The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-09-13 00:00:00

SEPT, 13, 1836.

South Lancashire has indeed nobly done its duty ! We
feel that we may be permitted to make this declaration
without the risk of being justly accused of offering a mere
Compliment to our immediate neighbours and friends,
under the influence of local predilections, or as the result
'of an impure party bias, destitute alike of ,principle and
honourable sentiment. We mean to say, that the men
of Lancashire have done their duty, in the strict sense of
the word, as men, and what is more, as Christians.
It was our privilege, and our gratifying task, to have
given, in our last Tuesday's number, a full and accurate
report of that soul-stirring spectacle which drew forth the
thousands of our adult and infant population, to witness
and to assist in one of those solemnly impressive scenes,
which ranks next in importance only to the foundation
and consecration of a Christian church—the dedication of
a school of public instruction to the service of our God
and Saviour,.based on his divine authority, as conveyed
in his holy law and everlasting gospel ! It was our
-especial, pleasing duty to record that act, which has re-
deemed our clergy and our christian laity of the town of
Liverpool from the foul stigma attempted to be cast upon
them by the combined measures of men who are avowed
liberals in religion and government, on the one hand,
and the covert friends of popery and superstition on the
other—principles alien alike to national liberty as they
are entirely incompatible with the eternal welfare of man.
The Times of Thursday last, and Friday, has placed
this question as between our protestant clergy and their
opponents, the pro-popish corporators, on its true basis,
it has clenched the point with them at once, supported
by the unanswerable letter of Lord Stanley, and spared
us, for the present, as we insert elsewhere the editor's
judicious and pointed remarks, the invidious task of
showing up what we know of the designs of these assumed
sticklers for freedom of conscience; and having another
imperative duty to perform, we leave their confederates
of the London ministerial press, and their local radical
allies, to help them out of the mire of their own deep
laid political iniquity in the best way they can, as they
,have essayed the ungracious office. All we shall offer by
way of passing remark is, that the glorious, but unas-
suming, pageant of forty Christian ministers, supported
by our late worthy Mayor, and nearly three hundred
gentlemen, composing the wealth, respectability, and in-
telligence of this town and neighbourhood has been the
death-blow of the hopes, as the joyous ringing of our
church bells will prove, the funeral knell of the faction,
which attempted to force upon us, nolens volens, their
unchristian laws—praise be to God !
On Friday we were enabled, under our previous
arrangements, to give a full report of the proceedings at
one of the most important public dinners ever given in
this kingdom, in commemoration of the uprising of the
men of Lancashire in vindication of their insulted honour
-their civil rights—their blood-bought constitution, and
in defence of the protestant altar of their God!
" 0 could I worship aught beneath the skies,
That earth has seen, or fancy can devise,
My altar, sacred Liberty should stand,
Built by no mercenary vulgar hand,—
This triple realm adores thee—thou art come
From Sparta hither, and art here at home !
We feel thy force still active—at this hour
Eiijity immunity from priestly pow'r,
While conscience happier than in ancient years,
Owns no superior, but the God she fears !
Propitious spirit ! yet expunge a wrong
. Thy.rights have sufter'd, and our laud too long.
Let just Restraint, for public peace design'd,
Chain up the Wolves and Tyyers of mankind ;
The foe of Virtue has no claim to thee
But let insolvent innocence go free !"
The spirit of the christian poet, indeed, animated this
-assembly,—every line is descriptive of the feeling of
that soul-like sentiment which reverberated throughout.
here, were religion—virtue—patriotism—freedom of
thought and integrity of design, associated in one bond
of co. operative harmony and devotion of purpose, form-
ing in reality " the feast of reason and the flow of soul,"
under the constitutional banner of our church and King !
yes, ye advocates of a dominatio plebis—ye champions
of unbridled " liberalism "—ye spouters of froth by the
hour—you may contemplate this conservative gathering,
and hide your diminished heads.

