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Untitled Article
Which , ifi tny place itt Parliament , I have had occasion to commerit , I harve bdntafttofed'oti'tiotte -with iftone indignation and rebuke tfian dtf t&a ( F 1 ¥ hifch , admitting the whole made population to a vote , presumptuously excluder women from a right of suffrage / falsely cferif&fnJnated universal . I do not mean t& ' say thsit eveii the association of the softer sex would entirely reconcile me to art Extension of it , which I think would be full of mischief .
But there is one pledge which I am quite ready to grve , that I will never consent to any plan of suffrage in which they are not included / This was , of course , an electioneering flourish—* a stumblingblock thrown in the way of reform ; for such is the state of morals
that public and party dereliction from the rig ht line of truth is one thing , and private mendacity another . But Mr . Canning ' s words niay suggest a reflection worthy of some consideration ; that is , how far the absence of all public and universal feeling and principle , all power of forming opinions of public men and measures , all aim and interest in the general improvement and
wellbeing of the nation and the species , in one half of a people , are likely to affect the whole . The lovers of liberty , like lovers in general , have in general desired' to keejp her exclusively to themselves ; hence freedom has been but a name . Real liberty can alone exist among them wbo are t o ** equitable to inflict on another that to which they would do * submit themselves . Among the properly informed , the properl y feeding , the words ' command and obedience need have no existence / I fear the moral millennium , which will reform our
theory And our practice , our language and our conduct , is more reihote-than some imagine ; yet in the mean time we may modify , if we cannot remove , existing errors and evils . It may he unceasingly and anxiously urged upon people to choose , in all associations , any means of operating on their fellow-creatures rather than coercion : necessity may induce submission , but nature will produce a reaction ; nature will have her indemnity , whenever k is possible to obtain it , and the rebound is ever proportioned to the force of the original blow .
I exult to feel that nothing can now check the stream of knowledge from flowing free and wide as the beneficial waters of tire ocean . In consequence , the chances are as one to & million in comparison to what they were , that new discoveries and improvements of every kind will be made , and that happiness will be mote perfectly and permanently realized . No longer does it need the lucky chance of being born to move in a cloister or a court to insure access to knowled ge * The godcless now walks
abroad , sits down on the snowboard , and tamea m the cottage BLfrKged be h * r advent and her . stoy ! It tilay m * ke lolitery a ^ gns of g * nhu * mere rase , fog thty qv <* ^ kioe bw ^ t # » t ^» iui Hurwpding * darkness $ inititwli m « k * jr » ctio *) < infrHigwce u * 4 , it » . con comitant , happiness , general , and that is everything .
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1835, page 497, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2647/page/61/
