The Sun.
London, England, 1833-04-18 00:00:00

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1-017574
was contending, amounted to nothing Aix
timately used for that purpose ; for, confessedly,
rancements to political power were the result of a
.-difeet
miraculous interference for divine perposes, and could have
no bearing upon any piece of merely human legislation.
With respect to the cruelties coisesitted against the Jews
in the time of Richard the FirstooNohn, sod of Henry
the Third, to which hie Right'llif :lend had alluded
they had certainly had the effect of' neittg the Jews from
the country ; but, if they once left the country, and after-
wards came back, they were bound to take the law as
they found it. Were we, to accommodate foreigners, to
to be called upon to alter our fundamental laws? Were
we to be compelled to unchristianise the country for the
sake of giving civil privileges to these strangers? When
any person came to this country, it was his duty to con-
form to the laws of the country in which he is a stranger;
and a stranger, the Hon. Baronet contended, the Jew
would ever be, so long as be continued to look upon him-
self as only a sojourner in a land which was foreien to
him—so long as be looked upon Jerusalem as his ultimate
home. Christianity was the religion of the State in this
country. Could any one point out a period in our history,
since Christianity bad been the religion of the State, In
which political power was intrusted to persons who were
not Christians? He could not assign any motive for the
insertion of the words in the oath which Members of
Parliament were bound to take, by which words the Jews
were prevented from sitting in that Honee; but whatever
their motives might be, he would rest his case up .n the

simple, and, in his opinion, undeniable fact—that political
power never was intrusted to any man. or set of men, who
would not pledge their fealty to the King upon the Sacred
Book which we reverene • ; or at lead, if they were not

bound to take their oaths upon the Gospols, they were re•
quired to do so upon some symbol, which was sufneivtlt to
show their adherence to the Christian faith, whether if wete
upon the cross or anything else which Chriltians lookeci

upon as sacred. He, therefore, felt himself ju.tified in
serting, that the words "upon the true faith of a
Christian," which are now said to be the only hi.r to the
admission of Jews into Parliament, are perfectly in sc.
ci-ordince with the whole spirit of the legielition of this
relvive to the Jews. up to the period (the S h
1830) when his Right Hon. Friend hid first

call ,d their avention to the subject now under discussion.
The Jews were still pre exclu.led. by the very firm no the
oath, from the exercise of civil power in this country;
and no attempt bad ever 'won made to alter that policy
with respect to them until the period to which he hid
just alluded. That was the first occasion in this country
when it had been proposed to confer political power (itt
any but Christians. He recollected the history of th. Jew
Bill, by which certain disabirities sfflcting the Heb"ews

were for a short period removed, in 1743 ; but tb to..a-
sure did not go to anything like the extent of the present,
and did not form any exception to the atat•inent which
he had just made. If such a measure as that of his
Right lion. Friend were to be carri-d, Christianity soul I
no longer be pat and parcel of the.law of the land. Ile
had always mairvained, and he would always maintain,
th it no person ought to be persecuted for hie re'igious
opinions; but he contended that unless the Jews could be
proved to be insecure in teir property and their worship,
or their persons, there was no ground whatever for enter-
ing upon the subject. It was bla,phemy to deny that
Christ was our Savi,ur, and a case might occur in which
a Judge might hare to try a person fur such an offence.
%Vas it proper that a Jew should he the Judge to try
much a criminal? He might be told that Jews were al-
readv admitted to sit as Jurymen upon inch trials under the
existing laws ; but the inconsistency was not so great in
that cite. Arguments had been drawn from the practice of
other countries, but the analogy of other countries w.s ao fit
criterion for th;s. What was safe in the French Chamber
of Deputies might not he safe in the English House of
Commons ; and although it was certainly true that the
Jews might be members of the French Chamber of De-
puties, or of the American Congress, yet he was not aware
of a single instance in which a Jew bad taken his seat in
either of those assemblies. He saw no point where they
could stop, when they came to begin the system of alic-
fishing oaths as qualifications fur political situations, short
of that which aerated to be approved of by the Hon.
Member for Middlesex, viz.—the abolition of all oaths
whatever.—(" Hear, hear," from Mr. Hume.) The
question was—whether they were prepared to get rid of
religious sanction, as a motive to influence human
action.—(Cries of " No, no.") He had avoided to look
at the question with a view to any considerations of reli-
gion; but on merely political grounds, he would resist the
the proposition of the Right Hon. Gentleman to the utmost
of his abilities.

