion taxation, that we shall relieve industry and labor from any undue burden, and transfer it, so far as is consistent with the public good, to those who are better enabled to bear it.

I look to the present peace of this country; I look to the absence of all disturbance—to the non-existence of any commitment for a seditious offense; I look to the calm that prevails in the public mind; I look to the absence of all disaffection; I look to the increased and growing public confidence on account of the course you have taken in relieving trade from restrictions, and industry from unjust burdens; and where there was dissatisfaction I now see contentment; where there was turbulence I see there is peace; where there was disloyalty I see there is loyalty; I see a disposition to confide in you, and not to agitate questions that are at the foundations of your institutions.

Deprive me of power to-morrow, you can never deprive me of the consciousness that I have exercised the powers committed to me from no corrupt or interested motives—from no desire to gratify ambition or attain any personal object; that I have labored to maintain peace abroad consistently with the national honor and defending every public right—to increase the confidence of the great body of the people in the justice of your decisions; and by the means of equal law to dispense with all coercive powers—to maintain loyalty to the Throne and attachment to the Constitution, from a conviction of the benefit that will accrue to the great body of the people.

Note: The last of a series of speeches made by Peel expounding the theory and practice of free trade. Delivered in the House of Commons May 15, 1846, Abridged. On June 25, 1850, the Repeal Bill passed both Houses. Three days later Peel spoke in the House for the last time, and on June 29 announced his resignation. His fatal accident (a fall from his horse) happened the next day. Read more!

When Old Things Pass Away

CONCEIVE a man to be standing on the margin of this green world, and that, when he looked toward it, he saw abundance smiling upon every field, with all the blessings which earth can afford scattered in profusion throughout every family, with the light of the sun sweetly resting upon all the pleasant habitations, and the joys of human companionship brightening many a happy circle of society—conceive this to be the general character of the scene upon one side of his contemplation, and that on the other, beyond the verge of the goodly planet on which he was situated, he could descry nothing but a dark and fathomless unknown.

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847)

Born in 1780, died in 1847; Minister at Glasgow 1815–1832; Professor at St. Andrews 1823–1828, at Edinburgh 1828–1843; Leader of the secession from the Church of Scotland in 1843.


CONCEIVE a man to be standing on the margin of this green world, and that, when he looked toward it, he saw abundance smiling upon every field, with all the blessings which earth can afford scattered in profusion throughout every family, with the light of the sun sweetly resting upon all the pleasant habitations, and the joys of human companionship brightening many a happy circle of society—conceive this to be the general character of the scene upon one side of his contemplation, and that on the other, beyond the verge of the goodly planet on which he was situated, he could descry nothing but a dark and fathomless unknown.

Think you that he would bid a voluntary adieu to all the brightness and all the beauty that were before him upon earth, and commit himself to the frightful solitude away from it? Would he leave its peopled dwelling-places and become a solitary wanderer through the fields of nonentity? If space offered him nothing but a wilderness, would he for it abandon the home-bred scenes of life and of cheerfulness that lay so near and exerted such a power of urgency to detain him? Would not he cling to the regions of sense and of life and of society?—and shrinking away from the desolation that was beyond it, would not he be glad to keep his firm footing on the territory of this world and to take shelter under the silver canopy that was stretched over it?

But if, during the time of his contemplation, some happy island of the blest had floated by, and there had burst upon his senses the light of its surpassing glories, and its sounds of sweeter melody, and he clearly saw that there a purer beauty rested upon every field, and a more heartfelt joy spread itself among all the families, and he could discern there a peace and piety and a benevolence which put moral gladness into every bosom, and united the whole society in one rejoicing sympathy with each other and with the beneficent Father of them all; could he further see that pain and mortality were there unknown, and, above all, that signals of welcome were hung out, and an avenue of communication was made for him—perceive you not that what was before the wilderness would become the land of invitation, and what now the world would be the wilderness?

What unpeopled space could not do can be done by space teeming with beatific scenes and beatific society.

And let the existing tendencies of the heart be what they may to the scene that is near and visible around us, still if another stood revealed to the prospect of man, either through the channel of faith, or through the channel of his senses, then, without violence done to the constitution of his moral nature, may he die unto the present world, and live to the lovelier world that stands in the distance away from it.

Note: From a discourse entitled, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.” Read more!

