MARKREE LIBRARY. 
 
 Shelf. 
 
 Block /../. 
 
 Re-arranged in 1913 by BRYAN COOPER 
 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 ON 
 
 FOEMS OF GOVERNMENT: 
 
 A HISTORICAL REVIEW AND ESTIMATE OF THE GROWTH OF THE PRINCIPAL 
 
 TYPES OF POLITICAL ORGANISM IN EUROPE, FROM THE GREEKS 
 
 AND ROMANS DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 A LECTURE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE FREE TRADE HALL, MANCHESTER, BY REQUEST OF THE 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATION, ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1867, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN STUART BLACKIE, ESQ., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WHITTAKEB AND CO. 
 
 EDINBURGH : EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS ; MANCHESTER : J. HEYWOOD, DEANSGATE. 
 1867. 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE
 
 THIS IS COPYRIGHT OP THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATION, MANCHESTER.
 
 THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 President. 
 W. R. CALLENDER, Jun., Esq., D.L., J.P., F.S.A. 
 
 Vice-Presidents. 
 
 Ed 
 W. 
 
 The Eight Hon. Earl of Dudley 
 The HOD. Algernon F. Egerton, M.P..D.L., J.P. 
 Charles Turner, Esq., M.P., D.L., J.P. 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Gray, M.P., D.L., J.P. 
 mund Buckley Esq., M.P. 
 
 . Baliol Brett, Esq., Q.C., M.P. 
 T. Hornby Birley, Esq., Manchester 
 Sam Mendel, Esq. J.P., Manchester 
 George Walker, Esq.. J.P., Manchester 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Loyd, D.L., J.P., 
 
 Lillesden, Hawkhurst, Kent 
 J. Smith Entwistle, Esq.. D.C.L., M.A., D.L., 
 
 J.P., Foxholes, Rochdale 
 John Munn, Esq., J.P., Manchester 
 Albert Hall, Esq., J.P., Stalybridge 
 John M. Kershaw, Esq., J.P., Ashton-under- 
 
 Lyne 
 
 R. H. Norreys, Esq., D.L., J.P., Davyhulme Hall 
 William Gibb, Esq., D.L., J.P., Manchester 
 R. S. Sowler, Esq., Q.C., Manchester 
 Professor Blackie, Edinburgh 
 John Sudlow, Esq., Manchester 
 S H. Norris, Esq., J.P., Altrincham 
 Thomas Brooks. Esq., St. Mawes 
 James Sewell, Esq , Manchester 
 William Bleackley, Esq., Prestwich 
 Ralph Hal!, Esq., Manchester 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Deakin, Manchester 
 Charles Clarke, Esq., J.P., Manchester 
 Thos. Bazley Hall, Esq., J.P., Stalybridge 
 Peter Boyle, Esq, M.D., J.P., Manchester 
 Captain J. Bennett, J.P., Manchester 
 B. St. J. B. Joule, Esq., J.P., Manchester 
 John Bennett, Esq., Willaston Hall, Nantwich 
 J. W. Maclure, Esq, J.P., Manchester 
 Fereday Smith, Esq., A.M., J.P., Manchester 
 Henry Gartside, Esq., Wharmton Tower, Saddle- 
 
 worth 
 
 George Peel, Esq., Manchester 
 Thomas Statter, Esq., Manchester 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Mellor, Brookfield, Ashton- 
 
 under-Lyne 
 H. Howarth Vernon, Esq., M.D., J.P., Ashton- 
 
 under-Lyne 
 
 Clement Hall, Esq., Manchester 
 James Bellhouse, Esq., Manchester 
 James Chadwick, Esq , Castleton 
 Charles A. Stewart, Esq., Manchester 
 Frederick Lowton Spinks, Esq., J.P., M.A., 
 