Compare the manly decorum which pervaded this meet-
lug of a thousand constitutional Englishmen to the
tluisy and senseless clamour—the .vapourous enthusiasm
°f your reform orgies, where theories are broached desti-
tute alike of reason and practical advantage—where sys-
rtems and principles are propounded, which the projectors
'themselves can neither thoroughly understand nor sup-
Port by.argument or common sense, and saving and ex-
'°epting now and then by a fine play of empty words, built
'l'Pon the shallow hypothesis of expediency—a truly con-
l'eaient phrase for men who cannot illustrate the benefit
of their schemes of - professLd improvement, upon the
broad and easily comprehended foundation of utility or
ecessity •

Constrast the speeches delivered on this occasion with
the aerial nothingness about Irish corrorate reform and
'eglish municipal corporations, puffed into the ears of
the all-expectant 123 whigs at the recent Leeds dinner,
and which their mouths repuffed, and their organ sent
forth again, with its " mercurial breath" to the waiting
multitude, who turned their noses away from its odour !
4, Look on this picture and look on this,"—we challenge
etlr Reform Association and our worthy town councillors
10 the comparison, before that grand community of in-
telligent beings comprehending the NATION.
Our noble ancestors of Runnymede did not perform a
greater service to this Christian country, When they
Wrested from King John the iron grasp of his Popish
.eagued compact, than have the men of England, who,
st this our day, have enrolled themselves under the
7arldard of the constitution, and proclaimed in a voice of
Itleder that they would not have that constitution changed,
4Wilether to please the revolutionary radical—gratify the
do I:itien of the .oligarchical whip—or serve the deeper
I:•igns of the political papist. No,—the compact of
itelifiehi
e:° - -"u5e,..041311 The march of the English women-
h'n„netng agitgagargimigh our classic soil of freedom,
I,Toed their
,_e.y,e*;; sdail,;as the barons of old to their
to t,lll:d.'l3e.t.Yrastit !kin; :so the conservatives of England
ti _a lyraut :faction, which now attempts to rule both
ris. and Lords, and finally hopes to reign over or swamp

those principles which throughout have been my guide and
conduct, and which must be my guide hereafter. I took back
to the question of a reform of-the House of C min-ions; and I
ask you, what was the vote which I gave on that occasion ? It
was decidedly to oppose organic change. The object of that
reform was to do away with the rotten borough system, and to
put an end to the nomination of members of the house of Com.
moos by certain members of the House of Lords, as being in-
consistent with the principles of our constitution It was there-
fore to prevent an organic change that a bill was framed,
having for its object a restoration of the rights of the people,
by which they could make free exercise of those rights by re-
turning their representatives to Parliament. Now, then, I say
the very same principle will be my guide hereafter, nut to de-
part from those early lessons I have learned; that principle I
• have long acted upon, and I must oppose any attempt to intro-
duce election into the House of Lords. It was the opinion of one
of the greatest philosophers and statesmen of antiquity, Cicero,
who laid down his opinion in more beautiful language than
I can describe, that of all forms of government which he knew.
be thought the best would lie established by an union of the
three existing forms—that was, the kingly, the aristocratical;
and the democratical. The government of England for centu-
ries has been composed of those three estates; we have had a
constitution founded in that manner, under which we have pros-
pered, and for God's sake do not let us, for any momentary
disappointment, plunge ourselves into difficulties from which we
cannot see our way out. I know that some ardent politicians,
some persons loving freedom as well but no better than myself,
have pointed to America, and have said, there you see an elective
monarchy and an elective upper house ofparlfament all working
well. I say, wait a little longer. You have not seen that system
of government tried in any other part of the world. Americans
yet young; wait and see what civil commoton will produce,
when it rises up among them. It has been said that good can
never come out of evil. I think we can see the prospects of some
evil. I will ask whether America can do well under her accursed
system of slavery? I will ask whether good can come out of
such a system ? What is it that we can contemplate under it
but civil war ? As the population increases, and those who are
held in bondage become stronger, their anxiety to free themselves
from their oppressors will increase, and we shall have the slave
states in open hostility against the free states, and her govern-
ment will uecome as powerless as it is powerful at present. And
then, gentlemen, we shall see whether they do not want some
of that stability which our ablest and best writers have attributed
to an hereditary monarchy and an hereditary House of Lords."
We hail this speech as ominous of a mighty split in the camp
of the whips; and cannot withhold from Sir George Strickland,
on this occasion, our humble meed of praise; for the know-
ledge he has displayed of the essential principles of the British
constitution; and the just tribute of respect paid by him to the
value and importance of the hereditary second estate of the
realm, as an integral and indissoluble part of the monarchy.
He has displayed both sound understanding and a true inde-
pendent spirit on its behalf, and if we are not much mistaken
the Captain-General of the cabinet of poetical Lambs would
rather that my Lord Morpeth had been snugly quartered at
Derrynane Abbey or Dublin Castle than engaged in spouting
at this whig dinner at Leeds