On the Reform Bill

IT is a circumstance, sir, of happy augury for the motion before the House, that almost all those who have opposed it have declared themselves hostile on principle to parliamentary reform. Two members, I think, have confessed that, though they disapprove of the plan (Note: The Reform Bill, passed in 1832, disfranchised many rotten boroughs and enlarged the number of holders of the franchise.) now submitted to us, they are forced to admit the necessity of a change in the representative system. Yet even those gentlemen have used, as far as I have observed, no arguments which would not apply as strongly to the most moderate change as to that which has been proposed by his majesty’s government.

Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay (1800–1859)

(1831)

Born in 1800, died in 1859; called to the Bar in 1826; Member of Parliament in 1830–34; Member of the Supreme Council in India in 1834–38; Secretary of War in 1839–41; Paymaster-General in 1846–47; elected to Parliament in 1852; made a Peer in 1857.


IT is a circumstance, sir, of happy augury for the motion before the House, that almost all those who have opposed it have declared themselves hostile on principle to parliamentary reform. Two members, I think, have confessed that, though they disapprove of the plan (Note: The Reform Bill, passed in 1832, disfranchised many rotten boroughs and enlarged the number of holders of the franchise.) now submitted to us, they are forced to admit the necessity of a change in the representative system. Yet even those gentlemen have used, as far as I have observed, no arguments which would not apply as strongly to the most moderate change as to that which has been proposed by his majesty’s government.

The honorable baronet who has just sat down [Sir Robert Peel] has told us that the ministers have attempted to unite two inconsistent principles in one abortive measure. Those were his very words. He thinks, if I understand him rightly, that we ought either to leave the representative system such as it is, or to make it perfectly symmetrical. I think, sir, that the ministers would have acted unwisely if they had taken either course. Their principle is plain, rational, and consistent. It is this: to admit the middle class to a large and direct share in the representation, without any violent shock to the institutions of our country. [Hear! hear!] I understand those cheers; but surely the gentlemen who utter them will allow that the change which will be made in our institutions by this bill is far less violent than that which, according to the honorable baronet, ought to be made if we make any reform at all. I praise the ministers for not attempting, at the present time, to make the representation uniform. I praise them for not effacing the old distinction between the towns and the counties, and for not assigning members to districts, according to the American practice, by the Rule of Three. The government has, in my opinion, done all that was necessary for the removal of a great practical evil, and no more than was necessary.

I consider this, sir, as a practical question. I rest my opinion on no general theory of government. I distrust all general theories of government. I will not positively say that there is any form of polity which may not, in some conceivable circumstances, be the best possible. I believe that there are societies in which every man may safely be admitted to vote. [Hear! hear!] Gentlemen may cheer, but such is my opinion. I say, sir, that there are countries in which the condition of the laboring classes is such that they may safely be entrusted with the right of electing members of the legislature. If the laborers of England were in that state in which I, from my soul, wish to see them; if employment were always plentiful, wages always high, food always cheap; if a large family were considered not as an encumbrance but as a blessing, the principal objections to universal suffrage would, I think, be removed.

Universal suffrage exists in the United States without producing any very frightful consequences; and I do not believe that the people of those States, or of any part of the world, are in any good quality naturally superior to our own countrymen. But, unhappily, the laboring classes in England, and in all old countries, are occasionally in a state of great distress. Some of the causes of this distress are, I fear, beyond the control of the government. We know what effect distress produces, even on people more intelligent than the great body of the laboring classes can possibly be. We know that it makes even wise men irritable, unreasonable, credulous, eager for immediate relief, heedless of remote consequences. There is no quackery in medicine, religion, or politics, which may not impose even on a powerful mind, when that mind has been disordered by pain or fear. It is therefore no reflection on the poorer class of Englishmen, who are not, and who can not in the nature of things be, highly educated, to say that distress produces on them its natural effects, those effects which it would produce on the Americans, or on any other people; that it blinds their judgment, that it inflames their passions, that it makes them prone to believe those who flatter them, and to distrust those who would serve them. For the sake, therefore, of the whole society—for the sake of the laboring classes themselves—I hold it to be clearly expedient that, in a country like this, the right of suffrage should depend on a pecuniary qualification.

