On the 29th of January, 1833, at the age of twenty-four, Gladstone entered upon his memorable parliamentary career, during the ministry of Lord Grey; and his maiden speech--fluent, modest, and earnest--was in the course of the debate on the proposed abolition of slavery in the British colonies. It was in reply to an attack made upon the management of his father's estates in the treatment of slaves in Demerara. He deprecated cruelty and slavery alike, but maintained that emancipation should be gradual and after due preparation; and, insisting also that slaves were private property, he demanded that the interests of planters should be duly regarded if emancipation should take place. This was in accordance with justice as viewed by enlightened Englishmen generally. Negro emancipation was soon after decreed. All negroes born after August 1,1834, as well as those then six years of age were to be free; and the remainder were, after a kind of apprenticeship of six years, to be set at liberty. The sum of £20,000,000 was provided by law as a compensation to the slave-owners,--one of the noblest acts which Parliament ever passed, and one of which the English nation has never ceased to boast.
Among other measures to which the reform Parliament gave its attention in 1833 was that relating to the temporalities of the Irish Church, by which the number of bishops was reduced from twenty-two to twelve, with a corresponding reduction of their salaries. An annual tax was also imposed on all livings above £300, to be appropriated to the augmentation of small benefices. Mr. Gladstone was too conservative to approve of this measure, and he made a speech against it.
In 1834 the reform ministry went out of power, having failed to carry everything before them as they had anticipated, and not having produced that general prosperity which they had promised. The people were still discontented, trade still languished, and pauperism increased rather than diminished.
Under the new Tory ministry, headed by Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone became a junior lord of the Treasury. His great abilities were already recognized, and the premier wanted his services, as Pitt wanted those of Canning before he was known to fame. Shortly after Parliament assembled, in February, 1835, Mr. Gladstone was made under-secretary for the Colonies,--a very young man for such an office. But the Tory ministry was short-lived, and the Whigs soon returned to power under Lord Melbourne. During this administration, until the death of William IV. in 1837, there was no display of power or eloquence in Parliament by the member for Newark of sufficient importance to be here noted, except perhaps his opposition to a bill for the re-arrangement of church-rates. As a Conservative and a High Churchman, Gladstone stood aloof from those who would lay unhallowed hands on the sacred ark of ecclesiasticism. And here, at least, he has always been consistent with himself. From first to last he has been the zealous defender and admirer of the English Church and one of its devoutest members, taking the deepest interest in everything which concerns its doctrines, its ritual, and its connection with the State,--at times apparently forgetting politics to come to its support, in essays which show a marvellous knowledge of both theology and ecclesiastical history. We cannot help thinking that he would have reached the highest dignities as a clergyman, and perhaps have been even more famous as a bishop than as a statesman.
In the Parliament which assembled after Queen Victoria's accession to the throne, in 1837, the voice of Gladstone was heard in nearly every important discussion; but the speech which most prominently brought him into public notice and gave him high rank as a parliamentary orator was that in 1838, in reference to West India emancipation. The evils of the negro apprenticeship system, which was to expire in 1840, had been laid before the House of Lords by the ex-chancellor, Brougham, with his usual fierceness and probable exaggeration; and when the subject came up for discussion in the House of Commons Gladstone opposed immediate abolition, which Lord Brougham had advocated, showing by a great array of facts that the relation between masters and negroes was generally much better than it had been represented. But he was on the unpopular side of the question, and his speech excited admiration without producing conviction,--successful only as a vigorous argument and a brilliant oratorical display. The apprenticeship was cut short, and immediate abolition of slavery decreed.
At that time, Gladstone's "appearance and manners were much in his favor. His countenance was mild and pleasant; his eyes were clear and quick; his eyebrows were dark and prominent; his gestures varied but not violent; his jet black hair was parted from his crown to his brow;" his voice was peculiarly musical, and his diction was elegant and easy, without giving the appearance of previous elaboration. How far his language and thoughts were premeditated I will not undertake to say. Daniel Webster once declared that there was no such thing as ex tempore speaking,--a saying not altogether correct, but in the main confirmed by many great orators who confess to laborious preparation for their speech-making, and by the fact that many of our famous after-dinner speakers have been known to send their speeches to the Press before they were delivered. The case of Demosthenes would seem to indicate the necessity of the most careful study and preparation in order to make a truly great speech, however gifted an orator may be; and those who, like the late Henry Ward Beecher, have astonished their hearers by their ready utterances have generally mastered certain lines of fact and principles of knowledge which they have at command, and which, with native power and art of expression, they present in fresh forms and new combinations. They do not so much add new stores of fact to the kaleidoscope of oratory,--they place the familiar ones in new positions, and produce new pictures ad infinitum. Sometimes a genius, urged by a great impulse, may dash out in an untried course of thought; but this is not always a safe venture,--the next effort of the kind may prove a failure. No man can be sure of himself or his ground without previous and patient labor, except in reply to an antagonist and when familiar with his subject. That was the power of Fox and Pitt. What gave charm to the speeches of Peel and Gladstone in their prime was the new matter they introduced before debate began; and this was the result of laborious study. To attack such matter with wit and sarcasm is one thing; to originate it is quite another. Anybody can criticise the most beautiful picture or the grandest structure, but to paint the one or erect the other,--hic labor, hoc opus est. One of the grandest speeches ever made, for freshness and force, was Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne; but the peroration was written and committed to memory, while the substance of it had been in his thoughts for half a winter, and his mind was familiar with the general subject. The great orator is necessarily an artist as much as Pascal was in his Pensées; and his fame will rest perhaps more on his art than on his matter,--since the art is inimitable and peculiar, while the matter is subject to the conditions of future, unknown, progressive knowledge. Probably the most effective speech of modern times was the short address of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg; but this was simply the expression of the gathered forces of his whole political life.
