date

7 Aug. 1809 Parl. Reform Ch
7 Aug. 1809

Parl. Reform

Ch. Necessity Hume

6

6

To the people indeed it would be "easy" (in /to use/ the words of Hume) "to wrest from the Crown all those powers". To the people ever since the Revolution it always has been easy. Yet have they ever done so, attempted so to do, or even thought of it viz. by persevering in the practice of electing Members foreknown to be determined upon that course? Not they indeed. And why not? Only because they all along have been and still are, and so long as the constitution either remains undestroyed or appears to them so to do, in all human probability ever will be. /for any thing that appears to the contrary./

If then for want of the supposed necessary quantity of the matter of corruption and the habit of applying it - if from this or any other cause the constitution /government/ be destroyed by the destruction of the /that/ monarchy and aristocracy which are two out of the three component parts of it it can never be by the House of Commons alone it must be by the body of the people themselves, viz. either of themselves or through the medium of the House of Commons.

At present the people have no such inclination. No not even under the provocation offered viz by the dependence of the House of Commons and by the corruption and sham elections by which this dependence is produced. No such inclination have they; though from their birth accustomed as they have been to see Members pretended deputies of theirs, in the choice of whom they have no part, Members when[?] in such number by whomsoever chosen they see mere tools and puppets of /in the hands of/ the Minister - as ready to vote for one thing as for another - Members put into this state by vast masses of emolument capable of being taken away from them by the same advisers of the Crown at pleasure, and by that danger perpetually hanging over their heads, not to mention ill applied notions of gratitude and honour kept perpetually in that same abject and dependent state.
Similar Items
  • Title: [7 Aug. 1809 Parl. Ref. Ch.]
    Description: 7 Aug. 1809

    Parl. Ref.

    Ch. Necessity Hume

    4

    4

    But to insist any further on this topic {not to speak of the invidiousness of it -} would be to take too wide a range. His antecedent - the position, that, but for the dependence, and its efficient cause the corrupt influence, the House of Commons would conquer the King and the Lords appears to me altogether untenable, having no grounds that approach to the character of sufficient ones, either in particular history, or general reason operating on general experience. That it is altogether without grounds would be too much to say. Grounds he may be said to have had, though extremely slight ones: slight even in his own time, and rendered still more so by the experience of succeeding times.

    The House of Commons could, and therefore would, (and thus far he must be admitted to be right - viz that it would if it could) the House of Commons if not kept in a state of dependence on /under/ the Crown by withdrawable bribes would conquer the Crown and the Lords along with it. Why so? Because it has done so already. And how often? Once and once only, viz in the time of Charles the 1 st. And what enabled it so to do? Its perpetuity, so weakly and improvidently conferred on it by the Crown: its perpetuity, by which it was converted into a pure aristocracy, taken altogether out of its dependence on the people.

    This dependence of the House upon the people, of the elected upon the electors - this dependence which constitutes the essential character of the House of commons - and this not only in point of utility and right but in point of fact and experience - this dependence is the very circumstance which he overlooks, for /and/ his argument turns upon the non-existence of it.
  • Title: [7 Aug. 1809 Parl. Reform Ch]
    Description: 7 Aug. 1809

    Parl. Reform

    Ch. Necessity Hume

    5

    5

    " How easy" {(says he)} "therefore" (viz. by means of the power he has just been speaking of, that is the power of the purse) "would it be" (says he) ["]for that House to wrest from the Crown all these powers" (no matter what powers it comes to the same thing and he might as well have said all its powers) "one after another; by making every grant conditional, and choosing their time so well, that their refusal of supply should only distress the government, without giving foreign powers any advantage over us."

    Easy enough, certainly, viz. in a case that may be imagined: viz if the Members were in for life: for in this case viz. under Charles the firsts Long Parliament it actually did take place.

    But in the present state of things or any thing /state/ in any degree resembling it? under a House of Commons which at the utmost can last but seven years and at the will of the King may be dissolved at any time? Not it indeed.

    Withhold the supplier they indeed may: and in case of a struggle thus it is which is always either put in practice, or looked to and intended to be practiced as the ultimate resort.

    But supplies withheld what is the consequence. The King's Ministers must /can/ not suffer the government to perish for want of supplies - for want of its daily bread: the government perishing they would perish along with it. Of course they dissolve the Parliament: i.e. they make their appeal to the people: and this done it rests with the people whether, as towards the King, the House of Commons i.e. the acting majority of its members acting on the occasion in question shall be conquerors or conquered.
  • Title: [7 Aug 1809 Parl. Ref Ch. Necessity]
    Description: 7 Aug 1809

    Parl. Ref

    Ch. Necessity Hume

    2

    2

    His argument lies within a small compass. It is necessary that a part, and that a considerable one of the Members of the House of Commons should be in a state of dependence on the crown. Why? - Because if they were not - if every one were at liberty to follow his own judgment in other words at his own will - i.e. that which would be his own will, but for such dependence, the House of Commons would of course conquer the other powers of the state, viz. King and Lords, and become absolute. This theorem is his antecedent: and his consequent conclusion his practical inference is of course - therefore there ought to be always a portion of the House of Commons in a dependent state. (a)

    For my own part I can not agree with him in any one part of this argument: neither in the /his/ antecedent nor in his conclusion.

    His conclusion I speak to first: but only for the purpose of laying it out of the case.

    If it were ever so clear that but for this dependence with the corruption by which it is produced the House of Commons would conquer the King and the House of Lords and so convert the government into a Commonwealth I had rather it were so, than that matters should continue in their present train. Why? because in my view of the matter, supposing things to continue in their present train, the government would sooner or later /ere long/ be converted into a sort of mixt despotism composed of Monarchy and Aristocracy, with the same /the still more effectual/ irresponsibility I mean impunity for malpractice as in the case of a pure monarchy, and with a heavier train of ill-bestowed and otherwise unnecessary expence, and thence with a heavier pressure in all shapes and in particular in a pecuniary shape, upon the body of the people.

    (a)  Quote the passage at the bottom of the margin.