But, sir, every argument which would induce me to oppose universal suffrage induces me to support the plan which is now before us. I am opposed to universal suffrage, because I think that it would produce a destructive revolution. I support this plan, because I am sure that it is our best security against a revolution. The noble paymaster of the forces hinted, delicately indeed and remotely, at this subject. He spoke of the danger of disappointing the expectations of the nation; and for this he was charged with threatening the House. Sir, in the year 1817, the late Lord Londonderry proposed a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. On that occasion he told the House that, unless the measures which he recommended were adopted, the public peace could not be preserved. Was he accused of threatening the House? Again, in the year 1819, he proposed the laws known by the name of the Six Acts. He then told the House that, unless the executive power were reinforced, all the institutions of the country would be overturned by popular violence. Was he then accused of threatening the House? Will any gentleman say that it is parliamentary and decorous to urge the danger arising from popular discontent as an argument for severity; but that it is unparliamentary and indecorous to urge that same danger as an argument for conciliation?

I, sir, do entertain great apprehension for the fate of my country; I do in my conscience believe that, unless the plan proposed, or some similar plan, be speedily adopted, great and terrible calamities will befall us. Entertaining this opinion, I think myself bound to state it, not as a threat, but as a reason. I support this bill because it will improve our institutions; but I support it also because it tends to preserve them.

If it be said that there is an evil in change as change, I answer that there is also an evil in discontent as discontent. This, indeed, is the strongest part of our case. It is said that the system works well. I deny it. I deny that a system works well which the people regard with aversion. We may say here that it is a good system and a perfect system. But if any man were to say so to any six hundred and fifty-eight respectable farmers or shopkeepers, chosen by lot in any part of England, he would be hooted down and laughed to scorn. Are these the feelings with which any part of the government ought to be regarded? Above all, are these the feelings with which the popular branch of the legislature ought to be regarded?

It is almost as essential to the utility of a House of Commons that it should possess the confidence of the people, as that it should deserve that confidence. Unfortunately, that which is in theory the popular part of our government, is in practice the unpopular part. Who wishes to dethrone the king? Who wishes to turn the lords out of their House? Here and there a crazy radical, whom the boys in the street point at as he walks along. Who wishes to alter the constitution of this House? The whole people. It is natural that it should be so. The House of Commons is, in the language of Mr. Burke, a check, not on the people, but for the people. While that check is efficient, there is no reason to fear that the king or the nobles will oppress the people. But if that check requires checking, how is it to be checked? If the salt shall lose its savor, wherewith shall we season it? The distrust with which the nation regards this House may be unjust. But what then? Can you remove that distrust? That it exists can not be denied. That it is an evil can not be denied. That it is an increasing evil can not be denied. One gentleman tells us that it has been produced by the late events in France and Belgium; another, that it is the effect of seditious works which have lately been published. If this feeling be of origin so recent, I have read history to little purpose.

Sir, this alarming discontent is not the growth of a day, or of a year. If there be any symptoms by which it is possible to distinguish the chronic diseases of the body politic from its passing inflammations, all those symptoms exist in the present case. The taint has been gradually becoming more extensive and more malignant, through the whole lifetime of two generations. We have tried anodynes. We have tried cruel operations. What are we to try now? Who flatters himself that he can turn this feeling back? Does there remain any argument which escaped the comprehensive intellect of Mr. Burke, or the subtlety of Mr. Windham? Does there remain any species of coercion which was not tried by Mr. Pitt and by Lord Londonderry? We have had laws. We have had blood. New treasons have been created. The Press has been shackled. The Habeas Corpus Act has been suspended. Public meetings have been prohibited. The event has proved that these expedients were mere palliatives. You are at the end of your palliatives. The evil remains. It is more formidable than ever. What is to be done?

Under such circumstances, a great plan of reconciliation, prepared by the ministers of the Crown, has been brought before us in a manner which gives additional luster to a noble name, inseparably associated during two centuries with the dearest liberties of the English people. I will not say that this plan is in all its details precisely such as I might wish it to be; but it is founded on a great and a sound principle. It takes away a vast power from a few. It distributes that power through the great mass of the middle order. Every man, therefore, who thinks as I think, is bound to stand firmly by ministers who are resolved to stand or fall with this measure. Were I one of them, I would sooner, infinitely sooner, fall with such a measure than stand by any other means that ever supported a cabinet.

