It would be foreign to our purpose in this place to relate the circumstances attending the passing of the bill, and the admission of O'Connell into the House of Commons. We are concerned, not so much with these events, as with the premiers who brought them about. Peel did not acquire the confidence of the Irish whom he had emancipated. O'Connell regarded him with implacable aversion, and nothing could exceed the hatred and distrust with which he was treated by the Tories who had once been his friends. It was nothing to them that the change of his politics had been the result of long and arduous study; that he had taken nothing for granted, but required proof of every statement made by those who sought to convert him to their side. They had not seen what we possess—the posthumous volumes edited by Peel's trustees, Lord Stanhope and Mr. Cardwell—and they could not, therefore, judge of the laborious and conscientious search by which he arrived at his conclusions; and even if they had seen them, it is probable that they would have reproached him for investigating the subject in a hesitating frame of mind, and for beating out for himself and many of his followers a path of apostasy.
Eighteen years passed by before any other measure of importance affecting Catholic interests was laid before the houses of parliament. The influence of emancipation in a liberal direction was felt deeply in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, which but for that previous act of justice would have been impossible. The Duke of Wellington prepared the way for Lord Grey, just as Grey and his colleagues, by shaking the power of the aristocracy and destroying the rotten boroughs, led in the issue to the more extended reform bill carried by the late Lord Derby, to the extension of the suffrage to all householders and a large proportion of lodgers, and to the passage of the Irish Church bill. During the premierships of Lord Melbourne and of Sir Robert Peel the questions of free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws absorbed public attention, and the Catholic topic was all but set aside. The paltry grant to Maynooth was made a yearly subject of hot debate, and a few thousands per annum were grudgingly bestowed on an Irish college for the education of priests, while the Protestant establishment in that island continued to be the most richly endowed in the world in proportion to the number of its members. The public mind, however, was attracted and agitated by a spectacle in which parliament was not concerned, and which in all the course of legislation in favor of Catholics had never been contemplated. This was the extraordinary progress of Catholic ideas, doctrines, and practices in the University of Oxford, and among the clergy of the establishment. The excitement which this produced had reached its height when, in February, 1847, a bill intended to supplement the emancipation of 1829 was introduced by Mr. Watson, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Escott. At that time Lord John Russell was premier, with Grey, Palmerston, Macaulay, and Granville among his colleagues. They were little inclined to favor Catholicity, though in matters of politics they usually adopted a liberal line; and, considering that in 1829 there had been 2521 petitions presented to the Lords against emancipation, and only 1014 in support of it—2013 to the Commons against it, and only 955 in its favor—considering that of 238 newspapers in the United Kingdom in 1829, though 107 had been in its favor, 87 had been against it and 4 neutral—it was not surprising that the relief bill of Lord John Manners did not find as many strong supporters as it deserved. The country was alarmed at the spread of "popery," and the bill in question seemed designed to quicken its pace and widen its conquests. It would, if it had been carried, have removed some remaining disabilities; but the loss of the bill did not in reality affect in any very great degree the freedom of Catholics or the progress of their religion. The premier, Lord John Russell, in the same year—1847—when discussing the question of national education, stated that, if a desire were entertained to have schools for Catholics, and for such only, he would be in favor of it; but he reminded his hearers that "of all the half-million which had been already spent under the direction of the treasury, and in accordance with the minutes of the council on education, not one shilling was given in aid of the Roman Catholic schools;" and in the issue Catholic children were excluded from all participation in the grant of £100,000 a year which formed part of the government scheme of education brought forward by the prime minister. This is enough to prove how lukewarm Lord John Russell was in his wish to promote education among Catholics; and it is enough, also, to lessen our surprise at that monstrous display of intolerance and bad statesmanship with which he signalized his ministry in 1851.
It was two months after the close of the session in 1850, that a papal rescript establishing a regular hierarchy in England, and parcelling out the country into dioceses, was published by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and produced a commotion altogether disproportioned to the cause. The document was simple and ordinary in its character, and if issued in reference to any other country but England, would probably have attracted no attention, and certainly have excited no surprise, terror, indignation, and wrath. Among the English it was received like the news of a French invasion. It was denounced as a "papal aggression," and the prime minister, instead of allaying the storm, which he might easily have done, lashed the waves to fury by his letter to the Bishop of Durham. He affected to be taken by surprise, whereas the holy father had himself shown the brief to Lord Minto, Lord John Russell's father-in-law, who had been residing in Rome in a diplomatic capacity. Lord Minto had raised no objection to the publication of the document, nor offered any suggestion as to the mode of procedure. It was Cardinal Wiseman, therefore, and the Catholics of England and Ireland, who were taken by surprise when the premier, who had spent his life in promoting "civil and religious liberty," suddenly effaced the inscription from his banner, and stood forward as the most prominent assailant of Catholics in the kingdom. It was the more inconsistent and absurd in him to act thus, because the right of the Catholic bishops to designate themselves by the titles of their sees was recognized by common usage, by the servants of the government, and in one act, at least, of parliament. Lord John's inflammatory letter to the Bishop of Durham was followed by a speech from the throne, couched in very high-flown and pompous language about the necessity of maintaining unimpaired the "religious liberty" which no one had sought to invade except the premier and his friends.
