RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION.
In the article published by us this month, on the Right of Instruction, Judge Hopkinson has alluded to some opinions of Edmund Burke. It may perhaps be as well to copy here one or two of the paragraphs to which we suppose allusion is made.
In his speech in 1780, at the Guildhall in Bristol, upon certain points relative to his parliamentary conduct, we have what follows.
Let me say with plainness, I who am no longer in a public character, that if by a fair, by an indulgent, by a gentlemanly behavior to our representatives, we do not give confidence to their minds, and a liberal scope to their understandings; if we do not permit our members to act upon a very enlarged view of things, we shall at length infallibly degrade our national representation into a confused and scuffling bustle of local agency.
Again, in the same speech—
What, gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or, foreseeing, was I not to endeavor to save you from all these multiplied mischiefs and disgraces? Would the little, silly, canvass prattle of obeying instructions, and having no opinions but yours, and such idle, senseless tales which amuse the vacant ears of unthinking men, have saved you from the “pelting of that pitiless storm” to which the loose improvidence, the cowardly rashness of those who dare not look danger in the face, so as to provide against it in time have exposed this degraded nation?
Again—
I did not obey your instructions. No—I conformed to the instructions of truth and nature, and maintained your interest against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look indeed to your opinions; but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale.
And farther—
As to the opinion of the people which some think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed; near two years tranquillity, which followed the act, proved abundantly that the late horrible spirit was, in a great measure, the effect of insidious art, and perverse industry and gross misrepresentation. But suppose that the dislike had been much more deliberate, and much more general than I am persuaded it was.—When we know that the opinions of even the greatest multitudes are the standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged to make those opinions the masters of my conscience. But if it may be doubted whether Omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such things as they and I, are possessed of no such power. No man carries farther than I do the policy of making government pleasing to the people. But the widest range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of justice.... “But if I profess all this impolitic stubbornness I may chance never to be elected into Parliament.” It is certainly not pleasing to be put out of the public service. But I wish, in being a member of Parliament, to have my share of doing good and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat.