in queftion every measure which he has himself been the moft forward to have enforced. This". point, Sir, is of fo much importance, that I think I ought not to fuffer the opportunity to pass, without illuftrating more fully what I mean. If? this principle of the incompetency of Parliament to the decifion of the Measure be admitted, or if it be contended, that Parliament has no legitimate authority to difcufs and decide upon it, you will be driven to the neceffity of recognizing a principle, the moft dangerous that ever was adopted in any civilized State. I mean the principle, that Parliament cannot adopt any meafure new in its nature, and of great importance, without appealing to the conftituent and delegating authority for directions. If that doctrine be true, look to what an extent it will carry you. If fuch an argument could be fet up and maintained, you acted without any legitimate authority when you created the reprefentation of the Principality of Wales, or of either of the Coun ties Palatine of England. Every Law that Parliament ever made, without that appeal, either as to its own Frame and Conftitution, as to the qualification of the electors or the elected, as to

the great and fundamental point of the fucceffion to the Crown, was made without due authority.

If we turn to Ireland itfelf, what do Gentlemen think of the power of that Parliament, which, without any fresh delegation from its Proteftant cónftituents, affociates to itself all the Catholic electors, and thus deftroys a fundamental diftinction on which it was formed? God forbid, that I fhould object to or blame any of thefe Meafures! I am only ftating the extent to which the principle (that Parliament has no autho rity to decide upon the prefent Measure) will lead; and, if it be admitted in one cafe, it must be admitted in all. Will any man fay, that (although a Proteftant Parliament in Ireland, chofen exclufively by Proteftant Conftituents, has by its own inherent power, and without confulting thofe conftituents, admitted and comprehended the Catholics who were till then, in fact, a feparate community) that Parliament cannot affociate itself with another Proteftant community, reprefented by a Proteftant Parliament, having one intereft with itself, and fimilar in its Laws, its Conftitution, and its Established

Established Religion? What must be faid by those who have at any time been friends to any plan of Parliamentary Reform, and particularly fuch as have been most recently brought forward, either in Great Britain or Ireland? Whatever may have been thought of the propriety' of the Measure, I never heard any doubt of the competency of Parliament to confider and difcufs it. Yet I defy any man to maintain the principle of thofe plans, without contending that, as a Member of Parliament, be poffeffes a right to concur in disfranchifing those who sent him to Parliament, and to felect others, by whom he was not elected, in their ftead. I am fure that no fufficient diftinction, in point of princi-. ple, can be fuccefsfully maintained for a fingle moment; nor fhould I deem it neceffary to dwell on this point, in the manner I do, were I not convinced that it is connected in part with all thofe falfe and dangerous notions on the fubject of Government which have lately become too prevalent in the world. It may, in fact, be traced to that grofs perverfion of the principles of all political fociety, which refts on the fuppofation that there exifts continually in every Government

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vernment a Sovereignty in abeyance (as it were) on the part of the People, ready to be called forth" on every occafion, or rather, on every pretence, when it may fuit the purposes of the party or faction who are the advocates of this doctrine to fuppofe an occafion for its exertion. It is in thefe falfe principles that are contained the feeds of all the mifery, defolation, and ruin, which in the present day have fpread themfelves over fo large a proportion of the habitable Globe,

Thefe principles, Sir, are, at length, fo well known and understood in their practical effects, that they can no longer hope for one enlightened or intelligent advocate, when they appear in their true colours. Yet, with all the horror we all feel, in common with the reft of the World, at the effect of them, with all the confirmed and increafing love and veneration which we feel towards the Conftitution of our Country, founded as it is, both in Theory and Experience, on principles directly the reverfe; yet, there are too many among us, who, while they abhor and reject such opinions, when prefented to them in their naked deformity, fuffer them in a more disguised shape

to

to be gradually infufed into their minds, and infenfibly to influence and bias their sentiments and arguments on the greatest and most important difcuffions. This concealed poison is now more to be dreaded than any open attempt to support fuch principles by argument or to enforce them by arms. No fociety, whatever be its particular form, can long fubfift, if this principle is once admitted. In every Government, there muft refide fomewhere a fupreme, abfolute, and unlimited authority. This is equally true of every lawful Monarchy of every Ariftocracy of every pure De mocracy (if indeed fuch a form of Government ever has exifted, or ever can exist)—and of those mixed Constitutions formed and compounded from the others, which we are juftly inclined to prefer to any of them. In all these Governments, indeed alike, that power may by poffibility be abufed, but whether the abufe is fuch as to justify and call for the interference of the people col lectively, or, more properly speaking, of any por tion of it, must always be an extreme case and a question of the greatest and most perilous refponfibility, not in Law only, but in Conscience and in Duty, to all those who either act upon it

themselves,