The queen's speech was followed in due time by a bill for preventing the "assumption of any title, not only from any diocese now existing, but from any territory or place in any part of the United Kingdom, and to restrain parties from obtaining by virtue of such titles any control over trust property." Never was a more foolish measure carried through parliament; firstly, because it made not the smallest change in the existing state of things—it did not prevent a single bishop from using on proper occasion the title of his see, as conferred on him by papal authority; secondly, it was not even intended to be carried into effect. Lord John Russell and his colleagues never dreamed of summoning bishop after bishop into court, and compelling them to pay the fine of £100 each, or go to prison. Such a proceeding would have enlisted popular feeling immediately on their side. All the wisest heads in parliament—men like Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Gladstone—warned the premier of the folly he was committing in pandering to the wishes of an illiberal and panic-stricken multitude.
The opposition offered to the measure by Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone is all the more to our purpose because both these statesmen became at a late period prime ministers. Lord Aberdeen was one of those whose minds had undergone a great change on many important subjects, and there can be no doubt that he had yielded his to the plastic influence of Sir Robert Peel. Having taken part in the ministry of the Duke of Wellington, he had, in 1829, contributed to the success of the emancipation bill; and when Peel was driven from office, after abolishing the corn-laws, by the resentment of the protectionists, he had followed his master into retirement, and declined a place in the cabinet which was offered to him by Lord John Russell. It was not likely, therefore, that he would in 1851 betray the principles which he held sacred, and aid in swelling an insensate cry. He saw clearly that the ecclesiastical titles bill had the double defect of being persecutive if carried into operation, and contemptible if passed only to lie dormant. He accordingly resisted it with all the more dignity because he knew that resistance was, for the time being, fruitless.
Mr. Gladstone has not been consistent in his politico-religious career. In 1838, he appeared in print as the resolute champion of "church and state," recommending the exclusion of all persons not of the Established Church from participation in the advantage of subsidies granted for religious purposes. In 1839 and 1840, he opposed the admission of Jews into parliament, and the assistance afforded by the state to dissenters for the education of their children. He upheld that unjust establishment in Ireland which he has since overthrown; and in 1845 he resigned his place in the cabinet in order that he might be perfectly free to vote as he pleased on the grants to Maynooth and the endowment of Peel's colleges in Ireland. When out of office, he supported both these measures, and rendered himself very obnoxious to many of his supporters at Oxford by the growing affection he manifested for liberal measures. The year 1847 saw him pleading for diplomatic relations with Rome, and complaining that the government had not communicated with the holy see before establishing the queen's colleges in Ireland. In accordance with these generous and enlightened views, Mr. Gladstone saw with disgust the intemperate conduct of the premier and the parliament in the case of the ecclesiastical titles bill. He contended that the influence of the Protestant church in England could never be maintained and extended by temporal enactments; that the papal rescript for assigning sees and titles to Roman Catholic bishops did not interfere in any way with the political rights of Englishmen; and ought not to be made the occasion of a hostile, oppressive, and impotent act of parliament.
"We, the opponents of the bill," he said, "are a minority, insignificant in point of numbers. We are more insignificant, because we have no ordinary bond of union. What is it that binds us together against you but the conviction that we have on our side the principle of justice—the conviction that we shall soon have on our side the course of public opinion?"