 Serjeant-at-Law, Faversham 
 Arthur Birley, Esq., Whalley Range 
 J. B Thorpe, Esq., Victoria Park 
 B Gray, Esq.. Barrister-at-Law, Manchester 
 F. F. Whitehead, Esq., J.P., Saddleworth 
 J. H. Whitehead, Esq., J.P., Saddleworth 
 W. J. Harter, Esq., Manchester 
 William Rawstron, Esq.. Manchester 
 Henry Sandford, Esq., Crow Croft Park 
 Captain Chas. Mercier, Manchester 
 Charles Baker Esq., J.P., Stockport 
 Major Bridgford, Manchester ' 
 E. O. Bleackley, Esq., Manchester 
 Captain R. Husband, Manchester 
 Thos. Potter, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Manchester 
 Mr. Councillor Marshall, Manchester 
 Mr. Councillor Brown, Salford 
 Mr. Councillor William Booth, Manchester 
 Mr. Councillor Eastwood, Manchester 
 Mr. Councillor Livesley, Manchester 
 Mr. Councillor Anderton, Manchester 
 Mr. Councillor Grantham, Manchester 
 Mr. Councillor Charles Ashmore 
 W. H. Higgin. Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Man- 
 
 chester 
 
 Thomas Jepson, Esq., Manchester 
 John Robinson, Esq., Manchester 
 David R. Davies, Esq., Manchester 
 Captain A. Crompton, Oldham 
 Hugh Higson, Esq., Manchester 
 
 Reuben Sims, Esq., Bedford, Leigh 
 Thomas Evans Lees, Esq., Oldham 
 
 George Thorpe, Esq., Old Trafford 
 James Hartley, Esq., Rochdale 
 Thomas Sowler, Esq., Manchester 
 
 Rev. W. Whitelegge, M.A., Manchester 
 
 th, M.A., Ch 
 . . all, M.A., H 
 
 Rev. E. A. Lang, M.A., Manchester 
 
 ., 
 
 Chorlton-cum-Hardy 
 arpurhey 
 
 . . 
 
 Rev. J. E. Booth, .., 
 Rev. C. Marshall, M.A., 
 Rev. E. A. Lang, M.A., 
 Rev. W. R. Keeling, M.A., Blackley 
 Rev. Edward Parke, M.A., Blackley 
 Rev. George Edwards, M.A., Blackley 
 Rev. William Heffill. M.A Dukinfield 
 Rev. W. Huntington, M. A., Cornbrook Park 
 Rev. F. C. Woodhouse, M.A., Hulme 
 Rev..Edward Owen, B.A., Oldham 
 Rev. C. Whittaker, M.A.. Salford 
 Rev. Robt. Whittaker, M A Lees 
 Robt. Whittaker, Esq., Waltou-le-Uale 
 Rev. T. R. Busfield. MA., Manchester 
 
 Henry Hall, Esq., Ashton-uuder-Lyne 
 John Moss, Esq., Manchester 
 r, Esq., Manchester 
 
 P. Bidder, 
 
 Daniel Boote, Esq., Manchester 
 Wm. C. Chew, Esq., Lonsdale House, Lytham 
 Charles Oldham, Esq., Manchester 
 R. H. Gibson, Esq., Manchester 
 Thomas Dale, Esq., Manchester 
 N. P. Sandiford, Esq., Manchester 
 George Marsden, Esq., Manchester 
 Austin Shellard, Esq., Manchester 
 W. S. Sawyer, Esq., Manchester 
 Francis Baker, Esq., Stockport 
 J. D. Kennedy, Esq., Manchester 
 Thomas Preston, Esq., Manchester 
 W- *> B Antrobus. Esq., Manchester 
 Henry Warburton, Esq., Harpurhey 
 Samuel Warburton, Esq., Harpurhey 
 Henry Warburton, jun., Esq., Harpurhey 
 James B. Thorpe, Esq.. Manchester 
 ' Andrew, Esq., Moston House 
 
 Mattley, Esq., Rochdale 
 John R. Baldwin, Esq , Rochdale 
 W imam Bradley, Esq. Stockport 
 J. Me. Millan, Esq., Manchester 
 J. W. Walton, Esq., Manchester 
 T " , R y lance > Esq., Manchester 
 J. W. Makin, Esq., Salford 
 Alfred Nicholls, Esq., Manchester 
 William Smith, Esq., Manchester 
 Henry Fisher, Esq., Manchester 
 Henry Keeling, Esq., Manchester 
 Alexander Mitchell, Esq Manchester 
 A K. Sidebottom, Esq., J.P., Mottram 
 JohnCotterill, Esq., Manchester 
 
 , ., 
 
 J. H. Birley, Esq., Newton-le- Willows 
 Andrew Dobbie, Esq., Manches 
 John Sowler, Esq., Manchester 
 
 hester 
 
 Pookes Royle, Esq., Manchester 
 John Higgin Esq., Rochdale 
 
 uAfihton Esa JP Prestwirh 
 William Hanmer. Esq.', Wilmslow 
 Captain Alfred Knowles, Manchester 
 S. Tweedale, Esq., Rochdale 
 Lawrence Rawstron, Esq., Manchester 
 J. Gardner, Esq., Manchester 
 H. C. Oats, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Manchester 
 Wm. Smith, Esq., Collyhurst 
 E.H Siddell, Esq.. Manchester 
 W. W. Me. Kay, Esq., Manchester 
 Jas. Watson, jun., Esq., Manchester 
 John J. Wood Esq., Manchester 
 Robt. Stewart, Esq., Manchester 
 Jas. Broughton, Esq., Higher Broughtou 
 Mr. Councillor Farmer, Salford 
 ' H. Fishwick, Rochdale 
 
 Kilvert, Esq., Whalley Range 
 
 1 081 577
 
 Jonathan Neild, Esq.. J. 
 
 Heury Saudford, Esq.. Manchester 
 
 Jas. Wm. Fenton, Esq., J.P., Rochdale Peter Keeveny, Esq., Manchester 
 
 T. B. Pickles. Esq., Rochdale Rev. Charles Bisset, B.D.. Upholland 
 
 Nathan Worthington, Esq., D.L., J.P., Hollin- Thomas Helsby, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Man- 
 
 wood Chester 
 
 Jno. Duucroft Worthington, Esq., J.P.. Hollin- Danl. Thwaites, Esq., Blackburn 
 
 wood Rev. James Bumstead, Oldham 
 
 G. H. Worthington, Esq.. J.P.. Hollinwood Rev. Jas. Hornby Butcher, Ramsbottom 
 
 Richard Redfern. Esq., Oldham Wm. Harrison, Esq., F.S.A.. J P , Blackburn 
 
 Jas. Pilling, Esq.. Stone Hill. Rochdale ' James Fletcher, Esq , Kearsley 
 
 Leo. Wilkinson, Esq.. Blackburn LieutenanWJolonel Robt. Munn, New Church 
 
 E. Abbott Wright, Esq. J.P., Frodsham Henry Cecil Raikes, Esq., Junior Carlton Club 
 
 John Leich. Esq. Rochdale The Rev. J. Aldworth, B. A., Wigan 
 
 Jas. W. Walker. Esq.. Rochdale Henry Snape, Esq., Manchester 
 
 Wm W. Schofield. Esq., J.P., Rochdile Wright Chadderton, Esq , Manchester 
 
 J. Hargreaves, Esq.. Blackburn Leonard Reuss, Esq., Manchester 
 
 James Booth, Esq., Oldham Wm. Coddingtou. Esq., Blackburn 
 
 John Chapman, Esq., D.L. J.P.. M.A., Mottram Win. Bradburn, Esq., Patricroft 
 
 George Falkner, Esq., Manchester M. Kennedy, Esq., J.P., Hayesleigh, Manchester 
 
 John Beresford, Esq., Manchester J. B. Alexander, Esq., Manchester 
 
 Treasurer : 
 WILLIAM AMBROSE, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, 37, Cross-street. 
 
 Honorary Secretaries. 
 MR. JAMES TAYLOR. j MR. M. H. CHADWICK. 
 
 Auditors. 
 
 MR. S. H. HODSON, School Mills, 
 MR. JOHN BARKER, Accountant. Ridgefield. 
 
 Bankers. 
 MESSRS. CUXLIFFB, BROOKS, & Co., King-street. 
 
 Executive Committee. 
 MR. WILLIAM TOUCHSTONE (Chairman.) 
 MR. THOMAS HOESFIELD (Vice-Chairman.) 
 
