The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-22 00:00:00

The SPEAKER having put the question, whether the
words proposed to he omitted stand part of the resolution,
Mr. M. GIBSON put certkin question, to the Speaker,
as to whether the sense of the house upon the oath
of abjuration had heen taken this sesdon, and whether
a resolution of the house last session in relation t.l
another case, was binding in the present ease.
....

•• •
Lord J. RUSSELL said—Sir, this t; a question of orler—
(cliccrs)—and as such I do not hold it to be the convenient
course to seek to draw the right hou. the Speaker into II
debate. (" Hear," and cheers.) Questions that with very
great propriety may be addressed to a minister of the crown
can not with the same propriety be addressed to the
Speaker. (Hear, hear.) I find the resolution of this house
last year to be that the Baron Lionel de Itothsehild should
not be entitled to vote or sit in this house during any
de'late until—

An Hos. Mestiteu—Aye. until—(Order.)
Lord J. RUSSELL—UntiI he had taken the oath of els-
juration in the form required by law. That is the reselu-
, tion of the house ; and I conceive we are bound by that re-
solution. (Cheers.) The oath nut having been taken in
that sense, I think the right hon. gentleman the Speaker
acted with perfect right and justice. (Cheers.)
Mr. M. GIBSON I wish, sir —(" Oh, oh," and
" Spoke ")—I wish to apologise to the right hon. gentle-
man and to the house—(hear, hear)—for making it appear
that, in putting my question a second time, I wished to
draw the right hon. gentleman into a debate. I coulees I
was rather betrayed into the feeling; and I shall not press
the matter further than to say that I shall avail myself of
the opportunity to address myself to the subject. (Cheers.)
Mr. ANSTEY rose amid loud and protracted cries of
" Oh, oh," and " Spoke," which lasted several
minutes. On order being restored, the hon. gentleman said:
The noble lord at the head of her Majesty's government was
perfectly right in saying that the house on that occasion
came to the resolution which had just been read by the
right hon. Speaker ; but the noble lord had forgotten that
the house had previously come to another resolution, nega-
tiving iu a direct and formal manner the proposal of the
hon. and learned member for Abingdon (Sir 1.. Thesiger)
to declare the seat of the hon. member for the City of Lon-
don vacant. (Hear, hear.) That motion was negatived by
a large majority, the noble lord (Lord J. Russell), the col-
league of Baron Rothschild, voting in the majority on the
occasion. ("hear, hear," and cheers.) It should be
i stated, when the house came to that ambiguous declaration of
' the oath, it also adopted another resolution, to the effect that
the previous question demanded the serious attention of par Be-
ment, and should receive that attention early in the present
session; a promise which to this day had never been ful-
filled. (Laughter.) lion. members might laugh ; but was
the bill which passed through that house, but which was
ignominiously rejected in another place, a redemption of the
pledge? (Hear, hear.) The case was not that of Baron
Rothschild individually ; it was the cue of the city of Lon-
don. (Hear, hear.) No parliamentary inquiry had since
taken place; no satisfaction had been given to the hon.
gentleman, Baron Rothschild, or to the city of London. dis-
franchised as it was by one-fourth of its representation.
(liver, hear.) In the annals of parliamentary proceedings
there was no precedent which could be evoked to justify
the course which at the latter end of last session had been
taken by that house. (Hear, hear.) The Baron Roths-
child made a statement at the table of the house, and said
he omitted the words " on the true faith of a Christian"
from the abjuration oath because he did not esteem them to
be binding on his conscience. (Hear, hear.) But his hon.
friend the member for Greenwich (Mr. Salomon) had not
only made no such statement, but deliberately stated his
✓eason to be the statement which was now on record,
" that he had taken the oath in that form because be con-
sidered it the form prescribed by the statute lot and and
Victoria." (Hear, hear.) The question the house had to
decide in the case of the hon. member for London was,
whether that hon. gentleman was authorised or entitled to
omit certain words from the oath because he conceived them
not to be binding on his conscienoe. But the question now
to be decided was, whether the vote of that house
was to deprive his hon. friend beside him (Mr. Salo-
mon!) of the seat which lie then occupied by
virtue of an act of parliament. (Loud cries of
"divide.") These cries only showed him (Mr.Anstey
that the honourable gentlemen who uttered them had
already prejudged the case ; but they should make no im-
preasion on him, or on other impartial lion. gentlemen.
Here was the language of the act of parliament, a declara-
tory act too: " And be it declared and enacted, that
in all cases in which an oath may lawfully be or shall
be administered to any person tithe r as a juryman, witness,
or deponent, in any proceeding, civil or criminal, in any
court of law in the United Kingdom, or in any office or
employment, or ou any occasion whatlver. such person
is bound by the oath administered, provided the some
shall be administered in such form and with such
ceremonies as such person may declare binding."
Now, that was the ground on which his hon. friend the
member for Greenwich declared he had duly taken the oath
of abjuration in the form prescribed by law. The resolu-
tion of the house in the ease of Baron Rothschild required
no more than that. There was not a word about " the
sense of the house, or parliamentary precedent or usage,"
which he would then show to the house to be completely
erroneous, although practised for the last 40 years. (Hear,
hear, and a laugh.) Ito (Mr. Anstey) weut farther than
his hon. friend near him (Mr. Salornons), and would then
affirm that his hon. friend had not only taken the oath as
required, but that he had also sworn a great deal too much.
(Laughter.) The oath in question was one that could not
be lawfully administered at the table of that house
or in the House of Lords. lie asserted that with-