Mr. MACAULAY said, his Right Hon. Friend the
Member for the University of Oxford, bad argued the t
the conferring of political power upon any paaicular
class of individuals was a matter of grace, not of
right ; that the distribution of that power being in t 1 0
hands of the supreme authority in every country, no
one had a right to complain, whatever distribution the
supreme authority might choose to make; that parties bad
no right even to ask on what grounds some parties were
endowed with privileges of such a nature to the exclu-
sion of others ; a doctrine so monstrous, if carried to its
extreme extent, that no reasonable man could entertain it
for a moment. Was the Right Hon. Baronet prepared
to say, then, that it would be right for the supreme au-
thority to enact that no man should be admitted to poli-
tical rights unless he were six feet high, or unless he pos-
sessed some other capricious quolifiestion of a similar na-
ture ? Would not such a regulation, even according to the
Hon. Baronet, be gross injustice ? Yet such would be
the logical consequences of his argument, that the supreme
authority has a right to dispose of political power to whom
it chooses. Support the Government of India chose to
siy that no man should have the direction of Government
at Calcutta, at Bombay, at Madras, unless he were edu-
cated at the University of Oxford ; would the Hon.
Bat onet consider that a just law? Suppose they were to
enact that no man should be Governor-General unless he
had been born at Southampton, would that be a right
principle in the opinion of the Hon. Baronet ? Did the
Hon. Baronet argue, that suclt te•ts as these might be
enjoined with propriety by the supreme authority in.
any country ? As well might they adopt at once the In-
dian principle of castes. But the Hon. Baronet asked
whether it was the wish of the supporters of the proposed
measure to do away with all religious sanctions in the con-
duct of human affairs ? To th it inquiry his answer was
this :—There was one principle which lay at the bottom o f
all reli4ion—a principle which formed the basis of all the
rules of religion and morality, both in public and private

life. He would ask the Hon. Baronet himself whether
any principle were more strongly smetioned by religion
than that by which every man was to study to the utmost
of his abilities the happiness of his fellow creatures—that
no min should inflict the slightest evil on his fellow, or
instrumental in withdrawing from him the slightest
degree of happiness? The real (petition then was, whe-
ther the withholding of political power from any particu-
lar class of individuals were not inflicting a useless pain
upon those subjected to such disabilities—a pain which
ought not to be inflicted unless those who were instru-
mental in continuing those disabilities could show what
.dvantage was derived from them? As Christians, they
were bound to regulate their conduct by that great rule
which the founder of our religion declared comprehended
all the law and the prophets—to love our neighbours as
ourselves. We ought to do to others as we would edone
by. Now to what did the next argument of the H in.
Baronet amount? That if the Jews were once ad-
mitted to the possession of political power, there could be
ito reasonable objection against admitting Mussulmen,
Parsees, and Brahinins—..bat there could be no reasonable
trgument against admitting any clam whodid not hold the
gospels to be the word of God. Now the Hon. Baronet
.aid he was not an advocate for persecution ; but it he was
4n advocate for inflicting any evil opus any individual in
:consequence of that individual's political principles, he
(Mr. Macaulay) did not see where he could stop, in the
conclusions to be drawn from his principles, short of
proposing again that nnhelievers should be roasted by a
d
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ouw
ai
ofiwfr fire. In
disabilitiesose s
ch ithsortv,e trlyle awd principleswas advocated
suhp un
kl we
gtiuoieotopwhh.ocitisht,h;e:treteihr)
angote,:nyr
e.etHri
wereifueon e
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they once admitted the propriety of persecution in one
o.e‘alise,eibhmeer.dfiodlr
f nottOb zes efcuer,
uda,rna
erYa twr he :art: now!
once
with thetpe :tit
entered
iable to be led on by is series of steps from the lowest de-
gree to the highest ; and the same raw:, which juvified
the first step would be no lets powerful if a second step
ivere proposed. Political power was not confined to the
drivilege of entering that House: and therefore the Hon.
qember whoargued for removing the disabilities of the Jews,
n so far us to enable them to possess property in land, was
inconsistent in his logic, because property in land would
evidently tend to give Jews a political influence. which
vas no less formidable, if placed in improper bands,
that which arose frem the possessioa of a seat in the House
if Commons. Persecution was not advocated by any
party in that House upon atastterehawperttinwp,atruhsitoesneniedpliedlaentshtitooaPfdirpsett,h4rC:as:aynit...
ion, it was admitted, had never produced shy of those
ff:cts which those who had recourse to it anticipated from
.; it was agreed that it had ever produc. d the very typo.
aetffre,ecn
dhtesedatrit.i.:
fhoossTteehrfeut rhselwiseghhei ctmehvi,:i
•ution was an evil; and there was no stopping in that
career short of the inquisition. Where would the oppu •
news of bit Right Honourable Frietili
proposition