The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-28 00:00:00

thing of what it has d.aae—was so drawn. 03 par -
posely to exclude from the list of electors the great
body of the'working classes of this kingdom. But
supposing that out of the 6,000,000 of grown up
men in the united kingdom 1,000,000 have the suf-
frage, as is now the case, and supposing that that
1.000,000 returned the House of Commons by a
fair distribution of members according to numbers,
there.would, in all probability, be a fair represen-
tation .of the opinions of the 6,000,000, because the
opinions of the 1,000,000 would to a considerable
extent reflect and represent the opinions of their
fellow-countrymen. (Cheers.) But that is not the
case. The law has selected 1,000,000 to be the elec-
tors of members of Parliament, but, having got
that 1,000,000, they have contrived, partly by acci-
dent it may be, but very much by arguments and
intention, so that the political power of the majo-
rity of that 1,000,000 is frittered away and fraudu-
lently dispersed and destroyed by the manner in
which members are distributed among the 1,000,000
electors compoSing the electoral body. Now, I wish
to ask this meeting—and let us try to take a judicial
and dispassionate view of the question when we talk
of reform—what is it that we really want ? I hold it
to be this—that we want to substitute a real
honest representation of the people for that fraudu-
lent thing which we call a representation now.
(Cheers.) But there is a very serious question to
be decided before we can almost take a step. When
you are about to reform the House of Commons, are
your eyes to be turned to the Houk of Peers, or to
the great body of the nation ? The House of Peers,
as you know, does not travel very fast—even what
is a parliamentary train is too fast for its nerves ;
in fact, it never travels at all unless somebody shoves
it. (Laughter.) If any man proposes to reform
the House of Commons just so much. and. no more
as will allow it to keep pace with the wishes of the
House of Lords, I would ask him not to take any
trouble in the matter, but just to leave it exactly
where it is. If you want it to represent the nation,
then it is a national question ; and, having come to
that conclusion, if we have to come to it, there is
no Feat mystery, I think, as to the manner in
which it can be brought about. The question be-
tween the peers and the people is one which cannot
be evaded. It is the great difficulty in the way of
our friends at headquarters who are for reform,
but don't know how to do it. It was the difficulty
which Lord John Russell felt:. Lord John Russell
—I believe you may take my word for it—has pro-
bably, from association, from tradition, from his
own reading and study, and fronr his own just and
honest sympathies, a more friendly feeling towards
this question of Parliamentary reform than any
other man of his order as a. statesman. (Cheers.)
But having said this, I must also say—what he,
too, would say if he thought it prudent to tell all
he knew—that this is with him-the great difficulty.
How can I reconcile a free representation of the
people in the House of Commons with the inevitable
disposition which rests in a hereditary House of
Peers ? Nov, we must decide this question,
" Choose you this day whom you will serve." If
the Peers are to be your masters, as they boast
that their ancestors were the conquerors of yours,
serve you them. (" Never !") But if you will
serve only the laws, the laws of your country,
the laws in making which you have been consulted,
you may go on straight to discuss this great ques-
tion of Parliamentary Reform. lam not going to
attack the House of Lords. (Laughter.) Some
people tell us that the House of Lords has in its
time done great things for freedom. Well, it may
be so, though I have not been so successful in find-
ing out how or when as some people. (Cheers.). At
least since 1690, or thereabouts, when the Peers
became the dominant power in this country, I am
not able to discover one single measure important
to human or English freedom which-has come from
the voluntary consent and goodwill of their House.
And, really, how should it ? You know what a
peer is. He is one of those fortunate individuals
who are described as coming into the world " with
silver spoons in their mouths." (Laughter.) Or, to
use the more polished and elaborate phraseology of
the poet,—
" Fortune came smiling to his youth, and welcomed it,
"And purpled greatness met his ripened years."
