Towards such a purpose therefore, as tending to union by its political effects, the Protestant predominancy is useful; and secondly, were it no otherwise useful, it is so to every possible administration by means of its patronage. This function of a government—which, being withdrawn, no government could have the means of sustaining itself for a year—connects the collateral channels of Irish honours and remunerations with the great national current of similar distributions at home. We see that the Scottish establishment, although differing essentially by church government, yet on the ground that doctrinally it is almost in alliance with the Church of England, has not (except by a transient caprice) refused to the crown a portion of its patronage. On the other hand, if the Roman Catholic church were installed as the ruling church, every avenue and access for the government to the administration of national resources so great, would be closed at once. These evils from the overthrow of the Protestant church, we mention in limine, not as the greatest—they are the least; or, at any rate, they are so with reference to the highest interests—but for their immediate results upon the purposes common to all governments; and there they would be fatal, for any Roman Catholic church, where it happens also (like the Irish) to be a Papal church, neither will nor can confide privileges of this nature to the state. A Papal church, not modified (as the Gallican church) by original limitations of the Papal authority, not modified (as even the bigoted churches of Portugal and Austria) by modern conventional limitations of that alien authority, gloomily refuses and must refuse, to accept any thing from the state, for the simple reason that she is incapacitated for giving any thing. Wisely, according to the wisdom of this world, she cuts away from below the footing of the state all ground on which a pretence could ever be advanced for interfering with herself. Consequently, whosoever, and by whatsoever organs, would suffer from the overthrow of the Irish church as now established by law, the administration of the land would feel the effects from such a change, first and instantly. Let us not mistake the case. Mr O'Connell did not seriously aim at Repeal—that he knew too well to be an enterprise which could not surmount its earliest stages without coming into collision with the armed forces of the land; and no man will ever believe that he dreamed of prevailing there. What was it, then, that he did aim at? It was the establishment in supremacy of the Papal church. His meaning was, in case he had been left quietly to build up his aspiring purpose so high as seriously to alarm the government, then suddenly to halt, to propose by way of compromise some step in advance for his own church. Suppose that some arrangement which should have the effect of placing that church on a footing of equality, as a privileged (not as an endowed) church, with the present establishment; this gained, he might have safely left the church herself thenceforwards, from such a position of advantage, to fight her way onwards, to the utter destruction of her rival.
Thus it was that the conspirators hoped to terrify the minister into secret negotiation and compromise. But that hope failed. The minister was firm. He watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what perfection of success the reader knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection we speak of lay as much in the manner of the trial as in its result—in the sanctities of abstinence, in the holy forbearance to use any one of many decent advantages, in the reverence for the sublime equities of law. Oh, mightiest of spectacles which human grandeur can unfold to the gaze of less civilized nations, when the ermine of the judge and the judgment-seat, belted by no swords, bristling with no bayonets—when the shadowy power of conscience, citing, as it were, into the immediate presence of God twelve upright men, accomplishing for great kingdoms, by one day's memorable verdict, that solemn revolution which elsewhere would have caused torrents of blood to flow, and would perhaps have unsealed the tears of generations. Since the trial of the seven bishops[2]—which inaugurated for England the certainty that for her the "bloody writing" was torn which would have consigned her children to the mercies of despotism—there has been no such crisis, no such agitation, no such almighty triumph. Here was the second chapter of the history; and lastly, that the nine nights' debate attached itself as the third, is evident from its real purpose, which may be expressed strictly in this problem: Given, as a fact beyond all doubt, that O'Connell's Repeal conspiracy is for ever shattered; let it now be proposed, as a thing worthy of the combined parties in opposition, to find out some vicarious or supplementary matter for sedition. A new agitation must be found, gentlemen—a new grievance must be had, or Ireland is tranquillized, and we are lost. Was there ever a case illustrating so strongly the maxim, that no man can be effectually ruined except by himself? Here is Lord John Russell, taxed a thousand times with having not merely used Mr O'Connell as an ally, but actually as having lent himself to Mr O'Connell as an instrument. Is that true? A wise man, kind-hearted, and liberal in the construction of motives, will have found himself hitherto unwilling to suppose a thing so full of disgrace; he will have fancied arguments for scepticism. But just at this moment of critical suspense, forth steps Lord John himself, and by his own act dissipates all doubts, frankly subscribing the whole charge against himself; for his own motion reveals and publishes his wrath against the ministers for having extinguished the only man, viz. a piratical conspirator, by whose private license there was any safety for navigating the sea of Irish politics. The exact relation in which Lord John had hitherto stood to Mr O'Connell, was that of a land-owner paying black-mail to the cateran who guaranteed his flocks from molestation: how naturally must the grazier turn with fury on the man who, by suppressing his