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Untitled Article
King is only responsible through his ministers , perhaps the Peers 9 te only responsible through tEeir cooks and footmen , and so the Constitution may be saved * Tlie one vicariousness is as efficient as Ae other for all practical purposes of public good . The illustration with which Lord Seagrave favoured the company was
drawn from his own conduct . He feels it his duty to meet the public ,, and give an account of his legislatorial doings . Rather lordly is the logic which thus establishes the doctrine that the Members of the Upper House are ' bound either to give an account of their votes , or to explain the motives which had influenced their votes / Lord Seagrave himself chooses his own time and place , and very pleasant times and places they are , fox
rendering his account to the public . The load of responsibility sits lightly at a friendly dinner , over a bottle of wine , amid toasts , songs , and cheenngs . Few Peers can be so unreasonable as to object thereto . The King himself would not shrink from it , unless by infirmity of age , albeit it should not be 'through his ministers . ' Lord Eldon has often been responsible at Merchant
Taylors' Hall , and the Duke of Wellington is very responsible at Apsley House , on the anniversary of Waterloo . Dr . Johnson defines responsibility ' the state of being obliged or qualified to answer . * It is news to us that any Peers are the one , or many of them the other . We should be glad to learn the nature of the tribunal , and the extent of its powers , before which they take their
trial . This word , responsibility , belongs to that cant in politics by which people have been so long cajoled . As applied to public men , what does it represent ? Nothing ; nothing whatever . There is no such thing as political responsibility in what is called our Constitution . Who ever talked more of ministerial responsibility than did Pitt and Castlereagh , two of the most irresponsible men that ever wasted the blood and treasure , or invaded the
rights , of nations with impunitv ? All the responsibility of a Minister , even in the Reformed Parliament , is the chance of having to endure what is vulgarly called a jobation . All the responsibility of Parliament consists in the possibility of turning a Member of the Lower House out of his seat at the next election .
And all the responsibility of a King is summed up in the fact that the experiment might be tried upon his agents , if they were not sheltered by his prerogative . There is , to be sure , th « cumbrous farCe of an impeachment ; it will scarcely reach another performance . All the branches of Government are mutually protective . The heaviest punishment that can be inflicted for public
offences , is precisely that which Lord Johu Russell had to endure for accepting office while he was the representative of Devonshire . ' The rofoe of' responsibility ' could no further go . ' It may trtfcbsfer a Representative from a county to a borough ; it can neither ^ anlHh a tfaitoV nor unooronet a Peer . I * o * d dnfbgtoli * * plea for the Lords Wat their pliability .
Untitled Article
758 Political QUani ^ s .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1835, page 758, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2652/page/2/
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