When he is as 'boy, among his brothers and sisters
he is pre-eminent ; he is the eldest son ; he will be
" My Lord ;" this fine mansion, this beautiful park,
these countless farms, this vast political influence,
will one day centre on this innocent boy. The
servants know it, and pay him greater deference
on account of it. The grows up and goes to school
and college ; his future position is known ; he has
no:great excitement to work hard, because what-
ever he does it is very difficult for him to improve
his fortune in any way. When he leaves college
he has a secure position ready-made for him, and
there seems to be no reason why lie should follow
ardently any of those oreupc.tivcc which make men
Feat among their fellow-men. He takes his seat
in the House of Peers ; whatever be his charac-
ter, whatever his intellect, whatever his previous
life, whatever he he in England or 10,00,0
miles away, be he tottering down the steep
of age, or be he passing through the imbe-
cility of second childhood, yet by means of
that charming contrivance—made only for Peers—
vote by proxy, he gives his vote for or against, and,
unfortunately, too often against, all those great
measures on which you and the country have set
your hearts. (Cheers.) There is another kind of
Peer which I am afraid to touch upon—that crea-
ture of—what shall I say ?—of monstrous, nay,
even of adulterous birth—the spiritual Peer. I
assure you with the utmost frankness and sincerity
it is not in the nature of things that men in these
positions should become willing fountains from
which can flow great things for the freedom of any
country. We are always told that the Peers arc
necessary as a check. If that is so, I must say they
admirably answer their purpose. (Laughter.) But
when we come to consider the question of a reform
of the House of Commons, which the constitution
does not recognise as the House of Commons be-
longing to the Peers, but to the nation, we will
allow the House of Peers to go for a while into
something like obscurity, and discuss it as if our
sole object were to make it what the constitution
supposes it to be—a complete representation of the
people in Parliament. With regard to the question
of the suffrage, which I state is 'one of the chief
points on which I should insist, I have no doubt
there are persons who on reading my speech will say
" Subversive doctrine, violent language this. The
change which you would propose would endanger
many things which we highly value." Now, I beg
to assure all those timid people that I do not wish
to endanger any of the ancient landmark of our
constitution. Ido not want to disturb this ques-
tion of the franchise beyond what has been already
sanctioned by Parliament and the country. I do
not want to introduce any new principle or any
theoretical opinion which it may be found difficult
to adopt. There are many men probably among those
whom I see before me who are of opinion that every
man should have a vote. (Loud cheers.) They
are for what is called" universal suffrage," or" man-
hood suffrage."—something which represents that
every man of 21 years of age who has not forfeited
his right by any misconduct should have a vote.
Let me say that, personally, I have not the smallest
objection to the widest possible suffrage that the
ingenuity of man can devise. (Cheers.) 'Ac the
same time, if 1 were now a member of a Govern-
ment, and had, to arrange a Reform Bill for next
session, I should not act upon that principle. I will
tell you upon what principle I would act. I find
in the country great diversities of opinion. There
are the Peers, of whom I have already spoken.
They are citizens with ourselves, and have there-
fore a right to be considered. There are the rich
and influential classes who, as wealthy men, are a
little timid of the great bulk of the people who
have not much riches. There are thousands—scores
of thousands—who imagine that they could not
sleep safely in their beds if every man had a vote.
We are surprised that. children cannot sleep in the
dark—that -they fancy something dreadful will
happen to them ; and there are actually rich people
' in this country who believe that if -every man had
a vote it would give him a weapon wherewith to
attack their property. There being all these diver-
sities- of opinion, it clearly is the duty of Govern-
ment and of Parliament, too, to frame a measure
which shall fairly repreSent what may be called the
Reform opinion of the whole country. What have
we ay of .francinses We have
hv etPhe e s e
parish n ish tfhe a w
.extensive
efrraaitlolziliss,e forin
ages past, there has been an
a a t
have. .the nr
nc hises.
all our parishes. We have Poor Law unions, which
have worked generally satisfactorily to the coun-
try. We have a franchise in our Poor Law unions.
Fr
We have a corporation franchise, and, with the ex-
ception of a stupid provision that people 'shall
live in towns three years before they can exercise
it, that franchise may be said to have worked gene-
rally satisfactorily to the country. I will ask any
man herewhether he ,believes that in all the parishes,
all the poor-law • unions, and all the corpora-
tions men have not conducted themselves with
great propriety and managed the affairs of their
parishes, unions, and corporations satisfactorily ?
And I should like to ask them whether they would
object to have the same franchise confeired upon
them for the election of members to the House of
Commons. (Cheers.) There is one great point
gained in such a franchise—your registration
would be easy and inexpensive. There is another
point—that whatever its omissions, whatever its
exclusions, they would not be directed against any
one particular class. It would admit the working
people to electoral power just as fully as it would
admit the middle, or what may be called the higher
and richer classes. Therefore, as regards class and
class, it would remove a great defect of the Reform
Bill, and would give a suffrage so wide that I be-
lieve no one would suppose it did not afford a fair

representation of all classes. I don't want anybody,'
for a moment to suppose that that particular fran-
chise is better than manhood suffrage. lam only
speaking of what Government might do, of -what
it ought to do, and of what it might do moreover
in accordance with the vast majority of opinion
which exists in this country on this question.