 Mr. JOHN FRANKLIN Mr. T. M. WALKER 
 
 Mr. W. E. STUTTKR Mr. DAVID TAYLOR 
 
 )ANIEL HALL 
 ILLIAM GARTSIDE 
 
 \. D. SUTCLIFFE 
 . A. G. SUTHERLAND 
 
 Mr. JOHN LAWTON 
 Mr. GEO. ESDAILE 
 
 Mr. JAMES ARMSTRONG 
 Mr. JOHN TABBRON 
 Mr. JOHN HICKS 
 Mr. RICHARD STANFIELD 
 Mr. WILLIAM POWELL 
 Mr. SOL. MCRRAY 
 
 OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Firstly. To counteract by all lawful means the influence of any popular 
 agitations, the action of which may tend to the undue acquisition 
 of political power by any particular class of the people, and to the 
 ultimate evils arising from the usurpations of democracy. 
 
 Secondly. It is proposed, by holding public meetings and by other 
 agencies, to induce among all classes such full and fair discussion of 
 political principles as may result in the most extended adoption of 
 correct views on Constitutional Government. 
 
 Thirdly. To support Parliament in the free discharge of its legislative 
 functions, uninfluenced by any intimidation which may from time 
 to time be brought to bear upon its deliberations. 
 
 Fourthly. The Association cordially supports such measures of Reform 
 in the representation of the people as while preserving the present 
 Constitution of the country shall admit to the privileges of the 
 Franchise all those, who from their industry and intelligence, may 
 fairly be judged competent to its proper exercise. 
 
 JAMES TAYLOR, ) 
 M. H. CHADWICK, ) * 
 CHIEF OFFICE, 8, PARSONAGE, 
 
 BLACKFRIARS STREET, MANCHESTER. 
 
 Donations or subscriptions may be forwarded to the Treasurer, WM. 
 AMBROSE, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, 37, Cross-street, Manchester. 
 Members enrolled on payment of Is. or upwards.
 
 of the <<w3tittttiattal 
 
 AT THE FREE TRADE HALL, APRIL 24-TH, 1867. 
 
 ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR BLACKIE, 
 
 "ON FORMS OF GOVERNMENT." 
 
 Mr. CHARLES TURNER, M.P. for South Lancashire, presided, and there 
 were also present on the platform : The Revs. W. Whitelegge, M.A., 
 C. Whittaker, F. B. Wright, W. Huntington, W. Woodville ; Messrs. W. R. 
 Calleuder, jun. (president of the Constitutional Association), Wm. Young, 
 Sanderson, W. Ambrose, T. Helsby, G. Scott (London), J. Collinge, 
 R. Duckworth (secretary Conservative Club, Blackburn), J. B. Edge 
 (Boltoii), R. Hall, C. Hall, R, Udall, Captain Sawyer, Captain Knowles, 
 Colonel Deakin, Captain Birley (Xewton-le-Willows), W. Gibb (Swiuton 
 Park), J. B. Thorpe, Thomas Statter, Captain Evans Lees (Oldham), 
 George Thorpe, Councillor Anderton, Councillor William Booth, James 
 M'Millan, R. H. Norreys (Davyhulme Hall), Dr. Royle, R. Higgin, R. 
 Mattley, Jas. Hartley (Rochdale), Thos. Dale, Alfred Higgins (Salford), 
 George* Slater, J. Palin (Liverpool), W. D. B. Antrobus, Edward Hull, S. 
 P. Bidder, James Pilling (Rochdale), James Fletcher (Kearsley), Joseph 
 Leech (Rochdale), James Pickering (Orrell), W. H. Harbottle (Wigan), 
 J. F. Mart, Joseph Lowe (Salford). The large room was well filled. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN, who was received with great cheering, said : Ladies 
 and gentlemen, It is with very great pleasure that, at the request of 
 the Constitutional Association, I take the chair this evening on the occa- 
 sion of the delivery of a lecture by Professor Blackie on forms of govern- 
 ment. (Applause.) The talent and ability of the learned Professor 
 ensure to us a lecture at once interesting and instructive. A lecture 
 delivered by an able man, and a man of information on such a subject, 
 must always be, but particularly so at a period like the present, when the 
 legislature of the country is engaged in remodelling the basis on which 
 rests one of the most important parts of that form of government with 
 which this country has been blessed for so long a period. (Applause.) In 
 the re-construction of our electoral body, I trust that that balance of the 
 different interests and classes of the community will be preserved, which, 
 while the basis of the House of Commons is extended, will make that 
 body continue to be what it has hitherto been, a fair representation of 
 every portion of the community. (Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, though 
 this lecture is delivered at the instance of the Constitutional Association, 
 I don't take it that this meeting is a political one, in the strict sense of 
 the word. (Hear, hear.) But, at the same time, called as it is at the 
 instance of the Constitutional Association, I think that I am justified in 
 considering that it is a Conservative meeting. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
 