In the month of July, 1837, Mr. Gladstone was married to Miss Catherine Glyn, daughter of Sir Stephen Richard Glyn, of Hawarden Castle, in Flintshire, Wales,--a marriage which proved eminently happy. Eight children have been the result of this union, of whom but one has died; all the others have "turned out well," as the saying is, though no one has reached distinguished eminence. It would seem that Mr. Gladstone, occupying for forty years so superb a social and public station, has not been ambitious for the worldly advancement of his children, nor has he been stained by nepotism in pushing on their fortunes. The eldest son was a member of Parliament; the second became a clergyman; and the eldest daughter married a clergyman in a prominent position as headmaster of Wellington College.
It would be difficult to say when the welfare of the Church and the triumph of theological truth have not received a great share of Mr. Gladstone's thoughts and labors. At an early period of his parliamentary career he wrote an elaborate treatise on the "State in its relation to the Church." It is said that Sir Robert. Peel threw the book down on the floor, exclaiming that it was a pity so able a man should jeopardize his political future by writing such trash; but it was of sufficient importance to furnish Macaulay a subject for one of his most careful essays, in which however, though respectful in tone,--patronizing rather than eulogistic,--he showed but little sympathy with the author. He pointed out many defects which the critical and religious world has sustained. In the admirable article which Mr. Gladstone wrote on Lord Macaulay himself for one of the principal Reviews not many years ago, he paid back in courteous language, and even under the conventional form of panegyric, in which one great man naturally speaks of another, a still more searching and trenchant criticism on the writings of the eminent historian. Gladstone shows, and shows clearly and conclusively, the utter inability of Macaulay to grasp subjects of a spiritual and subjective character, especially exhibited in his notice of the philosophy of Bacon. He shows that this historian excels only in painting external events and the outward acts and peculiarities of the great characters of history,--and even then only with strong prejudices and considerable exaggerations, however careful he is in sustaining his position by recorded facts, in which he never makes an error. To the subjective mind of Gladstone, with his interest in theological subjects, Macaulay was neither profound nor accurate in his treatment of philosophical and psychological questions, for which indeed he had but little taste. Such men as Pascal, Leibnitz, Calvin, Locke, he lets alone to discuss the great actors in political history, like Warren Hastings, Pitt, Harley; but in his painting of such characters he stands pre-eminent over all modern writers. Gladstone does justice to Macaulay's vast learning, his transcendent memory, and his matchless rhetoric,--making the heaviest subjects glow with life and power, effecting compositions which will live for style alone, for which in some respects he is unapproachable.
Indeed, I cannot conceive of two great contemporary statesmen more unlike in their mental structure and more antagonistic in their general views than Gladstone and Macaulay, and unlike also in their style. The treatise on State and Church, on which Gladstone exhibits so much learning, to me is heavy, vague, hazy, and hard to read. The subject, however, has but little interest to an American, and is doubtless much more highly appreciated by English students, especially those of the great universities, whom it more directly concerns. It is the argument of a young Oxford scholar for the maintenance of a Church establishment; is full of ecclesiastical lore, assuming that one of the chief ends of government is the propagation of religious truth,--a ground utterly untenable according to the universal opinion of people in this country, whether churchmen or laymen, Catholic or Protestant, Conservative or liberal.
On the fall of the Whig government in 1841, succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone was appointed vice-president of the Board of Trade and master of the Mint, and naturally became more prominent as a parliamentary debater,--not yet a parliamentary leader. But he was one of the most efficient of the premier's lieutenants, a tried and faithful follower, a disciple, indeed,--as was Peel himself of Canning, and Canning of Pitt. He addressed the House in all the important debates,--on railways, on agricultural interests, on the abolition of the corn laws, on the Dissenters' Chapel Bills, on sugar duties,--a conservative of conservatives, yet showing his devotion to the cause of justice in everything except justice to the Catholics in Ireland. He was opposed to the grant to Maynooth College, and in consequence resigned his office when the decision of the government was made known,--a rare act of that conscientiousness for which from first to last he has been pre-eminently distinguished in all political as well as religious matters. His resignation of office left him free to express his views; and he disclaimed, in the name of law, the constitution, and the history of the country, the voting of money to restore and strengthen the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland. In deference to Sir Robert Peel and the general cause of education his opposition was not bitter or persistent; and the progressive views which have always marked his career led him to support the premier in his repeal of the corn laws, he having been, like his chief, converted to the free-trade doctrines of Cobden. But the retirement of such prominent men as the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Stanley (of Alderley) from his ministry, as protectionists, led to its breaking up in 1846 and an attempt to form a new one under Lord John Russell, which failed; and Sir Robert Peel resumed direction of a government pledged to repeal the corn laws of 1815. As the Duke of Newcastle was a zealous protectionist, under whose influence Mr. Gladstone had been elected member of Parliament, the latter now resigned his seat as member for Newark, and consequently remained without a seat in that memorable session of 1846 which repealed the corn laws.