My honorable friend, the member for the University of Oxford [Sir Robert Inglis] tells us that if we pass this law England will soon be a republic. The reformed House of Commons will, according to him, before it has sat ten years, depose the king and expel the lords from their House. Sir, if my honorable friend could prove this, he would have succeeded in bringing an argument for democracy infinitely stronger than any that is to be found in the works of Paine. My honorable friend’s proposition is in fact this: that our monarchical and aristocratical institutions have no hold on the public mind of England; that these institutions are regarded with aversion by a decided majority of the middle class. This, sir, I say, is plainly deducible from his proposition; for he tells us that the representatives of the middle class will inevitably abolish royalty and nobility within ten years; and there is surely no reason to think that the representatives of the middle class will be more inclined to a democratic revolution than their constituents. Now, sir, if I were convinced that the great body of the middle class in England look with aversion on monarchy and aristocracy, I should be forced, much against my will, to come to this conclusion that monarchical and aristocratical institutions are unsuited to my country. Monarchy and aristocracy, valuable and useful as I think them, are still valuable and useful as means and not as ends. The end of government is the happiness of the people, and I do not conceive that, in a country like this, the happiness of the people can be promoted by a form of government in which the middle classes place no confidence, and which exists only because the middle classes have no organ by which to make their sentiments known. But, sir, I am fully convinced that the middle classes sincerely wish to uphold the royal prerogatives and the constitutional rights of the peers.

The question of parliamentary reform is still behind. But signs, of which it is impossible to misconceive the import, do most clearly indicate that, unless that question also be speedily settled, property, and order, and all the institutions of this great monarchy, will be exposed to fearful peril. Is it possible that gentlemen long versed in high political affairs can not read these signs? Is it possible that they can really believe that the representative system of England, such as it now is, will last till the year 1860? If not, for what would they have us wait? Would they have us wait merely that we may show to all the world how little we have profited by our own recent experience?

Would they have us wait, that we may once again hit the exact point where we can neither refuse with authority nor concede with grace? Would they have us wait, that the numbers of the discontented party may become larger, its demands higher, its feelings more acrimonious, its organization more complete? Would they have us wait till the whole tragicomedy of 1827 has been acted over again; till they have been brought into office by a cry of “No Reform,” to be reformers, as they were once before brought into office by a cry of “No Popery,” to be emancipators? Have they obliterated from their minds—gladly, perhaps, would some among them obliterate from their minds—the transactions of that year? And have they forgotten all the transactions of the succeeding year? Have they forgotten how the spirit of liberty in Ireland, debarred from its natural outlet, found a vent by forbidden passages? Have they forgotten how we were forced to indulge the Catholics in all the license of rebels, merely because we chose to withhold from them the liberties of subjects? Do they wait for associations more formidable than that of the Corn Exchange, for contributions larger than the Rent, for agitators more violent than those who, three years ago, divided with the king and the Parliament the sovereignty of Ireland? Do they wait for that last and most dreadful paroxysm of popular rage, for that last and most cruel test of military fidelity?

Let them wait, if their past experience shall induce them to think that any high honor or any exquisite pleasure is to be obtained by a policy like this. Let them wait, if this strange and fearful infatuation be indeed upon them, that they should not see with their eyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their heart. But let us know our interest and our duty better. Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us: Reform, that you may preserve. Now, therefore, while everything at home and abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age; now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the continent is still resounding in our ears; now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings; now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted, and great societies dissolved; now, while the heart of England is still sound; now, while old feelings and old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away; now, in this your accepted time, now, in this your day of salvation, take counsel, not of prejudice, not of party spirit, not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency, but of history, of reason, of the ages which are past, of the signs of this most portentuous time.

Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property, divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by its own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing remorse, amid the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.

Note: Delivered in the House of Commons March 1, 1831. Abridged. This speech was the first of Macaulay’s successes. It led to an invitation to Holland House, to a breakfast with Rogers and to introductions to Sidney Smith, Thomas Moore, Henry Hallam, and many other literary celebrities of the period. Read more!

On Emancipation for the Negro

I DO not think, my lords, that ever but once before in the whole course of my public life have I risen to address either House of Parliament with the anxiety under which I labor at this moment.

Henry Peter, Lord Brougham (1778–1868)

(1838)

Born in 1778, died in 1868; one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review in 1802; elected to Parliament in 1810; Counsel for Queen Caroline in 1820–21; Lord Chancellor in 1830–34.