 2 
 
 And treating it as a Conservative meeting as a meeting called bv an 
 association which has for its object to preserve the constitution of the 
 country in Church and State (hear, hear) as against the objects of 
 those societies which, however they may disguise it, have for their ulti- 
 mate design the uprooting of those institutions under which we have so 
 long lived, and under which this country has enjoyed so much liberty. 
 I may say that a reform in Parliament is, I think, on all hands held now 
 to be a political necessity, and I trust and believe that whatever altera- 
 tion is made in the constitution of the electoral body will be at once 
 liberal and conservative. (Applause.) I think we are all agreed that it 
 is most desirable to extend the franchise to the more intelligent and in- 
 dustrious of the working classes of the community. (Hear, hear.) Well, 
 then, the great object we have in view is to ascertain how that is to be 
 done, and in my opinion the measure proposed by the Government will 
 have that effect will at the same time be more liberal and more conser- 
 vative than any measure which has yet been proposed. (Applause.) In 
 private life and the same thing extends to public life when we want a 
 steady, honest, industrious man, we look to the man who pays his way 
 and discharges all his obligations, both public and private. (Applause.) 
 Without entering more fully into this subject, which would occupy too 
 much time for I am only here to-night for the purpose of taking the 
 chair, and I will make but a few introductory observations my own 
 feeling is, and I am happy to find that the meeting agrees with it that 
 the best test that we can have in introducing the working men into the 
 suffrage is to bring in the industrious, the sober and honest working man, 
 and keep out the idle,- the dissolute and the thriftless working man. 
 (Applause.) The one we all want to admit, and the other we all want 
 to exclude, and for that purpose we must have some test, and the best, 
 I repeat it, is to choose the man who discharges both his public and pri- 
 vate obligations and pays bis way, and exclude the man who does neither. 
 (Hear, hear, and applause.) I am not here, as I said before, for the 
 purpose of making a speech, nor are you here for the purpose of listening 
 to me, but we are all here for the purpose of listening to a lecture which 
 the learned professor has been kind enough to come here to deliver ; and 
 with these few remarks I call upon him to deliver that lecture. (Applause. ) 
 Professor BLACKIE, who was received with loud and continued applause, 
 in introducing his lecture, said : It may appear strange that a Greek 
 Professor from Edinburgh should come to talk politics in the great cotton 
 capital of the south. It does appear to me more strange that I should 
 have come here and be standing upon this platform at all. (Laughter.) 
 I am sure that the gentlemen who asked me to come here will bear me 
 witness that I was very slow in answering to their invitation. Like a 
 true Scot, I was very cautious before I entered upon it. Like an old 
 trout, I took a whole week to consider whether I would bite or not, and 
 at last I did bite (hear, hear, and laughter) because I found that they 
 did not make any very hard conditions. They did not bind me down to 
 any political creed. (Applause.) I understood only that they were 
 champions for the British constitution the very name of the association 
 showed that (applause) and I also knew perfectly well, too well, from 
 the tone of various public speeches, and of various popular magazines or
 
 journals that were sent about, that there was a party in this country 
 that whatever they chose to say, or however they chose to mince their 
 profession, were in their hearts, in their arguments, and in their princi- 
 ples, hostile to the British constitution ; and, at the present moment, 
 desired to Americanise the whole of the social organism of the country. 
 (Hear, hear, and cries of "Shame.") I had therefore no doubt whatever 
 in accepting this invitation. And it does not appear so very absurd that 
 a professor of Greek should lecture upon a political question. My great 
 countryman, Adam Smith, though no merchant, wrote about free trade 
 in corn before ever Richard Cobden was heard or even dreamt about 
 and it may be possible that I, who am merely a political thinker, may 
 have some ideas not unworthy of being considered by } r ou, who are 
 readers in the great practical world of politics. I therefore shall take 
 you altogether out of your local questions and temporary disputes, even 
 to that grand point of view, the historic. (Hear, hear.) I must take 
 you back to a time when it might be difficult to discern Manchester upon 
 the face of the map. We will take, my friends, a review of three or four 
 thousand years, in comparison with which the question of Mr. Disraeli's 
 Reform Bill or that of Mr. Gladstone either is a very small matter. We 
 shall endeavour to lay down large principles which are, or at least which 
 ought to be, included in all reform bills which are being brought about 
 just now. (Hear, hear.) Now I am quite aware I know that the 
 English people don't like metaphysics Scotchmen like an argument, 
 and Englishmen like facts (laughter and applause) therefore I will 
 give my arguments altogether in the shape of facts, and I will bring 
 forward before you the main lines of six of the greatest constitutions 
 that have been in the history of the world. (Hear, hear.) Looking upon 
 them as political experiments, I will tell you what they have done I 
 will show you how they failed, and how they have fallen. Those six 
 constitutions are the constitutions of Sparta, of Athens, of Rome, these 
 three from ancient times ; and then from the modern times I will take 
 three, namely, the constitutions of Prussia, of America, and of Great 
 Britain. I take these six, partly because they afford the most excellent 
 contrast partly because they are the most final in the history of the 
 world and partly because I happen to know most about them. (Hear, 
 hear, and laughter.) If you ask me what I know about Prussia, I had 
 the happiness of living there two or three years of my life. I can see 
 how its constitution works, and I speak as a man who knows something 
 about it. The Professor further said that he should be satisfied if, as 
 the result of his lecture, he could get the people to study for themselves. 
 It would be much better for them than attending to John Bright, or any 
 of those travelling demagogues (applause) or listening to their speeches 
 which were full of vituperation and passion, and little else. (Laughter.) 
 He quite admitted that Mr. Bright was sometimes right (hear, hear) 
 but by no means always. The learned Professor then pi'oceeded with 
 his lecture, and said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen, There are four great errors 
 in reference to the philosophy of politics which we see not uncom- 
 monly committed, when judgments are delivered on different forms 
 of government. The first and most vulgar is to think all forms of
 
 government bad except that under which we have the fortune 
 to live, to mirror ourselves in our own perfections, and to ignore the 
 excellencies of our neighbour. The second is the reverse of this, to 
 fix our regards only on the thorns of our own position, and to see 
 nothing but roses in that of our neighbour. The third is to attribute to 
 forms of government sins or virtues which belong not to any form of 
 government in particular, but to human nature in general, and to half-a- 
 dozen peculiarities, in climate, race, genius, culture, situation, personality, 
 which defy all measurement and transcend all calculation ; and the 
 fourth is to fling all political analogies and precedents overboard with a 
 heroic scepticism, and launch out into the great sea of social possibilities 
 with no direction but that which has its root in enormous self-confidence, 
 and a chivalrous trust in the chapter of accidents. The mere statement 
 of these fallacies may be considered sufficient for their refutation : 
 nevertheless, the page of history and the atmosphere of political ideas is 
 full of facts and fancies that can be traced distinctly to hasty and incon- 
 siderate reasoning on one of these insufficient postulates. By proceeding 
 on the first postulate, British statesmen have forced British forms of 
 constitutional government on peoples who had neither the knowledge nor 
 the training necessary for their success ; and American statesmen may 
 some day find it necessary to make war on the British possessions in 
 America, in order that no part of that extensive continent may lack the 
 inestimable blessing of a republican government. By arguing from the 
 second assumption, certain politicians hi this country of well-tempered 
 monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, have convinced themselves that 
 there is no hope for the world except in the universal adoption of that 
 form of government whose great merit is that it happens to be exactly 
 the reverse in all points of that to which they have been accustomed. 
 Every man knows where his own shoe pinches, and nothing is more obvious 
 than to imagine that your neighbour's shoe does not pinch at all because 
 he has no corn exactly upon the same place of the same toe. It is the 
 easiest of all things to admire your neighbour's house, because it possesses 
 some beauties that cannot be predicated of yours : a fine open situation, 
 a gracefully-proportioned front, a sunny exposure ; for, so long as you do 
 not live in the house, you cannot know that it is ill-drained, that the 
 wind roars in the chimneys, that the adjacent marshes breed mosquitoes 
 and malaria, that there is dry rot in the wood, and that the roof lets in 
 the rain. No man knows a woman till he marries her ; and those who, at 
 the distance of the whole swell of the Atlantic, delight to indulge their 
 fancy in contemplating the blessedness of men who live under a 
 democratic polity, might lightly alter their opinions by only a few yean?' 
 experience of the low intrigues, the blushless lies, the rampant selfishness, 
 and the incalculable corruption of all kinds that grow out of the dung-bed 
 of a presidential election. An instance of false political judgment arising 
 out of the third assumption, we find in the case of those who ascribe to 
 democracy all the bloody and savage excesses of the French revolution ; 
 when those excesses arose partly out of the Celtic temperament, partly 
 out of the very nature of all violent revolutions, and belonged as cer- 
 tainly to an oligarchic revolution in ancient Athens, as to a democratic 
 one in modern Paris. The fourth postulate is hastily assumed by those
 
