The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-18 00:00:00

port. Why, what an outcry would not then have bean
made ! Hon. Gentlemen would have said, " Look at this
monstrous tyranny of the strong against the weak !" They
would have been told that it was unworthy of a great
kingdom to crush an old man whose temporal power as a
prince was of the lowest possible order. Such a course
would have covered the country with ridicule beyond any-
thing that could be conceived. Why, it was not worth
while for a great country like this to enter into hostilities
with the Pontiff for acts like these, or for anything he
could do. We had the remedy against his attacks in our own
hands. We could deal with our own subjects, Protestant or
Roman Catholic, without recourse to any measure beyond
our shores.—(dear, hear.) And if those subjects assumed
territorial titles which by law they were not competent to
take, it was for the State to prevent the perpetration of
offences it never entered into the contemplation of the Le-
gislature that they would have committed.—(Cheers.) It
was nothing to say the measure was small to meet evils of
such magnitude. It would, at all events, be sufficient to
prevent the realization of Pontifical and hierarchical en-
croachments. They could not have episcopal jurisdiction,
they could not introduce canon law, they could not assemble
in synod tl frustrate, perchance, the decrees of the Imperial
Parliament, unless there were bishop) with territorial titles
and that the Bill effectually prohibited. In a word, it
would meet the aggressions which hail been made upon us,
and would protect the rights and vindicate the liberties of
this country so tar as they had been asitaile,i, and would
provide for the independenc3 of this free and ancient
kingdom.—(Cheers.)
Mr CARD W r.LL said he had witnessed the rising of the
Hon. and Learned Gentleman (the Solicitor-General) with
great pleasure, as he expected from one of the law-officers
of the Crown a clear and full explanation of th - measure
under discussion. In that hope he had been disappointed.
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman had told the House that
the municipal and the national law had been alike violated,
that the honour of the country had been attacked, and the
rights of our Sovereign aggrieved. He askei the Honour-
able and Lamed Gentleman where had her Majesty's Go-
vernment been all the time?—Cheers.) Did the Honour-
able and Learned Gentleman mean to say the municipal law
had been disregarded, the interne ions) law scandalously in-
fringed, a territorial invasion perpetrated, that a foreign
Prince, and the representatives of a foreign Court, were
governing her Majesty's subjects with temporal jurisdiction,
and that the Executive Government had all the time made
no sign, and had not even remonstrated with that foreign
Power 2—(Hear, hear.) Did he affirm that acts of
treason had been committed within this realm, and the law
officers of the Crown took no steps for the vindication of the
Sovereign? But, above all, did he mean to say Government
now relied on the Bill before them for the vindication of the
wrongs that had been done?—(Hear, hear.) He would
now invite the House to the consideration of the Bill, which
the House had, no doubt, observed the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman had entirely omitted to speak about. He said
there were two classes who opposed the :Bill—the Roman
Catholic party, who demanded, and thought they had a
right to the hierarchy, and those Protestants who treated the
menaces of the Papal power with indifference. But he for-
got there might be Protestants who regarded the act of the
Pope with feelings akin to his own, but who, nevertheless,
could not give their sanction to the proposed measure. In
the course of his speech he had ingeniously endeavoured to
show that the bishops nominated by the Pope had not only
spiritual but temporal power, that they were about to
introduce canon law, which should stand side by side
with Acts of the Imperial Parliament, and that they had in-
vaded the prerogative of the Crown ; but he would ask the
Hon. and Learned Gedtleman if the Bill was a measure
by which he proposed to prevent all that? To his
Roman Catholic fellow-subjects he (Mr. Cardwell) declared
that he regarded what had been done as an aggression on
the rights of his country, the more serious because unpro-
voked. In the course of that debate he had heard doc-
trinces laid down respecting the nature of civil and reli-
gious liberty which were not consonant with those the people
of England had been accustomed to regard as their true
meaning or as sanctioned by the law, and he could not for-
get that such doctrines were not those of Locke, and of
Blackstone, and of Lord Somers, and could not but regard
them as fatal to all duties and obligations of the social state.

