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Untitled Article
^ When the people shall really possess a body of represents tives assembled in a legislative Chamber , instead of a Ham ** of Commons—well called commons , for with few exception * they represent all that is commonest in our common naturethe pettiest motives—the most selfish feelings ;—when that House , falsely called the representative of the people , shall
be thoroughly purged of the connexions of the aristocracy * and really represent the highest principles of the mass of the community—of that portion of the community which guides the remainder , by exercising the thinking faculties , the process will be very simple . A vote of the people ' s House will declare the House of Lords dissolved , and all the members of it ,
except churchmen , eligible as elective representatives of the people . It were as unjust a thing to disfranchise a man because he had the moral misfortune to be bom a * ' nobleman by courtesy , " as it is to disfranchise a man because he has the misfortune to be born poor . It would , therefore , be just that , at some convenient period after the abolition of the Upper
House , a dissolution should take place in order to give the Lords the chance . Their titles would be of little importance ; they would fall into disuse when they ceased to confer power . Whether a second Chamber might be necessary , would be * matter for after deliberation—it is a necessary preliminary to a reconstruction , that the rubbish of the old edifice be
thoroughly cleared away . The question as to what classes of society ought to be eligible as legislators , may be reduced to very simple rules . All should be eligible as legislators who form no part of the executive , either directly or indirectly . It is a monstrous perversion of principles which permits a single individual to , — -
Play judge and executioner all himielf . " - —which permits a man to make laws as an M . P ., and aftei * - ttards to execute them as a magistrate , a soldier , or a sailor . All public functionaries are the servants of the law , aitd therefore ought not to be entrusted with the framing of l * ws in which they may posse&s a sinister interest . And thte sdtne rule which excludes direct functionaries of the atnte
ought to exclude the professional moral teachers of the community , as ministers of religion and schoolmasters . Sttch men hold a great power , greater even than that of legislator *; they afe the pioneers , the explorers in new regions of fcmftfcja progress ; they hold—or ought to hold—the moral power , aftnl their province is persuasion , not compulsion . They ought to exercise moral control over the minds of those who < io # trtl
the legislators , and they ought to possess a voice in thfeir election in common with all . The offices of legislator or teacher , and executor of the laws , being incompatible , should yet form He
Untitled Article
PfMegU tf th * Lord * . 4 # 0
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1836, page 439, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2659/page/47/
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