 who are too ignorant to recognise, too lazy to investigate, or too dogmatic 
 to tolerate the grave lessons of political experience ; it suits their indo- 
 lence, or the party purpose which spurs them, to refuse instruction from 
 far times or from distant places ; and therefore they career along with 
 a gay confidence in their own conceit, saying that all historical parallels 
 are fallacious. But the lessons of history in reference to political science 
 are not the less valuable because they require to be used with dis- 
 crimination ; and the parading an accidental difference will not, any more 
 than hi other branches of science, nullify the common laws which have 
 their root in a fundamental identity. I, for one, believe the lessons 
 derivable from political experience to be as certain as any that belong to 
 the most exact sciences ; the only source of disturbance in political 
 science being that, when parties are engaged in a struggle for political 
 power, they are not in a humour to seek for political truth, and therefore 
 fail to find it. But while the parties directly engaged are mostly inca- 
 pable of judgment, the impartial spectator may often estimate the forces 
 and predict the results as certainly as any calculation in a dynamical 
 or mechanical equation. Moral forces may not be measurable exactly 
 in inches ; but they are measurable. 
 
 With these convictions, and having been requested by the office- 
 bearers of this influential association to deliver a lecture that shall 
 contain such deductions from the rich political experience of centuries 
 as may be useful at the present important crisis of our constitutional 
 history, I proceed to place before you some of the grand political experi- 
 ments that have been made or are being made in the world. I shall 
 select three from the ancient and three from the modern world, exhibit- 
 ing types as diverse and as contrasted as possible. Leaving the East 
 out of view, which for various reasons presents no parallels by which we 
 can profit, I shall cast a glance in the ancient world, at the forms of 
 government in Sparta, Athens, and Rome ; while in the modern world I 
 shall confine myself to Prussia, America, and Great Britain. The subject 
 is a broad one ; and you will, therefore, be content if I bring before you 
 only the grand outlines of the picture, and deduce a few of the most 
 general and the most incontrovertible propositions. 
 
 SPARTA. 
 
 The original form of government in all the Greek states, was, as 
 Aristotle informs us, monarchical. The general prevalence of this form 
 of polity, not only in early Greece bat all over the world, is easily 
 explained. The first thing wanted in all society is unity of action and 
 consistent adherence to a common plan ; and as the greatest obstacle to 
 this is the spirit of individualism and the tendency of great masses of 
 men to split into parties, which makes co-operation difficult, the obvious 
 remedy is found in submission to the supreme authority of a single 
 dominant will. This enforced subordination, useful in peace, becomes 
 necessary in war ; and as in the early stages of society hostile encounters 
 are so common as to become a recognised part of every man's life, the 
 common type of early governments is monarchical. It is obvious, how- 
 ever, that the constraint thus implied cannot be agreeable to the persons 
 who submit to it : they accept it as a necessity rather than delight in
 