guardian, has made it hopeless for the future to gain private ease by trafficking in public wrongs! The real grievance was, the lopping Dagon of all power to stand erect, and thus laying the Whig-radical under the necessity of "walking in the light of the constitution" without aid from Irish crutches. The realonus imposed on Lord John's party is, where to look for, and how to suborn, some new idol and some fresh idolatry. Still to dispense with the laws in Ireland in the event of their own return to power, still to banish tranquillity from Ireland in the event of Sir Robert's power continuing, required that some new conspiracy should be cited to the public service, possibly (after the 15th of April) some new conspirator. The new seditious movement could not be doubtful: by many degrees of preference, the war upon the Irish church had the "call." This is to be the war now pursued, and with advantages (as we have already said) never possessed by the Repeal cause. The chief advantage of that lay in the utter darkness to the Irish peasantry of the word "Repeal." What it meant no wizard could guess; and merely as a subject to allure by uncertain hopes, on the old maxim of "omne ignotum pro magnifico," the choice of that word had considerable merit. But the cause of Popery has another kind of merit, and (again we remind the reader) reposes upon another kind of support. In that cause the Irish peasantry will be unaffectedly and spontaneously zealous; in that cause there will be a confluence from many quarters of English aid. Far other phenomena will now come forward. Meetings, even of the kind convened by Mr O'Connell, are not, we must remember, found to be unlawful by the issue of the late trials. Had certain melodramatic features been as cautiously banished from Mr O'Connell's parades as latterly they were affectedly sought, it is certain that, to this hour, he and his pretended myriads would have been untouched by the petrific mace of the policeman. Lay aside this theatrical costuming of cavalry, of military step, &c., and it will be found that these meetings were lawful. Most certainly a meeting for the purpose of petitioning is not, and (unless by its own folly) never can be, found unlawful.
But may not this new conspiracy, which is now mustering and organizing itself, be put down summarily by force? We may judge of that by what has happened to the old conspiracy. Put down by martial violence, or by the police, Repeal would have retired for the moment only to come forward and reconstruct itself in successive shapes of mischief not provided for by law, or not shaped to meet the grasp of an executive so limited as, in these days, any English executive must find itself. On the other hand, once brought under the cognizance of law, it has been crushed in its fraudulent form, and compelled to transmigrate at once into that sincere, substantial, and final form, towards which it was always tending. Whatever of extra peril is connected with a movement so much more intelligible than Repeal, and so much more in alliance with the natural prepossessions of the Irish mind—better it is, after all, that this peril should be forced to show itself in open daylight, than that it should be lurking in ambush or mining underground; ready for a burst when other mischief might be abroad, or evading the clue of our public guardians. Besides that, Repeal also had its own peculiar terrors, notwithstanding that it did not grow up originally upon any stock of popular wishes, but had been an artificial growth propagated by an artificial inoculation. That flame also could burn fiercely when fanned by incendiaries, although it did not supply its own combustibles. And, think as we may of the two evils, valued as mischief against mischief, Repeal against Anti-protestantism, certain it is, that one most important advantage has accrued to Government from the change. Fighting against Repeal, they had to rely upon one sole resource of doubtful issue; for, after all, the law stood on the interpretation of a jury, and therefore too much on the soundness of individual minds; whereas in meeting the assaults of Anti-protestantism, backed as it is by six millions of combatants, ministers will find themselves reposing on the whole strength of two nations, and of that section, even amongst the Irish, which is socially the strongest. An old enemy is thus replaced by a new one many hundred-fold more naturally malignant; true, but immediately the new one will call forth a natural antagonism many thousand-fold more determined. Such is the result; and, though alarming in itself, for ministers it remains an advantage and a trophy. How was this result accomplished? By a Fabian policy of watching, waiting, warding, and assaulting at the right moment. Three times within the last twelve months have the Government been thrown upon their energies of attack and defence; three times have they been summoned to the most trying exercise of skill—vigilantly to parry, and seasonably to strike: first, when their duty was to watch and to arrest agitation; secondly, when their duty was, by process of law, to crush agitation; thirdly, when their duty was to explain and justify before Parliament whatsoever they had done through the two former stages. Now, then, let us rapidly pursue the steps of our ministers through each severally of these three stages; and by seasonable resumé or recapitulation, however brief, let us claim the public praise for what merits praise, and apply our vindication to what has been most misrepresented. The first charge preferred against the Government was, that it did not instantly attack the Repealers on their earliest appearance. We must all recollect this charge, and the bitterness with which it was urged during the whole of last summer; for, in fact, the difference of opinion upon this question led to a schism even amongst the Conservative party and press. The majority, headed by the leading morning paper, have treated it to this day as a ground of suspicion against Government, or at least as an impeachment of their courage, that they should have lingered or hesitated upon the proper policy. Our Journal was amongst the few which, after considerable reflection and perhaps doubt, defended the course adopted; and specifically upon the following suggestion, inter alia, viz. that Peel and the Wellesley were assuredly at that moment watching Mr O'Connell, not at all, therefore, hesitating as to the general character of the policy to be observed, but only waiting for the best mode (best in effect, best in popularity) of enforcing that policy. And we may remind our readers, that on that occasion we applied to the situation of the two parties, as they stood watching and watched, the passage from Wordsworth—
