rom it: the
one, that electoral power in Ireland could not safely be left in the
hands of the forty-shilling freeholders; the other, that, whether or not
they were disfranchised, nothing short of political equality of the
catholics of Ireland could avert the risk of civil war. It is seldom
that momentous changes can be so clearly traced to a single cause as in
the case of catholic emancipation. The whole interval between July,
1828, and April, 1829, was occupied by the discussion of this question,
or circumstances arising out of it, and it may truly be said to have
filled the whole horizon of domestic politics. The first and final
recognition by a responsible government of emancipation as a political
necessity dates immediately from the Clare election.

The question of catholic emancipation had been the only reason for the
resignation of Pitt in 1801, but we have seen that he resumed office in
1804 under a pledge not to re-open it. It is certain that he never
contemplated a complete emancipation of the catholics without safeguards
for the interests of the established church. Such a safeguard (though
ineffective against a future attack through disestablishment) was
provided by the act of union,[84] which inviolably united the Irish and
English churches. The catholic leaders, on their part, were profuse in
their disavowals of hostility to that establishment and to the
protestant government in Ireland. In their first solemn memorial,
presented by Grenville on March 25, 1805, they expressly declared that
"they do not seek or wish, in the remotest degree, to injure or encroach
upon the rights, privileges, immunities, possessions, and revenues
appertaining to the bishops and clergy of the protestant religion, or to
the churches committed to their charge". They further volunteered an
expression of their belief that no evil act could be justified by the
good of the Church, and that papal infallibility was no article of the
catholic faith. Thenceforward, frequent motions in support of the
"catholic claims" were made in both houses of parliament. In 1810 such a
motion was proposed in a very eloquent speech by Grattan, but
Castlereagh, though a staunch friend of the cause, deprecated it as
inopportune, since the catholics had injured themselves by imprudent
conduct, and fresh declarations inconsistent with their former
assurances. The motion was therefore rejected, and a similar fate befell
motions of the same kind in the two foll