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some satisfaction to have been able to state the grounds of that difference in his presence . He wished , in the first place , to separate from the consideration of the question every thing which had been said with regard to the state of the Jews and the Quakers . In his opinion the state of the Jews had no possible counexiou with the subject before
their Lordships . It was somewhat different with regard to the Quakers ; and he would here take leave to make au observation or two upon what had fallen from the Noble Marquis when he spoke of a doubt having been thrown out respecting the validity of a Quaker's marriage . If that doubt rested on any thing
which had fallen from him , he desired to say that he must have been completely misunderstood ; for he had no doubt on the subject , and on the contrary , desired distinctly to give it as his opinion , that their marriages were perfectly valid according to law . He was the more anxious to say this , because he was aware that doubts had once been raised as to
the law on that subject . In 1661 , they would find that a proceeding at law took place on the subject , which ended in establishing the validity of such marriages ; and again , in 1730 , in another proceeding at common law , though a doubt was cast upon the legality of a Quaker marriage , its validity was afterwards confirmed . The 7 th and 8 th of
William and Mary contain , however , a clause which certainly had given rise to doubts on the subject , ( though he thought they were not of much weight , ) for by a clause of that act ( which he concluded was the one adverted to by the Noble Marquis ) it was for the purposes of taxation declared that all persons living together after the manner of the Quakers , should be taken and held to be married
persons , whether they had been married or not according to the established forms . Having now looked into this question more than he had been able to do on a former occasion , he was of opinion , not only that the Quakers were iutitled to the benefit of the law as valid marriages , but that they ought to have further benefits in that respect
which he believed they had not , with reference in , particular to the ecclesiastical law . Certainly , if the House did more for the present applicants , that same they ought to do for Jews and Quakers . With respect to the marriages of Jews , a question arose in the Court of Chancery aa to their validity 00 lately as the time when Lord Rosslyn was Chancellor . A man claimed a legacy as due to him 011
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the ground of Us having been left to a person whom he called his wife . The persons were a Jew and a Jewess , and the question in the case was whether the legatee was his wife . The Lord Chancellor sent the question to be tried by the Ecclesiastical Court , and the case came on before the present Lord Stowell . Lord S to well , and also Sir W . Wynn , who afterwards affirmed the judgment of Lord Stowell , expressed their surprise that this case should have been sent to an
Ecclesiastical Court by the Court of Chancery , inasmuch as the Lord Chancellor had just as much right as an Ecclesiastical Court to decide incidentally on the validity of a Jewish marriage , or on that of a foreign marriage . They , on the other hand , were Ecclesiastical officers , and bound by the stricter rules _ and maxims of Ecclesiastical Courts . They decided ,
however , that a marriage of Jews was to be considered as a marriage of foreigners . Now the validity of a foreign marriage must be decided by the leaf loci ; but it is a maxim of law , that the Jews , who are in one sense every where , are , in effect , no where ; being foreigners , and yet having no country to which they can be assigned . As the Jews , therefore , have no place , aa
they have no locality , no lex loci could apply to their case , but the validity of their marriages must be determined by their conformity with their own peculiar laws . But whatever had been done for the case of Jews and Quakers , the legislature had never yet called on the Church of England
to assist them . Whatever it might be disposed to do with regard to the marriages of this particular class of Dissenters , he trusted it would never assent to any measure , the effect of which would be to degrade the Church of England in the public estimationf as he would presently shew this Bill would do . With respect
to the marriages of Quakers , he was certainly of opinion that it was fair to argue that the very exception in the 26 th George II . implied that they were to be considered legal marriages . But let their Lordships consider at what period of the Session it was that they were discussing , and were called upon to decide , this most important question . He ( Lord Eldon )
had given the greatest attention to this Bill ; he had weighed every sentence and line in it ; but he found it utterly impossible to assent to the passing of this Bill without a great number of alterations . Now if , labouring as he ( Lord E . ) had done , with a view to make this Bill better than it was , he had been unable to accomplish his object , h ^ dld thin k that no time or labour tUeJrfftrdships could be-
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616 Zrijttllig'enckf- * Unitarian fifarrwge BtH
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1827, page 616, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1799/page/64/
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