"The vacillating bondsman of the Pope
Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."
There was no great merit in being right; but it is proper to remind our readers that we were right. And there is considerable merit, more merit than appears, in not having been wrong; for in that we should have followed not only a vast leading majority amongst public authorities, but we should have followed an instinct of impassioned justice, which cannot endure to witness the triumph, though known to be but fugitive, of insolence and hyperbolical audacity. Not as partisans, which was proved by the caution of our manner, but after some deliberation, we expressed our conviction that Government was not slumbering, but surveying its ground, taking up its position, and trying the range of its artillery, in order to strike surely, to strike once, but so that no second blow should be needed. All this has been done; so far our predictions have been realized; and to that extent the Government has vindicated itself. But still it may be asked, to what extent? Doubtless the thing has been done, and done completely. Yet that will not necessarily excuse the Government. To be well done is, in many cases, all that we require; but in questions of civil policy often there is even more importance that it should be soon done, done maturely, (that is, seasonably done with a view to certain evils growing up concurrently with the evil,) done even prematurely with respect to immediate bad consequences open to instant arrest. At this moment amongst the parliamentary opponents of ministers, though some are taxing them with unconstitutional harshness, (or at least with that summum jus which the Roman proverb denounces as summa injuria,) in having ever interfered at all with Mr O'Connell, others of the same faction are roundly imputing to them a system of decoy, a "laying of traps," (that was the word,) in waiting so patiently for the ripening of the Repeal frenzy. Upon the same principle, a criminal may have a right to complain that her Majesty, when extending mercy to a first crime, or a crime palliated by its circumstances, and that a merciful prosecutor who intercedes effectually on his behalf with the court, have both been laying a trap for his future conduct; since, assuredly, there is one motive the less to a base nature for abstaining from evil in the mitigated consequences which the evil drew after it. On the same principle the Repealers, having found Sir R. Peel so anxious, in the first stages of their career, to spare them altogether, were seduced into thinking that surely he never would strike so hard when at length he had made ready to strike. Still, with submission, we think that to found false expectations upon a spirit of lenity, and upon that mistake to found an abuse of goodness that was really sincere, was not the fault of Sir R. Peel, but of the Repealers. Any man's goodness becomes a trap to him who is capable of making it such; since the most noble forbearance, misinterpreted as fear, will probably enough operate as a snare for such a person by tempting him into excesses calculated to rouse that courage with which all genuine forbearance is associated. If the early moderation of Government did really entrap any man, that man has himself, and his own meanness of heart, to thank for his delusion. But were it otherwise, and the Government became properly responsible for any possible misinterpretation of their own lenity—even in that case, it will remain to be enquired whether Government could have acted otherwise than it did. For else, though Government could owe little enough to the conspirator; yet with respect to the ill-educated and misled labouring man, whose honest sensibilities were so grievously played upon by traitors, we do ourselves conceive that Government had a clamorous duty. If such men by thousands believed that the cause of Repeal was patriotic, that we consider a delusion not of a kind or a class to challenge exposure from Government; they have neither such functions assigned to them, nor could they assume any office of teaching without suspicion. But when the credulity of the poor was shown also in anticipating impunity for the leader of Repeal, and upon the ground that ministers feared him, when for this belief there was really much plausible sanction in the behaviour of the Whig ministers—too plainly it became a marked duty of Sir Robert Peel to warn them how matters stood; to let them know that sedition tended to dangerous results, and that his Government was bound by no secret understanding, with sedition for averting its natural penalties. So much, we all agree, was due from the present Government to the poorer classes; and exactly because former governments had practically taken another view of sedition. If, therefore, Sir R. Peel had left unpaid this great debt, he failed grievously in the duties of his high office; but we are of opinion that he did not. We have an obscure remembrance that the Queen's speech uttered a voice on this point—a solemn, a monitory, a parental voice. We seem to recollect also, that in his own parliamentary place he warned the deluded followers of Repeal—that they were engaged in a chase that must be fruitless, and might easily become criminal. What was open to him, therefore, Sir Robert did. He applied motives, such as there were within his power, to lure men away from this seditious service. The "traps" he laid were all in that direction. If more is required of him by people arguing the case at present, it remains to ask whether more was at that time in his power.