I DO not think, my lords, that ever but once before in the whole course of my public life have I risen to address either House of Parliament with the anxiety under which I labor at this moment.

I rush at once into the midst of this great argument—I drag before you once more, but I trust for the last time, the African slave trade, which I lately denounced here, and have so often elsewhere. On this we are all agreed. Whatever difference of opinion may exist on the question of slavery, on the slave traffic there can be none. I am now furnished with a precedent which may serve for an example to guide us. On slavery we have always held that the colonial legislature could not be trusted; that, to use Mr. Canning’s expression, you must beware of allowing the masters of slaves to make laws upon slavery. But upon the detestable traffic in slaves I can show you the proceeding of a colonial assembly which we should ourselves do well to adopt after their example. These masters of slaves, not to be trusted on that subject, have acted well and wisely on this. The legislature of Jamaica, owners of slaves, and representing all other slave owners, feel that they also represent the poor negroes themselves; and they approach the throne, expressing themselves thankful—tardily thankful, no doubt—that the traffic has been for thirty years put down in our own colonies, and beseeching the sovereign to consummate the great work by the only effectual means—of having it declared piracy by the law of nations, as it is robbery and piracy and murder by the law of God!

I knew that this abominable law of our evil nature was not confined to different races, contrasted hues, and strange features, but prevailed also between white man and white—for I never yet knew any one hate me but those whom I had served, and those who had done me some grievous injustice. Why then should I expect other feelings to burn within the planter’s bosom, and govern his conduct toward the unhappy beings who had suffered so much and so long at his hands? But, on the part of the slaves, I was not without some anxiety when I considered the corrupting effects of that degrading system under which they had for ages groaned, and recognized the truth of the saying in the first and the earliest of profane poets, that “the day which makes a man a slave robs him of half his value.”

I might well think that the West Indian slave offered no exception to this maxim, that the habit of compulsory labor might have incapacitated him from voluntary exertion; that overmuch toil might have made all work his aversion; that never having been accustomed to provide for his own wants, while all his supplies were furnished by others, he might prove unwilling or unfit to work for himself, the ordinary inducements to industry never having operated on his mind.

Let us now see the results of their sudden tho partial liberation, and how far those fears have been realized; for upon this must entirely depend the solution of the present question—whether or not it is safe now to complete the emancipation, which, if it only be safe, we have not the shadow of right any longer to withhold.

Well, then, let us see. The first of August came, the object of so much anxiety and so many predictions—that day so joyously expected by the poor slaves, as sorely dreaded by their hard taskmasters; and surely, if there ever was a picture interesting, even fascinating, to look upon, if there ever was a passage in a people’s history that redounded to their eternal honor, if ever triumphant answer was given to all the scandalous calumnies for ages heaped upon an oppressed race, as if to justify the wrongs done them—that picture, and that passage, and that answer were exhibited in the uniform history of that auspicious day all over the islands of the Western Sea. Instead of the horizon being lit up with the lurid fires of rebellion, kindled by a sense of natural tho lawless revenge, and the just resistance to intolerable oppression, the whole of that widespread scene was mildly illuminated with joy, contentment, peace, and good will toward men.

No civilized nation, no people of the most refined character, could have displayed, after gaining a sudden and signal victory, more forbearance, more delicacy, in the enjoyment of their triumph, than these poor untutored slaves did upon the great consummation of all their wishes which they had just attained. Not a gesture or a look was seen to scare the eye; not a sound or a breath from the negro’s lips was heard to grate on the ear of the planter. All was joy, congratulation, and hope. Everywhere were to be seen groups of these harmless folks assembled to talk over their good fortunes, to communicate their mutual feelings of happiness, to speculate on their future prospects. Finding that they were now free in name, they hoped soon to taste the reality of liberty. Feeling their fetters loosened, they looked forward to the day which would see them fall off, and the degrading marks which they left be effaced from their limbs.

