to
private life." The end of the discussion was, that the minister
prevailed by a majority a trifle larger than that which had defeated him
before. This is not the place to discuss the difference between one
principle of taxation and another; but the question whether a minister
when defeated is justified in asking either House of Parliament to
reconsider its vote, seems one that could only have been raised in a
House under the influence of unusual excitement of some kind. The charge
that such a request was unconstitutional only serves to show how loosely
the words "constitution" and "unconstitutional" are often used even by
those from whom precision of language might most be expected; for Sir
Robert Peel's proposal that the House should retract its vote was not
unprecedented, the very same demand having been made in 1833 by Lord
Althorp, then Chancellor of the Exchequer of Lord Grey's ministry, of
which those very men were members who were now loudest in denouncing the
conduct of the present government. And on that occasion it is worth
remarking that, though Lord Althorp's demand was resisted in one or two
quarters, he was vigorously supported by Sir Robert Peel, on the ground
that, though to rescind one night a vote passed on a former one might be
not altogether free from objection, it would be a far greater evil that
questions of importance should be held to be in all cases finally
decided by a single vote, passed, it might be, in a thin House, or in
obedience to some sudden impulse.

And this seems to be the view of the case commended not only by
constitutional and parliamentary practice, but by common-sense. It would
be strange, indeed, when the questions submitted to the British
Parliament and the decisions of that Parliament on them are so often of
paramount importance to the whole world, if the Parliament should be the
only body in the world denied the right of revising its own judgments,
the only one whose first resolution is so irrevocable that even itself
may not change or modify it. To rescind a recent vote is, no doubt, as
Sir Robert Peel said, a step not wholly free from objection. It should
be an exceptional act, as one which, if often repeated, would give an
appearance of capricious fickleness and instability to the opinions of
Parliament, calculated to impair that respect for it which the whole
state and nation are deeply concerned in upholding; but to refuse, under
any circumstances, to confess a chang