The present administration came into power in September 1841. Why the Repealers did not go to work instantly, is more than we can explain; but so it was. In March of 1843, and not sooner, Mr O'Connell opened a new shop of mercenary agitation, and probably for the last time that he will ever do so. The surveillance of Government, it now appears, commenced almost simultaneously; why not the reaction of Government? Upon that it is worth spending a few words. It is now made known to the public, that from the very first Sir R. Peel had taken such measures of precaution as were really open to him. In communicating, officially with any district whatsoever, in any one of the three kingdoms, the proper channel through which the directions travel is the lord-lieutenant of the particular county in which the district lies. He is the direct representative of the sovereign—he stands at the head of the county magistrates, and is officially the organ between the executive and his own rural province. To this officer in every county, Sir R. Peel addressed a letter of instructions; and the principle on which these instructions turned was—that for the present he was to exercise a jealous neutrality; not interfering without further directions in ordinary cases, that is, where simply Repeal was advocated, or individuals were abused; but that, on the first suggestion of local outrages, the first incitement to mischief, arrests and other precautionary measures were to take place. Not much more than twenty years are gone by, since magistrates moved on principles so wholly different, that now, and to the youthful of this generation, they would seem monstrous. In those days, let any man be found to swear that he apprehended danger to his property, or violence to his person, from the assembling of a mob in a place assigned, and the magistrate would have held it his duty to disperse or prevent that meeting. But now on a changé tout cela; and as easily might a magistrate of this day commit Fanny Elssler as a vagabond. Yet even in these days we have heard it mooted—
1. On the mere ground of numerical amount, and as for that reason alone an uncontrollable mass, might not such a meeting have been liable to dispersion? Answer—this allegation of monstrous numbers was uniformly a falsehood; and a falsehood gross and childish. Was it for the dignity of Government to assume, as grounds of action, fables so absurd as these? Not to have assumed them, will never be made an argument of blame against the Executive; and, indeed, it was not possible to do so, since Government had employed qualified persons to estimate the numbers, and in some instances to measure the ground. The only real charge against Government, in connexion with these fables, is (and we grieve to say it) that of having echoed them, in an ambiguous way, at one point of the trials; not exactly assuming them for true, and resting any other truth upon their credit, but repeating them as parts inter alia of current popular hearsay. Now this, though probably the act of some subordinate officer, does a double indignity to Government; it is discreditable to the understanding, if such palpable nursery tales are adopted for any purpose; and openly to adulterate with falsehood, even in those cases where the falsehood is not associated with folly, still more deeply wounds the character of an honourable government. But, besides, had the numerical estimates stood upon any footing of truth, mere numbers could not have been pleaded as an argument for reasonable alarm. The false estimate was not pleaded by the Repealers until after the meetings, and as an inference from facts. But the use of the argument was before the meeting, and to prevent the meeting. And if the experience of past meetings were urged as an argument for presuming that the coming one would be not less numerous, concurrently would be urged this same experience as a demonstration that no danger was to be apprehended. Dangerous the meetings certainly were in another sense; but, in the police sense, so little dangerous, that each successive meeting squared, cubed, &c., in geometrical progression the guarantee in point of safety for all meetings that were to follow.