Events have proved how completely his words were true. The ecclesiastical titles bill is now regarded with scorn, and treated with ridicule. Earl Russell has confessed his mistake, and Catholics, whom it was intended to humiliate, are quite indifferent to a prohibitory measure which was never meant to be enforced. The reform bill carried through both houses by Disraeli and Lord Derby made the disestablishment of the Irish Church possible; the nation, freely represented, pronounced in its favor; and the measure was passed. A sense of justice, if not a feeling of repentance, has come over the public mind; and a brief space of time has sufficed to dispel prejudices that were the growth of ages. Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the liberal party, has been chiefly instrumental in producing this change; but it would be unfair not to specify Mr. Bright as another most powerful agent in bringing about the result. So long ago as 1852, the former gentleman declared his opinion that if Mr. Spooner's annual motion against the Maynooth grant should ever succeed, and "the endowment were withdrawn, the parliament which withdrew it must be prepared to enter upon the whole subject of the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical arrangements in Ireland." These words were considered remarkable at the time, and appear even more so when viewed by the light of recent events. They plainly foreshadowed that sweeping measure which we have recently seen him triumphantly carry. They pointed to a radical alteration in the existing unfair and anomalous relations between the church of the many and the church of the few in the sister isle. They left it, indeed, undecided whether "levelling up" or "levelling down" should be tried; whether the several churches, Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian, should be all reduced to the voluntary systems, as in the United States, or whether the Roman Catholic clergy should be raised by the state to equal privileges and emoluments with those enjoyed by the Protestant pastors.
In the year 1868, it became manifest that the conservative and the liberal parties alike were agreed as to the necessity of doing something with the Irish Church. It also became apparent that the leading men in each party favored respectively the two plans just alluded to—the "levelling up" and the "levelling down" process. Lord Derby, with his son Lord Stanley, Mr. Disraeli, and other conservatives, were inclined to make the Catholic clergy in Ireland stipendiaries of the state; but they did not boldly and honestly propose any such measure for the consideration of parliament. The difficulties which faced them were greater than they could hope to overcome. The Catholic bishops of Ireland had distinctly refused to close with any offer of stipend for the priests. They asked for impartial legislation, but not for pay. This difficulty amounted almost to an impossibility; for of what avail was it to vote emoluments to those who would not accept them? But there was another obstacle of almost equal magnitude, which consisted in the unwillingness of the English people to endow "popery" in any shape. One half of the electors under the new reform bill were persons not in communion with the Church of England; and these, together with many Anglicans, approved the voluntary system in preference to national state churches of any kind. Lord Mayo, therefore, the Secretary of State for Ireland, was studiedly ambiguous in setting forth the intentions of the government in regard to Irish ecclesiastical matters. They were willing to establish and endow a Catholic university in Dublin, and to do something (no one could discover exactly what) in the way of "levelling up." Mr. Gladstone instantly exposed the absurdity of these crude and vague intimations. He declared in the most emphatic manner that the Irish Church must cease to exist as an establishment, and it soon became apparent that the liberal party were determined to aid him to the utmost in accomplishing his design. It was an extraordinary climax. The most popular man in the kingdom—a Protestant representing a Protestant constituency, and the premier-to-be of a Protestant queen and a Protestant cabinet—was willing and eager, in the name of the people, to disestablish and disendow that church in Ireland which had for three centuries been the pledge of Protestant ascendency and the main support of English and Protestant landlordism in that island.
His foremost opponents were the late Lord Derby and Disraeli, each of them prime ministers at different periods. Their opposition was the less formidable because they were both men of mixed politics. Lord Derby had been by turns the friend and the foe of Catholic liberty and equality. He defended the Irish establishment against Joseph Hume in 1824; but he supported, under the régime of Earl Grey, the cause of emancipation in 1832. He aided in relieving the Irish Catholics from the payment of tithes, and he helped to strike off the chains of the negro by presenting a bill for their liberation; but, on the other hand, he resisted with all his might the appropriation clause in an Irish Church bill of 1834, and even quitted office because he would not give it his countenance. To sequestrate any part of the property of the Irish establishment and apply it to secular purposes was, in his eyes, to commit a sacrilege and to violate a common right. To this feeling he continued to adhere, and to the last opposed the Irish Church bill intended to disestablish and disendow the Protestant Church in Ireland. He intimated, however, to the peers who were of his party, that he did not think it their absolute duty to oppose the bill as he had done. For the sake of consistency he voted against it, while not a few of them did otherwise, seeing how many evils might arise from their resistance to the will of the Commons and the majority of the electors. Yet it was he and Mr. Disraeli who made the passing of this bill possible and inevitable. It was the reform bill which they introduced, and which extended the suffrage to all householders and many lodgers, that made the liberal party stronger, and the abolition of the Irish establishment necessary. It is strange, indeed, that Lord Derby, who offered so dogged a resistance to free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws, who, with Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, headed the forces of the protectionists, should have been the means of developing the democratic element in the British constitution to a degree previously unknown and unsought, even by the liberals. It is strange, passing strange, that he should thus have brought about indirectly the measures he most wished to avert; and the fact of his having so acted is sufficient to stamp him as a second-rate statesman, and hardly worthy of a philosopher's name.