It was surely the right of every man to worship his Creator
according to the dictates of his conscience, but the rights
of a Church, as an ecclesiastical body, must be
bound by the law of the civil government of the State,
and the exercise of its power must be confined by the safety
and convenience of the State. Why did they close the con-
vocation of the Established Church and carry her appeals to
the Privy Council? Why did they maintain the supremacy
of the Queen, and the control of Parliament, but that no
danger might arise to the State?—(Hear, hear.) An
allusion had been made to the United States in the course
of the debate, but he would ask was there any
throne there to which the successor had been changed on
account of his religion—bad they a Bill of Rights, an Act of
Settlement, a coronation oath, or an oath by which Roman
Catholic Members took their seats ?—(Hear ) He would
fiirther ask the Roman Catholics if they, living under the
shelter of Protestant institutions, chose to make a change,
with it not necessary fite Jconsult 'the! ecineenikece and the
wishes of the country in which they lived ? (Cheers.) They '
had not consulted the convenience of the country, the wishes
of the people, nor the safety of the Sovereign, and in doing
as they had done they had committed a substantial aggres-
sion. —(Cheers. ) He was not dwelling on mere words,
phrase logy, or shadow, but was dealing with a substance.
The Roman Catholici had changed a missionary Church into
a normal Church, and had done so under circumstances, as it
proved, hazardous to the general tranquillity and content of
this Protes ant realm. But what remedy had the Go-
vernment provided in their Bill ? When it was incor-
porated with the statute-book the red-stockinged Car-
dinal would still remain, and bulls, the introduction of
which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman so much dreaded,
would still be admitted. Of all things the Honourable
and Learned Gentleman had the greatest objection
to the introduction or the canon law. Whether he
Fad been consulted in the drawing up of the Bill he (Mr.
Cardwell) could not say ; but he knew that in the one clause
to which it was now reduced there was noth'ng whatever to
prevent the introduction of canon law and the assembling of
synods. Would it prevent the conversion of the money of
young ladies to superstitious uses, to which the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman alluded when he rpoke of the pleasure
with which he had heard the petition presented by the Ho-
nourable Baronet (Sir R. Inglis) ? He had endeavoured
to prove the bi hops of a voluntary Church exercised tem-
poral authority because the courts of law would take cog-
nizance of their by-laws made by the authority of the
Church, and seemed to think the Bill defeated that power by
preventing bequests and endowmen's. The Honourable and
Learned Gentleman did not know that the three clauses
designed to have that operation had been withdrawn, and
therefore the only foundation on which he rested his argu-
ment as to temporal powers had fallen to the ground.—
(Hear.) What was the foundation laid when the Bill was
introduced ? They were told that when Dr. Cullen came
from Home and went to Ireland he violated the law by taking
the title of Archbishop of Armagh; that Lord Clarendon
consulted the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General for
Ireland, and received this answer:—" Dr. Cullen appears to
have violated the law ; but we have only seen newspapers;
we cannot get access to the fact in any other way than the
newspapers; but they are not evidence; and we shall not
obtain possession of the letter, and therefore Dr. Cullen can-
not be prosecuted with success by the Irish Government."
Now, would it be gravely believed that that was introduced
as an argoment for bringing in a Bill which would leave the
law in England precisely as it was in Ireland, and that the
day after the Bill was passed the Government of England
would consult the H ,n. and Learned Gentlemaa the Attor-
ney-General and Solicitor-General for England, who would
say to them," Vr. Wiseman has violated the law—we have
only seen it in a newspaper; we cannot get access to the
original letter, and therefore we cannot advise a prosecution
of Dr. Wiseman ?" (Hear, hear.) The Hon. and Learned
Gentleman had told them some remarkable cases in which
foreign powers did vindicate their authority against the
Pope. He referred to the case of Henry I , but he had
forgotten to tell them that Henry 1., not content with
that internal part of his proceedings, to which the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman referred, addressed the Pope in these
words:—
"Be it known unto you that by God's help the dignities
and usages of the kingdom of England shall not, during my
lifetime, suffer any diminution. And even where I, which
God forbil, so far to suffer myself to be abased, my nobles,
nay the whole people of the land, would not in anywise per-
mit it."