But all this was accomplished with not a whisper that could give offense to the master by reminding him of the change. This delicate, calm, tranquil joy was alone to be marked on that day over all the chain of the Antilles. Amusements there were none to be seen on that day—not even their simple pastimes by which they had been wont to beguile the hard hours of bondage, and which reminded that innocent people of the happy land of their forefathers, whence they had been torn by the hands of Christian and civilized men. The day was kept sacred as the festival of their liberation, for the negroes are an eminently pious race. Every church was crowded from early dawn with devout and earnest worshipers. Five or six times in the course of that memorable Friday were all those churches filled and emptied in succession by multitudes who came, not to give mouth-worship or eye-worship, but to render humble and hearty thanks to God for their freedom at length bestowed. In countries where the bounty of nature provokes the passions, where the fuel of intemperance is scattered with a profuse hand, I speak the fact when I tell that not one negro was seen in a state of intoxication. Three hundred and forty thousand slaves in Jamaica were at once set free on that day, and the peaceful festivity of those simple men was disturbed only on a single estate, in one parish, by the irregular conduct of three or four persons, who were immediately kept in order, and tranquillity was in one hour restored.

But the termination of slavery was to be an end of all labor; no man would work unless compelled, much less would any one work for hire. The cart-whip was to resound no more, and no more could exertion be obtained from the indolent African. The prediction is found to have been ridiculously false; the negro peasantry is as industrious as our own, and wages furnish more effectual stimulus than the scourge.

Oh, but, said the men of colonial experience—the true practical men—this may do for some kinds of produce. Cotton may be planted, coffee may be picked, indigo may be manufactured—all these kinds of work the negro may probably be got to do; but at least the cane will cease to grow, the cane piece can no longer be hoed, nor the plant be hewn down, nor the juice boiled, and sugar will utterly cease out of the land.

Now let the man of experience stand forward,—the practical man, the inhabitant of the colonies,—I require that he now come forth with his prediction, and I meet him with the fact; let him but appear, and I answer for him, we shall hear him prophesy no more. Put to silence by the past, which even these confident men have not the courage to deny, they will at length abandon this untenable ground.

Twice as much sugar by the hour was found, on my noble friend’s inquiry, to be made since the apprenticeship, as under the slave system, and of a far better quality; and one planter oil a vast scale has said that with twenty free laborers he could do the work of a hundred slaves.

But linger not on the islands where the gift of freedom has been but half bestowed. Look at Antigua and Bermuda, where the wisdom and the virtue have been displayed of at once giving complete emancipation. To Montserrat the same appeal might have been made, but for the folly of the upper House, which threw out the bill passed in the Assembly by the representatives of the planters. But in Antigua and in Bermuda, where for the last three years and a half there has not even been an apprentice—where all have been made at once as free as the peasantry of this country—the produce has increased, not diminished, and increased notwithstanding the accidents of bad seasons, droughts, and fires.

Whether we look to the noble-minded colonies which have at once freed their slaves, or to those who will still retain them in a middle and half-free condition, I have shown that the industry of the negro is undeniable, and that it is constant and productive in proportion as he is the director of its application and the master of its recompense. But I have gone a great deal further—I have demonstrated, by a reference to the same experience, the same unquestioned facts, that a more quiet, peaceful, inoffensive, innocent race is not to be found on the face of this earth than the Africans, not while dwelling in their own happy country, and enjoying freedom in a natural state under their own palm-trees and by their native streams, but after they have been torn away from it, enslaved, and their nature perverted in your Christian land, barbarized by the policy of civilized states; their whole character disfigured, if it were possible to disfigure it; all their feelings corrupted, if you could have corrupted them. Every effort has been made to spoil the poor African, every source of wicked ingenuity exhausted to deprave his nature, all the incentives of misconduct placed around him by the fiend-like artifice of Christian civilized men, and his excellent nature has triumphed over all your arts; your unnatural culture has failed to make it bear the poisonous fruit that might well have been expected from such abominable husbandry, tho enslaved and tormented, degraded and debased, as far as human industry could effect its purpose of making him bloodthirsty and savage, his gentle spirit has prevailed and preserved, in spite of all your prophecies, aye, and of all your efforts, unbroken tranquillity over the whole Caribbean chain!

My lords, I can not better prove the absolute necessity of putting an immediate end to the state of apprenticeship than by showing what the victims of it are daily fated to endure. The punishments inflicted are of monstrous severity. The law is wickedly harsh; its execution is committed to hands that exasperate that cruelty. For the vague, undefined, undefinable offense of insolence, thirty-nine lashes; the same number for carrying a knife in the pocket; for cutting the shoot of a cane-plant, fifty lashes, or three months’ imprisonment in that most loathsome of all dungeons, a West Indian jail.