With regard to the counties I shall say little. I
know no good reason why the franchise should not
be as extensive as in the boroughs ; but there ap-
pears to be a general understanding that the next
step in counties shall be one short of that. But I
think it of great importance that the 40s. franchise
should be extended to all parts of the united king-
dom as fully as it is to the people of England and
Wales. (Cheers.) I come now to the question
which I believe all persons who have studied the
matter will readily agree is one of great importance
to the country—how your members shall be allotted
to the various constituent bodies. I will ask you
this simple question. What is the obvious rule
which would recommend itself to every man when
first about to arrange this allotment ? Would he
not argue in this way ? The law has given certain
persons the right of voting, and it presumes
that every person who has that right is
capable of deciding how he shall vote.
Every elector, therefore, is of the same importance
in the eye of the law, and why then should not
every elector vote for the same portion of the whole
Parliament ? I shall be told that I am not to go
to the United States for an illustration of this. I
will not. I will go, a little nearer home. Take
the kingdom of Sardinia. I was in Turin last year,
and I made enquiries as to the mode of election and
the distribution of members there ; and I found
that Genoa, with a population of 140,000, returned
seven members to the Sardinian Parliament. Sar-
dinia is not a Republic, it is a limited Monarchy
like our own. Let us go to the colonies of Australia.
Take New South Wales. The capital—Sydney—
returns eight members to the New South Wales
Parliament. In Victoria the city of Melbourne
returns 13 members to Parliament, and by the Bill
now introduced by the Minister of that colony the
number 13 is about to be increased to 18. I believe
that in Belgium and Sardinia, both countries under
a limited Monarchy, the same rule applies, and we
know that throughout the whole of the United
States the number of members is allotted according
to the population. In every 10 years this scale is
re-arranged,—in fact, it works itself. Ido not for
a moment argue that it is necessary that we should
get an actuary to apportion the number of members
exactly according to his 'calculations of the number
of the population, but we have a fair right to an
honest approximation, and without it there can be
no fair representation of the people. ,(Cheers.)
Look at Loidon, putting aside the city ; if you
were to divide the six boroughs of which the
metropolis is made up, you would still have 12
boroughs with 300,000 population each (larger
than the population of Birmingham), and. con-
stituencies of 10,000. Divide them again and you
would have 24 boroughs, each of 150,000 popu-
lation, with 5,000 electors ; and when the
franchise is extended the number will be still
greater. I say that the metropolitan boroughs and
all large boroughs ought to be divided, or sub-
divided ; they ought to have double, or treble, or
quadruple their present number of members.
(Cheers.) What a miserable delusion it is that this
great capital of midland industry, with its 250,000
or 300,000 inhabitants, sends only two members to.
the House of Commons. (Cheers.)- But if every
man I see here before me had a vote, or if every
man outside had a vote, what better would he be if
he sends two members to the House of Commons,
and some boroughs of 10,000 inhabitants, equal to
one of the small corners of your city, have a right
to return the same number ? The whole thing as
at present arranged is a disgraceful fraud. It ought
to be put an end to, and, if it is not put an end to,
your representation will remain for the future very
little better than a farce. (Cheers.) If you look at
the county seats you will find that the object of the
present Government, and, in fact, of any Govern-
ment in which the aristocracy have so Feat a power,
and where landowners are so predominant, must be
in the distribution of seats greatly to increase the
number of members for counties. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer is a very ingenious gentleman.
At this very moment in all probability he has got
before him rows of figures to endeavour to make it
out that the proper way of reforming Parliament is
to increase the number of landed gentry in the
House of Commons. I recollect on one occasion that
he referred to the county of Chester, and showed
that there were three boroughs in that county which
returned six members, while the two divisions of
the county only returned four, and that the four
members represented far more electors and popula-
tion than the six members of the towns. Nov, it
will be unfortunate for the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer if he ventures upon tile giuuna of
urith-
mehc in connexion with this question. -We are
for arithmetic in connexion with reform, and if
he proposes to deal with it in that way we have no
objection to carry out the principle fully. (Cheers
and laughter.) But now let me turn your
attention once more to the House of Peers. You
know that the House of Peers is a body composed
entirely of landowners, with the exception of a few
lawyers and 'a few sucessful soldiers. (A laugh.)
Have you ever been to the botanical gardens in
some of our towns, where a board is put up with
the words, "No dogs are allowed to enter here ?"
(A laugh.) There is a similar board at the door of
the House of Peers, and, though you cannot see it
without an imaginary eye, it says, "No traders
admitted here." (Cheers and laughter.) The House
of Peers is a house for the great proprietors of the
soil. The donut yof s
tr o
nCghelys terto representedl ich Mr. Disr
aeli
referred, the House
roeffLerroredds, is ve. Thr
y
ere are the Marquis of Westminster,
Lord Combermere, Lord Stanley of Alderlcy, and,
no doubt, another peer or two, if our acquaintance
with them was only a little more extensive. (A
laugh.) Take Lancashire. We had the Earl of
Burlington, now the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl
of Derby, the Earl of Sefton, and the Earl of
Wilton. They come up from their great landed
properties in Lancashire, and sit in the House of
Lords. Let us come to your own county-. You
have the Earl of Warwick, Lord Leigh, Lord
Craven, I think, Lord Calthorpe, and one or two
others, for in a county so charming as this there
are sure to be many estates and mansions belonging
to the aristocracy of England. The time was
when both Houses of Parliament sat together.
They met together now, but in different chambers
under the same roof, and no law can pass, or the
smallest modicum of freedom or of justice come to
you, until it has gone through the very fine
meshes of the net of the House of Lords. Well,
then, I say that if the landed proprietors
of England insist upon a great addition to
their power, the House of Commons, with the
inhabitants of the towns and the traders of the
country, will be obliged to ask, " How is it that
we have not our share of power in the House of
Lords ?" (Cheers.) Only one word more on the
question of the constitution. When a Reform Bill
is brought into the House of Commons by any
Government, be as watchful and exacting as y'ou
like on the subject of the franchise, but never, I
beg, take your eye for one moment from the ques-
tion of the distribution of the members—(cheers)—
for in it lies the great subject of dispute, and unless
you guard your rights you will have to fight your
battle over again, and to begin it the day after the
next bill has passed. (Cheers.) There is one
other subject to-whiclt I- must refer, and it is one
upon which I presume I shall have the cordial
assent of this meeting. It is the opinion of the
great body of the Reformers of the United King-
dom that any Reform Bill which pretends to be
generally satisfactory to Reformers must concede
the shelter and protection of the ballot. (Loud
cheers.) I shall not discuss that question or argue
in its favour. lam quite sure that in the minds of
the electors of England it has, long been decided,
and it has also been decided in the House of Com-
mons. Those who are for the ballot are for it
mainly because they wish free elections. Those
who are opposed to it are opposed to it chiefly
because they believe it would liberate the great
body of the constituencies from the control and in-
fluence of the rich. (Cheers.) The Times news-
paper and others, but particularly the Times, in
discussing this question treat it as if it were a ques-
tion to be despised, and tell us that it is mean and
unmanly to ask that mei shoPld go to the poll and
give their votes in secret. The very man who
writes thus in
the Times writes his article in secret
and publishes it in secret, and if any voter says
that he ought to affix his name to it—which, mind,
Ido not say at all—what is his answer ? He
replies " I am performing a great public duty ;
I am obliged in the discharge of that duty to com-
ment with great severity upon Ministers and public
men, and to expose abuses, and in doing that it is
necessary that I should have the shelter of anony-
mous writing." (Hear.) Well, I do not dispute
that, but if it is wise and just for a writer in the
Times to have that shelter in the performance of a
public duty, I say it is especially wise and just that
the humble elector in every county and every
borough should have from the law, if the law can
give it, an equal protection in the exercise of his
franchise. (Cheers.) I believe that when the fran-
chise is thus extended, when the apportionment of
members to the constituency approximates to a just
arrangement, and when you have the protection of
the ballot, you will have that kind of representa-
tion in the House of Commons which will give to
every man who sits there a real constituency, and
will fix him with a real responsibility. I believe
there is no country in the world that pretends to
regular government where there is less of real re-
sponsibility among high officials than there is in
England. There is one case which I cannot resist

the temptation of citing as an illustration of what
I mean. During the Russian war there were two
points in which the interest of Europe was cen-.
tered—one was Sebastopol, the other the city of
Kars. I hope we have not forgotten all the geo-
graphy we learnt during those calamitous times,
for I believe it is the only really valuable thing we
got by the war. (A laugh.) You recollect that
the city of Kars was besieged by the Russians,
and that it was defended by Turkish troops, as-
sisted and commanded, I think, by an Englishman
—Col. Williams. (Cheers.) You have heard, and
I am not at all prepared to dispute it—that Col. Wil-
liams behaved, I do not say with great bravery, for
that is common to almost all Englishmen andindeed,
to the majority of men everywhere,—but with great
sagacity. and prudence, and showed the qualities
of ;:it commander. Eventually he was obliged
to capitulate, and those who capitulated
were treated in the most honourable manner
by the Russians who obtained possession of the
town. At that time a nobleman of very high rank
—no less a personage than Lord Stratford de Red-
cliffe—was ambassador from the Queen of England
at the city of the Sultan. He had been there for
nearly 20 years. During the siege of Kars Colonel
Williams wrote and forwarded to Lord Stratford at
Constantinople more than 60 letters and despatches
with reference to his position, stating how they
were worn out with sorties and the attacks of the
enemy, how long their provisions and ammunition
might last, and urging him to take any steps which
might be
.possible for the purpose of making a
diversion in his favour or of sending relief. All
this was most proper for Colonel Williams to write
and communicate to the ambassador of the Queen
at Constantinople; but do you recollect the striking
fact that Lord Redeliffe did not reply to—did not
acknowledge or take the smallest notice of—any
one of those 60 or 70 despatches. -(Cries of " Shame'
and hisses.) He treated them as waste paper. Ho '
had, been years at Constantinople, quarrelling with
every European-Minister there, and bullying the
Ministers of the Sultan ; but when his own coun-
trymen and their allies were shut up in the fortified
town of Kars, besieged by a powerful and over-
whelming force, driven at length to starvation, and
finally to capitulation, this great official treated the
whole thing as utterly beneath his notice. Subse-
quently, Colonel Williams came to England and
was made a baronet; Parliament passed an act
granting him a pension of £l,OOO a-year, and the
Marquis of Lansdowne, one of the Cabinet Minis-
ters of the day, brought him into the House of
Commons for his pocket borough of Caine,in Wilt-
shire. Colonel Williams has never opened his mouth
in public in England on the subject of his treat-
ment by- Lord Stratford de Redeliffe—(a laugh)—
while that nobleman, who had been guilty of this
great neglect, I say this enormous crime—(cheers)
—has since taken his seat in the House of Lords,
has become a great authority, and has now been
sent by the Government on a special mission to Con-
stantinople. I need not tell you that I was not in
favour of any of that Eastern policy, but I presume
Lord Stratford was ; he was one of the great au-
thors of it, and I say that any man who takes office
from his Sovereign and his country as he took it,
with a salary of £lO,OOO a-year, and expenses
of almost like amount, for the Embassy at Constan-
tinople, is guilty of a scandalous abandonment of
the duty he owes to the Queen and to the country
if he pays no attention to such letters as those that
Lord Stratford received from an officer of her Ma-
jesty shut up with our allies at Kars. (Cheers.) If
Lord Stratford had been a Russian nobleman and
had so behaved, before taking his seat in the House
of Peers and going on a special mission to Constan-
tinople he would have had the advantage of going
on a special mission to Siberia—(cheers and laugh-
ter)—while if he had been an ambassador of the
United States of America—but I cannot follow out
the illustration, because in the United States there
is no family influence, there is no power such as
that wielded by our great provincial potentates—
there is nothing in that country to shield an officer
of the State from public reprobation, and therefore
I am quite certain that no person deputed from the
United Stites could by any possibility be guilty of
the abandonment of duty which was manifested. by
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. (Cheers.) Whenever
you get a House of Commons that fairly represents
the nation, with a Cabinet that fairly represents the
House of Commons—(hear)—if there be any other
Lord Stratford I would not like to predict precisely
what would befall him ; but I believe that such a
man, with such a temper—for it was a question of
temper—will not receive under such circumstances
high and continuous employment from the Govern-
ment of this country. (Cheers.) I say we have
a right, be it in peace, be it in war, when we
employ men in the service of the Crown and of the
State, and pay them for their labour, to all their
energies and to all their devotion. (Cheers.) This
question of Parliamentary reform, then, is a great
and serious question. I want to give a word of
warning to those persons who are now engaged, if
there be any engaged, in constructing a Reform Bill
for the next session. Let them not bring in a delu-
sive and sham measure. (Cheers.) Universal suf-
frage, equal distribution, vote by ballot—any of
these points may or may not be perilous ; but if
there be one thing more distinctly perilous than
another to the ruling classes in this country it is
that now, when they .are committed to at least a
temporary—l wish it were a permanent—settle-
ment of this great question, they should bring for-
ward and pass a bill which, while it offers you
something great in the way of constitutional free-
dom, is found immediately after it has passed to be
nothing but a delusion and a sham. (Cheers.) It
will disappoint everybsdy ; it will exasperate all
the reformers ; it will render a feeling which is now
not bitter both bitter and malignant, and within 12
months after the bill has passed and the cheat is
discovered we shall be entered in all probability
upon another agitation, but an agitation of a very
different character from any we have yet seen.
(Cheers.) Let us have a real bill, a good bill, or no
bill at all. The question at this moment is in the
hands of the enemy. We stand the risk-of having
brought before us what I will describe as " a coun-
try gentleman's reform bill." The country gentle-
men have not been notorious for their sympathies
in favour of reform. We have always been carrying
on for the last 30 years and more a steady and per-
petual war against the predominance and the power
of the country gentlemen in Parliament. If we
look at their past policy we shall not have much
confidence in their proposed measure. Their
wars, their debts, their taxes, placed upon the bulk
of the people, their stout opposition to the Re-
form Bill of 1832—a1l this leads us greatly to
suspect tkem ; and I confess for my own part
I wish the question of reform were in the hands of
Reformers—in the hands of men of whose sympa-
thies with respect to it we could not have,from their
past lives, the shadow of a doubt. (Cheers.) I
have great fears that until you have a Ministry in
which there are men who are really in favour of
reform, and of an honest reforms you are likely to
get any such measure as the most moderate among
us ought to be in the least satisfied with. (Hear,
hear.) I must warn you against one phrase which
I find our friends—we cannot now call any of them
our opponents—the bewildered Reformers are be-
ginning to use. They say we, must not on any ac-
count "Americanize" our institutions. Now, I
know only one institution in America of which the
Americans need to be very greatly ashamed—and
that institution was established under the Mon-
archy, although, unfortunately, it has
.lived and
flourished under the Republic. They tell us that
in America numbers overwhelm property and edu-
cation. Well, but numbers have not overwhelmed
property and education in England ; and yet look
at legislation in England. Look at our wars, look
at our debt, look at our taxes, look at this great
fact,—that every improvement of the last 40 years
has been an improvement which numbers, and num-
bers only, have wrested from the property, and
what they call the education of the country.
(Cheers.) Our education is fairly represented by
our Universities, but I say now, as I have said be-
fore, that if the Legislature of England, if the Par-
liament of England had been guided for 30 years
past according to the counsels of the representatives
of the Universities, England, instead of being a
country of law - and order, would have been long
before this a country. of anarchy and of revolution.
(Cheeri:) r-America is a strange bugbear. There
are 32 at least, if not 33, independent and sovereign
States in the United States of America. Now,
I am not one of those who believe that
you cannot be free and happy under a monarchy
such as ours. lam not proposing—l am the last
person to propose—that the institutions of this
country should be modelled upon the plan of
some other country, because it is the plan
of some other country; but I say that if we are at
liberty to draw science, products for our manufac-
tures,
and literature from every country in the
world, why should we not, if we see anything good
in the politics of another country, be equally at
liberty'to take a lesson in that respect also ? (Hear.)
Speaking generally, in all the sovereign and inde-
pendent States of America there is a franchise as
wide as that which I have proposed to-night—there
is an exact equal allotment of members to the elec-
tors, and there is throughout most of the States the
protection of the ballot. Yet, in America, we find
law, order, property secure, and a population in
the enjoyment of physical comforts and abundance,
such as are not known to the great body of the
people in this country, and which never nave been
known in any country in any age of the world be-
fore. (Hear.) Now,
will any man dare to tell me
-
in the presence of this audience that the English
nation in England. is a worse nation than the Eng
lish nation in America,? Are we less educated, ar
we less industrious, are we less moral, are we les
subject to the law, are we less disposed to submit t