act the doctrine
that conscience ought to be free and unrestrained; that disabilities
like that sought to be removed, inflict a wound upon the feelings of
those whom they reach, intolerable to good and generous minds, worse
than persecution, than even death itself, how do you apply it? Why you
propose to sear this brand high upon the forehead, and deep into the
heart of your very prince, while you render the scar more visible, and
the insult more poignant, by making him the solitary individual, whose
hereditary rank must be held and transmitted by the disgraceful
tenure which you have stigmatized as the badge of slavery. Freedom
of conscience to all subjects, but none to your king! Throw open the
portals of legislation, that a Duke of Norfolk may take his seat in your
senate; but hurl from his loftier seat there, the throne of the realm,
a Duke of Lancaster, if he exercise the same privilege, and presume
to have a conscience! Hitherto the British constitution has been fair,
uniform, equal, demanding from all the same moral qualification.
That qualification has long been declared, by a certain school of
politicians, to be slavery. Ministers have now adopted their creed; yet
they are content, nay, they propose, that the king shall be the only
proclaimed slave in his dominions. Worse than this, however, remained
behind: the proposed measure not only hurt the feelings of the monarch,
it touched his title. It was a bill to reverse the attainder which had
been passed upon Popery, and the natural consequences of this reversal
were obvious. The privileges of Protestantism were the title-deeds of
the royal family to the throne, the actual transfer of the estate
which the king held in parliament and in the country. It was Protestant
ascendancy now become a term of reproach, and Protestant ascendancy
alone, that introduced the royal line that rules us; it was that which
still formed the foundation of the throne, which combined its title with
the very elements of the constitution, identified it with our liberty,
consecrated it with the sanctities of our religion, and proclaimed our
monarch king by the unanimous suffrages of all our institutions. The act
of settlement indeed was to remain; and though it had been passed with
difficulty by a parliament exclusively Protestant, it would of course be
zealously maintained by a parliament partly Catholic: but still this
was to remove the royal title from the broad foundation of national
pr