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Untitled Article
in a consuming blaze . Future Representative of Westminster ! in their name , J thank your forbearance . Your reply to those who tenant the dungeons of 8 t , Pelagie ,
until usurped authority dismisses them perhaps to a narrower abode , I read with different emotions . You did not welt , in my opinion , to take the occasion to lecture them upon the folly of Republicanism . You tell them that France has not enough of political knowledge , of political morals , or of religion * to
become a Republic . And how are they to be acquired I Have you not unwittingly patronized the old sophism , the vicious circle of tyrannical apology , that men nuust wait for free institutions until they have previously acquired those virtues of freemen which are the exclusive produce of such institutions ? It is quite as true that institutions make men as it is
that men make institutions . If but one virtue grow under the yoke—viz . the determination to break that yoke from the neck , it is all that should be expected . France has advanced no little beyond this point , even on the most unfavourable estimate . She is now paying the penalty of a single blunder , and when the opportunity recurs , it is not likely to be repeated .
But to return from this digression to the causes of your present unparalleled prominence ; it is not so much to be found in what you are , or what you have done , nor even in your unceasing public efforts , as in the singular and most commanding position which you occupy ,, in consequence of the peculiar
state of political party . Your notoriety is the index of real power . Without office , rank , title , or large possessions , you are indisputably the most important person in the empire . The Tories are infuriate with you as the most formidable of their
foes . The Whigs ieel the necessity ol your support ; many of the Radicals regard you as their leader . At the head of your
Irish phalanx you uphold a government which the Court , the Peerage , ami the Church have alike determined upon destroying . Did men conform their conduct to realities rather than to mere external symbols , to you there would be the bending of knees and the presentation of petitions . No wonder that your name is ever in our eyes and ears . No wonder that the opinions you hold , the plans you propone , the advice you offer , are tin * subject of earliest attention . Nor will you think it
strange that one who , like yourself , glories in being a Radical Reformer , should , be moved only the more strongly by his admiration of the extent of your powers , and his satisfaction at the extent of your influence , to express with the same frank * ness hifi diasent from you , his apprehension , and his remonstrance . For all there 1 perceive reason in your recent advice to the Radicals of Great Britain ou the subject of Peerage
Untitled Article
Agitation of Peerage Reform * 5 £
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1836, page 55, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2653/page/55/
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