hat the rage for correction is too violent, and sweeps
all before it. What is it, then, which menaces the existence of
the constitution we live under? It is the fury of parties, it is
the broad line of separation which the Reform Bill has drawn, the
antagonist positions into which the two Houses of Parliament have
been thrown, and the Whigs having identified themselves with the
democratic principle in one House, in order to preserve their
places, and the Conservative principle having taken refuge in the
other House, where it is really endangered by the obstinate and
frantic violence of its supporters. What was the loud and eternal
cry of the Lords, and of all the Conservatives, when the Reform
Bill was in agitation? That it was a revolution, that it would
place all political power in the hands of the people, that it
would establish an irresistible democratic force; and the great
body of them justified their refusal to go into Committee on the
ground that the Bill was so vicious in principle, so irremediably
mischievous, that no alterations could diminish its evil tendency.
It is now as clear as daylight that if they had gone into
Committee and amended the Bill, they might have obviated all or
nearly all the evils they apprehended, for even after the passing
of the 'whole Bill,' with all its clauses perfect and untouched,
parties are so nearly balanced that the smallest difference would
turn the scale the other way. They would, however, listen to
nothing, and now they feel the consequences of their _ruat coelum_
policy; but what I complain of is, that after the verification of
their predictions, and the realisation of their fears, in the
establishment of a democratic power of formidable strength, they
do not act consistently with their own declared opinions; for if
it be true, as they assert, that their legitimate authority and
influence have been transferred to other hands, and that the just
equilibrium of the Constitution has been shaken, it is mad and
preposterous in them to act just as if no such disturbing causes
had occurred, as if they were still in the plenitude of their
constitutional power, and to provoke a collision which, if their
own assertions be true, they are no longer in a condition to
sustain. The answer to such arguments as this invariably is, Are
the Lords, then, to be content to yield everything, and must they
pass every Bill which the House of Commons thinks fit to send to
them purely and simply? C