political gifts of the right
honourable gentleman, extracted by him from his unwilling colleagues
and followers, had always been more bitter to the taste than Dead
Sea apples. That such gifts should not be bestowed on the country
by unwilling hands, that reform should not come from those who
themselves felt the necessity of no reform, he believed to be the
wish not only of that House, but of the country at large. Would
any gentleman on that bench, excepting the right honourable
gentleman himself,--and he pointed to the crowded phalanx of the
Government,--get up and declare that this measure of Church Reform,
this severance of Church and State, was brought forward in consonance
with his own long-cherished political conviction? He accused that
party of being so bound to the chariot wheels of the right honourable
gentleman, as to be unable to abide by their own convictions. And as
to the right honourable gentleman himself, he would appeal to his
followers opposite to say whether the right honourable gentleman was
possessed of any one strong political conviction.

He had been accused of being unconstitutional, revolutionary, and
tyrannical. If the House would allow him he would very shortly
explain his idea of constitutional government as carried on in this
country. It was based and built on majorities in that House, and
supported solely by that power. There could be no constitutional
government in this country that was not so maintained. Any other
government must be both revolutionary and tyrannical. Any other
government was a usurpation; and he would make bold to tell the right
honourable gentleman that a Minister in this country who should
recommend Her Majesty to trust herself to advisers not supported by a
majority of the House of Commons, would plainly be guilty of usurping
the powers of the State. He threw from him with disdain the charge
which had been brought against himself of hankering after the sweets
of office. He indulged and gloried in indulging the highest ambition
of an English subject. But he gloried much more in the privileges and
power of that House, within the walls of which was centred all that
was salutary, all that was efficacious, all that was stable in the
political constitution of his country. It had been his pride to have
acted during nearly all his political life with that party which had
commanded a majority, but he would defy his most bitter adversary, he
would defy the right honourable gent