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friend j ( h&rd ; Liverpool ) had called upon tfrose LoHi »> wliooii' -former occasions had been the friends of the general measure , to consider whether any advantage could
be derived to it from the success of this ; now he , as one of those who had always been favourable to the concession of the Catholic claims , believed that from passing this Bill , the greatest of all benefits would accrue to the country—the benefit of doing justice . In comparison with this , he set at nought all which they had heard
in the way of precedent and authority ; all the statements and documents which had been quoted ; all the penal enactments for which the Statute-Book had been referred to , whether these
enactments were contained in this or that form of words . His answer to all this was , < x Be just , and fear not . " His noble and learned friend ( Lord Chancellor ) had asked , how they could ever infringe upon the law so much as to admit these
Catholic Peers into their House ? But where was the law which excluded them ? No such law every passed . It ' never could have entered into the mind of man to pass one of the kind . Admitted they might still be ; but their admission would be accompauied by certain tests which perjury and iniquity had caused to be
imposed upon them—tests which were required to be taken in those time * When various other restraints , disabilities , and penalties operated on the Rofl&an Catholic community , and tests so repugnant to the spirit of their faith , that no one would dare to propose them to a Roman Catholic . His Lordship concluded an able and
impressive speecli by declaring , that this was a question of right to he done , which their Lordships had too long delayed to do ; and that it was because the question had been treated as one of mere expediency instead of one of distributive justice , that he had stated the grounds of his supporting the Bill so much at length .
Lord Redesdale contended that the legislature had the same right to exclude Peers from the House of Lords , as to exclude private persons ( being Catholics ) from the House of Commons . One of
the first duties of the legislature was to protect the state-religion . With the question , neither right nor justice had any thing to do . If the present measure was carried , the Protestant establishment of Ireland must fall .
Lord Holland concluded the debate with an admirable speech , in which he tore in pieces the sophistry by which the Bill had been opposed , and ridiculed most « H * 6 ce 8 sfiill y the fears of ita enemies . He ended With the following observation , which he thought very material to the question t 5 * All power , whether conferred
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Intelligence . —Parliamentary . 453
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upon a King or upon a placeman , was intended for the good of the people . The pedple had said that they could not with any security or confidence intrust their interests to a Catholic . When , therefore , a monarch became a Oatholic , they said , he shall no longer be our King ; he shall
forfeit by his conversion his right to the throne , and another shall take his place . But the people who said this in the case of the King , had not so decided in respect to the excluded Peers , for whose admission into Parliament the Bill was introduced . They had not destroyed , they had
only suspended their rights . They did not pass a bill of attainder against them , and deprive them of their property and rank ; they only said in certain circumstances it was not expedient that they should exercise their legislative functions . The nation , therefore , which passed the Act excluding the Peers , without
attainting their blood or transferring their privileges to others for being Catholics , and which deprived the King of his throne for being so , intended to treat differently the religious opinions of the Sovereign and the Peer , and meant to suspend ^ not to annul , the privileges of the latter . " On a Division , the numbers were on the motion for the second reading ,
Contents , Present 80 , Proxies 49—129 . Not Contents , Present 97 , Proxies 74—171 .
Majority 42 . Of the Bishops , only the Bishop of Norwich voted for the Bill ; two Archbishops and twenty-two Bishops voted against it .
HOUSE of COMMONS , June 21 . Religious Instruction of Capital Con victs * In the Committee on the Prison Laws
Consolidation Bill , an amendment , moved by Dr . Lusfiington , was adopted , after considerable conversation , allowing to every prisoner under sentence of death the visits and spiritual assistance of a Dissenting minister , whatever his religions
persuasion . June 24 . Influence of the Crown by means of the Church . In the debate on the " Influence of the Crown , " when Mr . Brougham ' s
Resolution ( introduced by a splendid speech ) was lost by a majority of 216 to 101 # Mr . H . G . Bennett made the following , amongst other striking observations : — " Another point of view in which it was not possible to avoid putting the question
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1822, page 453, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2514/page/61/
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