There seems to have prevailed at all times among the lawgivers of the slave colonies a feeling of which I grieve to say those of the mother country have partaken: that there is something in the nature of a slave, something in the disposition of the African race, something in the habits of those hapless victims of our crimes, our cruelties, and frauds, which requires a peculiar harshness of treatment from their rulers, and makes what in other men’s cases we call justice and mercy cruelty to society, and injustice to the law in theirs, inducing us to visit with the extremity of rigor in the African what, if done by our own tribes, would be slightly visited, or not at all, as tho there were in the negro nature something so obdurate that no punishment with which they can be punished would be too severe.

If some capricious despot were, in the career of ordinary tyranny, to tax his pampered fancy to produce something more monstrous, more unnatural than himself; were he to graft the thorn upon the vine, or place the dove among vultures to be reared, much as we might marvel at this freak of a perverted appetite, we should marvel still more if we saw tyranny, even its own measure of proverbial unreasonableness, and complain because the grape was not gathered from the thorn, or because the dove so trained had a thirst for blood. Yet this is the unnatural caprice, this the injustice, the gross, the foul, the outrageous, the monstrous, the incredible injustice of which we are daily and hourly guilty toward the whole of the ill-fated African race.

My lords, we fill up the measure of this injustice by executing laws wickedly conceived, in a yet more atrocious spirit of cruelty. Our whole punishments smell of blood. Let the treadmill stop, from the weary limbs and exhausted frames of the sufferers no longer having the power to press it down the requisite number of turns in a minute, the lash instantly resounds through the mansion of woe! Let the stone spread out to be broken not crumble fast enough beneath the arms already scarred, flayed, and wealed by the whip, again the scourge tears afresh the half-healed flesh!

I hasten to a close. There remains little to add. It is, my lords, with a view to prevent such enormities as I have feebly pictured before you, to correct the administration of justice, to secure the comforts of the negroes, to restrain the cruelty of the tormentors, to amend the discipline of the prisons, to arm the governors with local authority over the police; it is with those views that I have formed the first five of the resolutions now upon your table, intending they should take effect during the very short interval of a few months which must elapse before the sixth shall give complete liberty to the slave.

From the instant that glad sound is wafted across the ocean, what a blessed change begins; what an enchanting prospect unfolds itself! The African, placed on the same footing with other men, becomes in reality our fellow citizen—to our feelings, as well as in his own nature, our equal, our brother. No difference of origin or color can now prevail to keep the two castes apart. The negro, master of his own labor—only induced to lend his assistance if you make it his interest to help you, yet that aid being absolutely necessary to preserve your existence—becomes an essential portion of the community, nay, the very portion upon which the whole must lean for support.

So now the fulness of time is come for at length discharging our duty to the African captive. I have demonstrated to you that everything is ordered—every previous step taken—all safe, by experience shown to be safe, for the long-desired consummation. The time has come, the trial has been made, the hour is striking; you have no longer a pretext for hesitation, or faltering, or delay. The slave has shown, by four years’ blameless behavior and devotion to the pursuits of peaceful industry, that he is as fit for his freedom as any English peasant, aye, or any lord whom I now address.

I demand his rights; I demand his liberty without stint. In the name of justice and of law, in the name of reason, in the name of God, who has given you no right to work injustice. I demand that your brother be no longer trampled upon as your slave! I make my appeal to the Commons, who represent the free people of England, and I require at their hands the performance of that condition for which they paid so enormous a price—that condition which all their constituents are in breathless anxiety to see fulfilled! I appeal to this House! Hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the world, to you I appeal for justice! Patrons of all the arts that humanize mankind, under your protection I place humanity herself! To the merciful sovereign of a free people, I call aloud for mercy to the hundreds of thousands for whom half a million of her Christian sisters have cried out; I ask their cry may not have risen in vain. But, first, I turn my eye to the Throne of all justice, and, devoutly humbling myself before Him who is of purer eyes than to behold such vast iniquities, I implore that the curse hovering over the head of the unjust and the oppressor be averted from us, that your hearts may be turned to mercy, and that over all the earth His will may at length be done!

Note: Delivered in the House of Lords in February, 1838, in support of resolutions for the immediate abolition of slavery. Abridged. Read more!