2. On the ground of sedition, and disaffection to the Government, might not these assemblages have been lawfully dispersed or prevented? Unfortunately, not under our modern atmosphere of political liberality. In time of war, when it may again become necessary, for the very salvation of the land, to suspend the habeas corpus act, sedition would revive into a new meaning. But, at all times, sedition is of too unlimited a nature to form the basis of an affidavit sworn before a police magistrate; and it is an idea which very much sympathizes with the general principles of political rights. When these are unusually licentious, sedition is interpreted liberally and laxly. Where danger tightens the restraints upon popular liberty, the idea of sedition is more narrowly defined. Sedition, besides, very much depends upon overt acts as expounding it. And to take any controversial ground for the basis of restraint upon personal liberty, would probably end in disappointment. At the same time, we must make one remark. Some months ago, in considering what offence was committed by the public avowal of the Repeal doctrine, we contended, that it amounted constructively to treason; and on the following argument—Why had any body supposed it lawful to entertain or to propagate such a doctrine? Simply, on the reflexion that, up to the summer of 1800, there was no union with Ireland: since August of that 1800, this great change had been made. And by what? By an act of Parliament. But could there be any harm in seeking the repeal of a parliamentary act? Is not that done in every session of the two Houses? And as to the more or less importance of an act, that is a matter of opinion. But we contended, that the sanctity of an act is to be deduced from the sanctity of the subjects for which it legislates. And in proof of this, we alleged the Act of Settlement. Were it so, that simply the term Act of Parliament implied a license universally for undoing and canceling it, then how came the Act of Settlement to enjoy so peculiar a consecration? We take upon us to say—that, in any year since the Revolution of 1688-9, to have called a meeting for the purpose of framing a petition against this act, would have been treason. Might not Parliament itself entertain a motion for repealing it, or for modifying it? Certainly; for we have no laws resembling those Athenian laws, which made it capitally punishable to propose their repeal. And secondly,—no body external to the two Houses, however venerable, can have power to take cognizance of words uttered in either of those Houses. Every Parliament, of necessity, must be invested with a discretionary power over every arrangement made by their predecessors. Each several Parliament must have the same power to undo, which former Parliaments had to do. The two Houses have the keys of St Peter—to unloose in the nineteenth century whatever the earliest Parliament in the twelfth century could bind. But this privilege is proper and exclusive to the two Houses acting in conjunction. Outside their walls, no man has power to do more than to propose as a petitioner some lawful change. But how could that be a lawful change which must begin by proposing to shift the allegiance into some other channel than that in which it now flows? The line of succession, as limited in the act, is composed of persons all interested. As against them, merely contingent and reversionary heirs, no treason could exist. But we have supposed the attempt to be against the individual family then occupying the throne. And it is clear that no pretence, drawn from the repealable nature of an English law, can avail to make it less, or other than treason, for a person outside of Parliament to propose the repeal of this act as to any point affecting the existing royal family, or at least, so many of that family as are privileged persons known to the constitution. Now, then, this remark instantly points to two classes of acts; one upon which to all men is open the right of calling for Repeal; another upon which no such right is open. But if this be so, then to urge the legality of calling for a Repeal of the Union, on the ground that this union rests only upon an act of Parliament, is absurd; because that leaves it still doubtful whether this act falls under the one class or the other.
Why do we mention this? Because we think it exceedingly important that the attention of parliament should be called to the subject, and to the necessity of holding certain points in our constitution as absolutely sacred. If a man or party should go about proclaiming the unlawfulness, in a religious sense, of property, and agitating for that doctrine amongst the lower classes by appropriate arguments—it would soon be found necessary to check them, and the sanctity of property would soon be felt to merit civil support. Possibly it will be replied—"Supposing the revolutionary doctrines followed by overt acts, then the true redress is by attacking these acts." Yet every body feels that, if the doctrine and the acts continued to propagate themselves, very soon both would be punished. In the case where missionaries incited negro slaves to outrages on property, or were said to do so, nobody proposed to punish only the overt outrages. So, again, in the event of those doctrines being revived which denounced all differences of rank, and the official distinctions of civil government, it would be too late to punish the results after the bonds of society were generally relaxed. Ministers are placed in a very false position, continually taxing a man with proposing the repeal of a law as if that were an admitted crime, and yet also pronouncing the proposed repeal of any law to be a privilege of every citizen. They will soon find it necessary to make their election for one or other of these incompatible views.