out fear of contradiction; because, since the death
of George 111. the oath was unlawful. The oath
of abjuration was eaacted in the 13th year of William
111., chap. 6, end contained in a report of a committee of
that house laid before parliament. That oath abjured the
right of James 111., lately called the " Prince of Wales,"
and bound the person taking it to maintain the succession
of the Princess of Denmark, or, in default of issue, the
Electress Sophia of Hanover. The unexpected death of
William 111. made it necessary to alter the oath. It was
found that the oath expired with the dynasty, for whose
protection it had been enacted ; and the Houses of Parlia-
ment took it on themselves, by special resolutions, to make
certain alterations in the oath. Fur instance, ou the 10th
March, 1701, the Houses of Parliament resolved to leave
out the words " Our Lord King William,- and to substi-
tute the w rids " Our Lady taticen Anne ;" and, on the
21th March, 1701, the Speaker and members of parliament
present took the oath as altered. In the same session
of parliament—the first of Queen Anne—a statute was
passed declaring the alterations in the act 13th Wm. 111.
legal, and essential to be taken by members of parliament.
A like alteration was made in the reign of George I. ; and
the last occasion on which the oath had been altered was in
the commencement of the reign of George lll.—namely,
the Gth Geo. 111., chap. 53. 'That was the act at present
on the table, with the substitution of the words " United
Kingdom of Great Britain end Ireland" foe those of
" Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland," and the
words " Victoria, Queen," for those of " George, King."
The last recitemeot in the preamble of the act stated that,
in consequence of certain politic el events that had hap-
pened, it hail become necessary to alter the oath. (Loud
cries of " Divide.") Now, there was not the least chance
of their dividing. He could assure lion. gentle-
men that at least thirty or forty hon. members
on his side of the house were anxious to speak
on the question. (" Oh, oh, " and much laughter.)
Whilst the Stuart line was in existence the oath hail its
appropriate meaning. That princely house was now extin-
guished; and consequently he conceived he had a right to
assume that, if the question were again submitted to parlia-
ment, it would agree to repeal the oath of abjuration.
(Hear.) It had answered its purpose. The line it was in-
tended to shut out was extinct; and Jacobites and all other
classes were now absorbed and amalgamated. Two other
events had happened. Before the ultimate extinction et the
Stuart line Henry Duko of York assumed the title of
Henry IX.; and the second event was the union of Great
Britain and Ireland. The kingdom of Ireland ceased to
exist, and both became the United Kingdom of Great Bri-
tain and Ireland. Now no alteration was made in the oath
to meet that state of things ; yet ever since the time of
George 111. the oath of abjuration was taken without pro-
test. It was argued there was precedent fur it but thirty
or forty years constituted no precedent. Their liberties were
of much older date, and therefore precedent of such limited
existence or duration could not justly be plewled in the matter.
His first point, therefore, was that no member should be
compelled, without an act of parliament, or even a resolu-
, tion of the house, to take this oath, altered as it was by the
I caprice or will of individuals, or any oath whatever thus
altered, at that table. The next point was whether tbe
I words, " on the true faith of a Christian," belonged to this
'substance of the oath or only to its ceremonial and solem-
nity. (Hear.) This was a cue where penalties would
apply, one half of which could be applied by that house,
and that house only, the other half had to be apslied by a
court of law. It behoved them, therefore, to weigh what
they were called on to do, as it might be quoted in a court
of law. The question was, whether a gentleman of the
Hebrew persuasion had a right by the common law
of the land to take a seat in that house being elected thereto
by a free constituency ? That he had such a right at com-
mon law he had no doubt, being a natural born subject.
The community of the Jews sat by the side of convocation
of the clergy, and they exercised the same powers as the
nobles and the clergy exercised within their respective
chambers. It was true their acts did not appear, for, in the
time of Edward 1., the Jews were driven from the king-
dom and their property was taken from them. But this
was an arbitrary act of the king which was not sanctioned
by the estates, and if the Jews chore to return into the
kingdom they might have done so and exercised their former
rights. In the reign of Charles 11. an attempt was made
to impose alien dues on the Jews, but, after solemn argu-
ment on both sides, it was decided they were delivered from
the payment of such lines. In William 111.'s reign they
were taxed on the footing of being natural born subjects,
and they paid one moiety less than 'majoring Christians
and Roman catholic*. This proved that they were not
aliens. During that reign there were twelve years
during which they were eligible to sit in parliament,
for it was not till the 13th of William 111.
that the words "on the true faith of a Christian"
were introduced. Did these words, introduced as the
noble lord (Russell) very properly said "at the fag end of
the oath," constitute any difference? The oath was framed
in contemplation of danger which was supposed was likely
to come from the Roman catholic' and the Unitarian pro-
testants of those days. The oath of abjuration was framed
in their regard, and therefore as to its substance did not at
all apply to the Jews. (Hear, hear.) The hon. member for
Greenwich acknowledged the authority of Queen Victoria,
and that no other person had ecclesiastical or spiritual su-
premacy within the realm. He therefore went farther than
any Roman catholic in that house, in whose favour, be it
observed, the oath of abjuration was repealed. (Hest%
hear.) The house had jurisdiction over all ivies-
lions offsetting the right of its members to a seat; and if
they had the right to decide oo the question of title, they