There were also other considerations, probably overlooked by those who imagined they were building up a permanent system by the bill of 1832. The middle class, which is perhaps the most important one for a government to conciliate, is not a class that can itself govern. Its temporary rule nearly always leads to a democracy or to a despotism; it must, therefore, be considered as a mere step, upwards or downwards, in a new order of things. Besides, if you destroy traditional respect, and that kind of instinct of obedience which is created by the habit of obeying spontaneously to-morrow, what you obeyed without inquiry yesterday—if you begin by condemning everything in a constitution which reason does not approve, you must arrive at a constitution which reason will sanction. You cannot destroy anomalies and preserve anomalies. The tide of innovation which you have directed towards the one anomaly as absurd, will, ere long, sweep away, as equally ridiculous, another anomaly. There is no solid resting-place between custom and argument. What is no longer defended by the one, must be made defensible by the other.
It is only by degrees, however, that the full extent of a great change develop es itself; for the peculiarities of a new constitution are always modified when that new constitution is carried out by men who have grown up under the preceding one; and in the meantime the vessel of the State, struggling between old habits and new ideas, must be exposed to the action of changeful and contrary winds.
Thus, the Reform party, temporarily united during the recent combat, split into several sections at its termination.
First, Lord Durham quitted the administration, because he thought it too cautious; secondly, Mr. Stanley and Sir James Graham quitted it, because they each thought it too fast; finally, Lord Grey himself quitted it, because he deemed that his authority was diminishing, as his generation was dying away, and younger men absorbing old influences. In the meantime Mr. O’Connell continued to be a great embarrassment. He represented the majority of the Irish people, who contended for a supremacy over the minority, a contest in which it was natural for the Catholics to engage after they had been declared as good citizens as the Protestants; but in which it was impossible for the British Government to concur, so long as there was a feud between the Protestant and the Catholic, and that the Protestant majority in England were disposed to sustain the Protestant minority in Ireland.
Hence, the reformed Parliament had met amidst cries for the repeal of the Union, and those savage violations of social order which, in the sister kingdom, are the usual attendants on political agitation.
The Ministry first tried coercion, but its effects could only be temporary, and they alienated a portion of its supporters. It then tried conciliation. But it was found impossible to conciliate the Irish Catholics without conciliating their leader. That leader was not irreconcilable, for he was vain: and vain men may always be managed by managing their vanity; but to gratify the vanity of a man who was always defying the power of England, was to mortify the pride of the English people.
Lord Melbourne had succeeded Lord Grey. He united various accomplishments with a manly understanding and a character inclined to moderation. There could not have been selected a statesman better qualified to preside over a Cabinet containing conflicting opinions and antagonistic ambitions. But no body of men, acting together under a system of compromises, can act with vigour or maintain authority. All these circumstances gave an air of feebleness and inferiority to an administration which contained, nevertheless, many men of superior ability. But that, perhaps, which tended most to discredit the ministry, was the credit which Sir Robert Peel was daily gaining as its opponent.
Carefully separating himself from the extreme opinions to be found in his own party, condemning merely the extreme opinions on the opposite one; professing the views and holding the language of a mediator between opinions that found no longer an echo in the public mind, and opinions that had not yet been ripened by public approbation; contrasting by his clear and uniform line of conduct with the apparent variations and vacillations of a Cabinet that was alternately swayed by diverging tendencies; professing no desire for power, he created by degrees a growing opinion that he was the statesman who ought to possess it: and thus, when the Reform Ministry had to add to its former losses that of Lord Althorpe, who by the death of Lord Spencer was withdrawn from the House of Commons, which he had long led with a singular deficiency in the powers of debate, but with the shrewdness and courtesy of a man of the world, the King thought himself justified in removing a Cabinet which he considered deficient in dignity, spirit, and consideration.
The Duke of Wellington, to whom he offered the post of Premier, declined it, and recommended Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert had not expected, nor perhaps wished for, so sudden a summons. He was, in fact, at Rome when he was offered, for the first time, the highest place in the Cabinet. Returning to England instantly, he accepted the offer. His object now was to organize a new Conservative party on a new basis, and to come forward himself as a new man in a new state of affairs, neither lingering over ancient pledges nor fettered by previous declarations. As the first necessity for a new system, he sought new men, and wishing to obliterate the prejudice against himself as an anti-Reformer by a union with those who had been Reformers, hastened to invite Sir James Graham and Lord Stanley to join him. This invitation being declined, he had to fall back on his former associates; but being unable to change the furniture of the old Conservative Cabinet, he repainted and regilded it. In a letter to the electors of Tamworth, which engrafted many Liberal promises on Conservative principles, he went as far towards gaining new proselytes as was compatible with retaining old adherents. This letter was a preparation for the great struggle on the hustings which was now about to take place. Parliament had been dissolved, and the appeal made to the country was answered by the addition of one hundred members to the new Conservative party. Such an addition was sufficient to justify King William’s belief that a considerable change had taken place in public opinion, but was not sufficient to give a majority in the House of Commons to the ministry he had chosen. It was beaten by ten votes on the choice of a Speaker, Mr. Abercrombie having that majority over Mr. Manners Sutton.
But if Sir Robert Peel had not a sufficient majority to insure his maintenance in office, the Whigs were not so sure of a majority as to risk a direct attempt to turn him out, unless on some specific case which called for a vote to sanction a specific opinion. Sir Robert’s policy was to avoid a case of this kind, knowing that, if he could once by his tact, prudence, and ability, increase his numbers and establish a tendency in his favour, the fluctuating and uncertain would soon join his standard. This policy was contained in the speech with which he opened the campaign: