The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-04 00:00:00

LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND THE PAPAL
MOVEMENT.

TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

My Lord,—Were Parliament sitting the resent letter
would not be written, as I should then be table in your
Lordship's presence to speak that which I now feel com-
pelled t.) write. The extraordinary circumstances of the
resent time induce me not to wait until the meeting of
Parliament, but et once to give expression to my opinions
concerning the mischiefs which now threaten the peace
of this empire; and I address myself to your Lordship
because I believe that great principles are in danger, and
that to you is attributable the imminent risk to which
they are exposed.
The great principles that are thus imperilled are those
which your party and the great leaders of your party
have fur above half a century resolutely supported, and
to which the chiefs of every party have, during the pre-
sent century, rendered singular and honourable homage
—which Mr. Pitt recognised and acted upon, when he
resigned and broke up his Government in 1801 ;
which Lord Grenville and the Whigs of his
Cabinet obeyed when, in 1807, they left office, rather
than y idd to the unconstitutional demand of the
King, that they should pledge themselves never uga,n,
as a Ministry, to agitate the question of the Catholic
claims; which governed the conduct of Lord Wellesley,
Mr. Canning, Mr. Grattan, Lord Grey, and a host be-
side, during the long and wearisome contest that fol-
lowed upon the great question of justice to be done to
the Roman Catholic subjects of the Crown; and which,
at length, my Lord, induced the chiefs of your party, in •
1829, and yourself, as one of their followers, to fat ego
all considerations of personal ambitlou and party aggran-
dizement, and give a hearty assistance to the Duke of
Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, when they, under com-
pulsion, consummated, as we believed, the victory of
common sense and justice, and, as we hoped, for ever laid
the foul demon of religious intolerance by passing the
celebrated measure for the relict of our Catholic fellow-

subjects from all civil disabilities. 'll3est,-;;ijorr,ae
the great principles which I believe now to be iu danger,
and which you, in my opinion, have pat in peril.
But still you may ask—" What are these principles?"
And you may say, " Though you approve the acts you
mention, it by no means follows that you understand the
motives which led to them, or the principles which go-
verned the conduct you praise."
I will answer the question which I suppose thus put.
I believe, then, that the great men whose names I
have cited, and whose deeds on the occasions referred to
I have presumed to praise, thought that, in an empire
like ours, in which are united under one Government
people professing every description of religious belief,
and who by law are permitted to exercise the right of
private judgment, and to support by argument, both in
writing and in spoken discourse, the truth and wisdom
of their own opinions, any attempt to degrade by law,
and by the imposition of civil disabilities, any one class
of believers, was not merely unjust, but in the highest
degree impolitic also, and that while any deprivation of
civil rights for such a cause was a gross injustice and
cruel injury—the affixing on them badges of social in-
feriority, because of the peculiarity of their faith,
would be an insult more galling still than injury—
and therefore it was that they said, make all men,
whether Catholics or Dissenters, equal before the law ;
and let us, under the inspiration of a generous philoso-
phy, and in accordance with the teaching of
experience, be wise in time ; and, forgetting those
mournful days when the friends of freedom thought
themselves compelled, for safety's sake, to be intolerant,
erase from our laws those cruel and impolitic enactments
which have made religion a curse instead of a blessing—
a cause of hate, and strife, and weakness, in place of being
a bond of peace, of unity, and strength.
In accordance with this dictate of justice and policy
was the conduct of the Whig party when they, with
great honour to themselves, aided their opponents in
passing the Emancipation Act in 1829. They then
gloriously belied the oft-repeated imputation upon one
who was once a great Whig, and they did not
" Give up to party what was meant for mankind."

The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, I ac-
knowledge, acted on this occasion upon considerations
much narrower than those which were supposed to have
moved the Whigs. He and his Right Hon. Friend
thought peace and the continuance of Roman Catholic
disabilities impossible, and, simply because Ireland was
turbulent, the Duke of Wellington was content to be
just. He was just, however, only by accident. What
he thought expedient happened to coincide with what
justice demanded. Had his views of policy been differ-
ent—had his iron will still resisted, he would have
risked the chance of civil war, and scouted the Catholics
and their claims.

But to you, my Lord, I address myself as one of those
who laid their superstructure cf policy upon the broad
foundations of a wise and generous morality. I may be
wrong; but I will suppose you clearly to have under-
stood the principles which you and your party enun-
ciated. I will even believe that you really foresaw, and
with a calm mind contemplated, the legitimate conse-
quences of the act which you' advised and supported.
Remember, that your party drove the Duke of Welling-
ton into concession,—most unwillingly he yielded; still
more unwilling was Sir Robert Peel. By your support
the Catholics of Ireland were made to gather courage
and organize a resistance which at length rendered civil
war inevitable, if their claims had been any longtr
denied. During the long dis.ethsions which preceded
the passing of the Emancipation Act every possible con-
sequence of the measure was described and threatened.

It
hues p%ivt eh,
gnse v eirntshi es lteesds ,
uopf v ecr yo
ees
sion? suggestion
anodf deaanntr
t,
notno w
foars
es
se
er
et twhha
et they
t n
a
weresince notoee
utrorledd and
Neither
oefntsproafistehe l
praise, could
few
wo
eeks weeks a surprise. If, indeed, they were not foreseen,
have party
blindedr nor
yo loveu
es to of
make the
o rev
then must you confess yourself a short-sighted politi-
cian. If, however, you did believe that such things
might happen, your present indignation must be feigned,
and put on to serve a purpose, or your past confidence
was falsely assumed and ((puny intended to deceive.
I will not quote Hansard against you. I leave to
others a task which, though to me ungrateful, will be
pleasant to themselves and most amusing to their
hearers. And by this time doubtless many a Parlia-
mentary orator could take a degree on account of his
knowledge of your Lordship's speeches. Bat, as I have
no desire to convict you of mere inconsistency—and as I
believe that even a most minute investigation of all that
you have ever uttered in Parliament would not greatly
conduce to my edification—l would rather address you
as the Prime Minister of England than deal with your
sayings as recorded in Hansard.
And now, my Lord, I will tell you why I believe these
great doctrines of civil and religious liberty to be at the
present time in dauger. I will endeavour to give a
reason for the fear that is in me.
I find the public mind of England stirred from one end
of the kingdom to the other. I hear fierce denunciations
hurled against one large class of our Christian brethren,
and I see politicians nearly of all classes bending be-
neath the storm, and joining in the cry against Papists
and the Pope, and I most sincerely assert that I am ut-
terly at a loss to understand how a really tolerant people
could be thus carried away by an intolerant feeling.
Does any danger really exist? Seeing what the public
feeling is—knowing, as I have for many years known,
the strong anti-Catholic prejudice of my countrymen—l
am not surprised at this outbreak. Simple, downright
intolerance, is at the bottom of it. No real danger
exists. It is not fear, but blind intolerant hate, that has
aroused the land; the same sort of feeling as that which,
in 1780, roused the mobs of London against Sir George
Seville, and made that madman Lord George Gorden
a hero—the idol and leader of the people—is now
exercising a fatal influence upon the good sense of
the English people. This feeling you have most un-
fortunately countenanced; you have given dignity and
importance to an antipathy which you ought carefully
to have allayed; and by your ill-timed support, have
done your utmost to keep alive for years a detestable
intolerance, of which in your heart I believe you to be
thoroughly ashamed.

Where, again, I ask, and what, is the danger? lam
not frightened by words, but I wish to know what is
meant by "Papal aggression?" Can the Pope acquire
power over any man in England merely by nicknaming a
man Archbishop of Westminster,or by giving him a large
bat and a pair of red stockings, and dubbing him a Car-
dinal ? Has the Pope acquired any actual territorial
right or influence by what is called parcelling out the
kingdom of England? We are all equal before the laws.
He cannot invoke the power of the law, then, to perse-
cute us into acquiescence in his doctrine. Upon what,
then, is he to rely in order to gain influence over us? Per-
suasion. He and his emissaries must influence us through
our reason ; and we who pretend to rely upon
the force of truth and the great safeguard of flee dis-
cussion—we cower and tremble, and, like all cowards,
bluster, because a foolish old man, at the instigation of a
crowd of intriguing priests, and a set of weak-minded,
silly converts from our own to the Catholic Church, has
thought fit to give a certain number of bishops English
names—and, spite of our pretended confidence in the
truth of our own opinions, and our braggart boasting of
the efficacy of reason and of argument, we are all at once
horribly alarmed, and fancy that we shall awake some
morning and find ourselves irretrievably Catholic. This
very statement shows how thoroughly ridiculous is the
whole affair when viewed in this light; but far different
is it when we reflect upon the feeling which really has
created all this confusion. When we remember that hate
—religious bigotry—is at the bottom of it all,—when we
remember that every Protestant priest has, by religious
antipathy, been roused into action,—when we also bear
in mind that every Catholic priest in England and Ire-
land has now been challenged to the combat—is it tot
clear, my Lord, that your most unwise and unstatesman-
like letter has served as a trumpet to call into action
the worst and fiercest, and most dangerous passions that
darken human reason, and harden the human heart?
The work of years has in a moment been destroyed, and
all the weary labour of eradicating those now vigorous
wet ds in our fair garden—religious hate and ecclesias-
tical intolerance, has again to be encountered. When
you were a labourer at this work you had to aid you
many Protestant sects then suffering under legal dis-
abilities. These you helped to remove, and now that as-
sistance will no longer be afforded to the friends of re-
ltious freedom, for every Protestant sect will band to-
gether on the one hand, and range them elves in fierce
hostility to all the Catholics on the other. And now,
my Lord, I put to you the ,question which you, as a
statesman, ought long since to have asked youself, H,ow
.is Catholic Ireland ;o be. governed? The immense
majority of the peeple,of Irelandare9atbolic; will they
not now be. excited
toAlte ,sritde. 'franticitC Inch'stiPp.l.4
:
.; Qt, ;fbeVreTigtoti 'as thll.tiwhiCV,:noi,r'',4tigitrites Englapd.,
'gai9st 'it, add upon the some vridelpleS"'fitja6
..PrOtest4ots- in '
,England: d'eteftaine- . Lcep 'tld*rt- :the
Pf4!48.?. Wilt.Ll3 Cajhqiics odirie theiv
~ciwn pie: 4016c° in,"tbnt 6uptiY, and insitst.. upon
equallty,: at least, in tfie baneful' right of'peilieeitfion?
, And here,, shall` have the' Pope brought fury
ward and I shall be. instilled by being asked
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