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman said they had passed a
Bill by which they could negotiate with Rome. Then, he
asked the lion. and Learned Gentleman if all those great
calamities had happened which he spoke of, if the dig-
nity of the Crown was insulted, if territorial rights were in-
vaded, if a power to interfere in temporal matters had been
assumed, why had they made to remonstrance—why was
there nothing external done to relieve the country from the
indignity which it had suffered? He asked that question
for this reason, that he had been exceedingly struck by an
observation made by the Hon. and Learned Gentleman.
Appealing to the Roman Catholic Members, he used these
words, What is the meaning of all this ferment you have
excited against us ? You have spoken of us as if we were
going to repeal the Emancipation Act."
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL—What I said was, that
they spoke as if we were going to re-enact the penal Acts.
Mr. CARDWELL continued,—That made good his argu-
ment. The Bill appeared to him to be just enough to irri-
tate, but not enough to satisfy. It appeared to him as if
they had suffered a great external grievance from the Pope,
but had visited it on the loyal Catholic subjects of this
country—(Hear, hear)—and that they were doing it in this
manner not so as to vindicate the honour of the Crown, or
repel the insult they had received, or add one iota to the se-
curity of Protestant institutions; but they were creating in
the vitals of this country a little wound, a festering wound,
the end of which they could not foresee, and the cure f which
they could not undertake to perform. It appeared to him
they were called on to assent to a measure which contained
within itself no possibility of remedying the evil; because
they should bear in mind that, restrain the assumption of
ecclesiastical titles as they would, they would leave the thing
just were they found it. There would be their archbishops,
bishops, and synods ; and there would be the canon law.—
(Hear, heir.) There would be the whole usurpation entire
and complete. They would have prohibited the usurpation
of particular names under a penalty imposed by a clause
which they knew they could not help being evaded, because
they had seen it evaded in Ireland.—(blear, hear.) He
looked with as much jealousy as anybody upon the per-
petual aggression of the Church of Rome. He feared
there would be in this country a great public calamity, be-
cause he looked on religious discard and the perpetual dissent
of one class of the community from another, as about the
greatest calamity that could happen. - (Hear, hear.) He had
uniformly endeavoured, adhering to the settlement of 1829,
,o remove all those obsolete enactments which had no force

except that they were offensive to the feelings and irritating
to the tranquillity of large bodies of his countrymen. He
had done that in the earnest hope and expectation that by
mutual moderation on both sides they might live together
calmly and peacefully, believing as he did that truth was
on his side, and that truth must prevail. But he must ask
the forgiveness of his Roman Catholic friends if he said that
that desire had not been without misgiving. He begged to
remind the House of that remarkable passage in which the
illustrious author of the emancipation closed his speech in
proposing it to that House. He told the House of Com-
mons then, ai he (Mr. Cardwell) would repeat now, that it
was very possible they might have a straggle, but it would
be no longer a struggle for civil liberty ; it would be a
struggle against the intolerance of an aspiring Church. But,
said. he,— _

46 We shall range on our side the illustrious authorities
which have heretofore been enlisted on theirs ; the rallying
cry of civil liberty will then be all our own. We shall enter
the field with the full assurance of victory, armed with the
consciousness of having done justice, and of being in the
right; backed by the unanimous feeling of England, by the
firm union of orthodoxy and dissent, by the applauding
voice of Scotland ; and, if other aid be requisite, cheered by
the sympathies of every free state in either hemisphere, and
by the wishes and the prayers of every free man, in whatever
clime, or under whatever form of Government his lot may
have been cast."
It might be that the spirit of the Roman Catholic religion
and the Protestant religion could not harmoniously coalesce;
but he earnestly hoped that the day of that struggle might
be Averted. Da of all wars the worst was a little war;
and of all wars the worst was a little civil war about re-