 it as a fact. For the natural form of government in the earliest stages 
 of society is not monarchical, but aristocratic. Masses of men gather 
 under the leadership of those commanding individuals whom talent, 
 hereditary resources, family connections, or local advantages point out 
 as the natural governors of particular districts. Thus instead of one 
 king we have many to start with ; and, as these have equal rights 
 among themselves, it is manifest that they will be inclined to look 
 upon a supreme king as an encroachment on their natural rights, 
 and will regard his office as a sort of prolonged dictatorship, not to be" 
 tolerated longer than necessary. This position of the early Greek kings 
 towards the early Greek aristocracy is evident enough on the face of the 
 Homeric poems and in the whole plot of the Iliad. Agamemnon was 
 King of the Greeks only so long as the war of Troy lasted ; after the fall 
 of the god-built walls we hear no more of a King of Greece, or even a 
 general-in -chief of the Greeks, till the time of Alexander the Great : we have 
 only the lords of the Spartan, Argive, and Attic districts, who become 
 supreme kings each in his own domain. But even these local kingships 
 were not destined to last. The provincial king is only first among a large 
 family of peers, who watch his proceedings with jealousy and are ready to 
 lay hold of his first abuse of snpreme power, as an excuse, in the name 
 of right and equality, for re-establishing the authority of the national 
 aristocracy. This is the secret of the overthrow of the kingly power in 
 the most distinguished states of Gi'eco-Roman antiquity. Only one 
 notable state escaped this contagion. This state was SPARTA ; and 
 even here we find the power of the kings limited in the most signal 
 manner, not only by the general strength of the aristocratic element in 
 the constitution, but by the curious accident, or rather cunning device, 
 of the double kingship ; a device than which nothing could be more 
 effective as a means of securing the preponderance of aristocratic influence 
 in the state, nothing more ridiculous, if it was intended to give the 
 monarchical element in the constitution fair play. Notwithstanding 
 this unfavourable position of the monarchs, however, the kings of Sparta, 
 either by the weight of their general character, as in the case of Agesi- 
 laus, or by their position as generals-in-chief at the head of a warlike 
 nation, maintained much more real power to the last than at the present 
 moment belongs to our constitutional sovereign. We have, therefore, 
 in Sparta the only example of a mixed monarchy analogous to the 
 British constitution among the prominent states of Greek and Roman 
 antiquity. For besides the aristocratic assembly called yepouo-ta, or 
 Council of the Elders, they had the cocXj/o-t'a, or general assembly, as we 
 see it convened by Telemachus in the second book of the Odyssey, and as 
 we find it afterwards in Athens in the exercise of all the legislative and 
 executive functions of the state. 
 
 Now, what are the political lessons which a consideration of the rise and 
 fall of the famous Spartan monarchv ought to teach the political thinkers 
 of the present day ? First, we 1 earn that the grand principle of stability and 
 permanence in political institutions is a national, healthy, strong, and well 
 ordered aristocracy. The other states of Greece, without the stable element 
 of the kingship, supported by a strong natural aristocracy, that is, in the 
 case of the Spartan yepovaia, a House of Lords continually recruited from the
 
 great and the most tried men of the people, aud holding their dignity for life 
 the other states of Greece, I say, lost all sense of social security in the 
 shifting ascendancy of opposing factions ; and in the midst of this weary 
 and bloody turmoil Sparta stood forth alone as the model of stable 
 government, admired not less by practical politicians like Thucydides 
 than by speculative philosophers like Plato. But Sparta owed this per- 
 manence, like Rome, not merely to its aristocratic institutions, but to its 
 military discipline and the habits of order and subordination Avhich mili- 
 tary discipline necessarily implies. In one sentence, therefore, let us 
 say that the strength of Sparta lay in its aristocratic government limited 
 by monarch v, and in its habits of military discipline ; and of these ex- 
 cellences the first unquestionably is shared with it by Great Britain. 
 But there were sources of weakness deeply seated in the constitution of 
 that country which ultimately led to its ruin. Lacedsemon had no sound 
 basis of popular energy and enterprise out of which the upper strata of 
 society could be largely recruited : the ancient Spartans, like the modern 
 Turks, were an army of strangers encamped among a conquered people 
 whom they had reduced to slavery and kept in the most hated bondage. 
 A. Spartan army was not easily beaten ; but when beaten, it had nothing 
 to fall back on. The Spartans were like the Southerns in the late American 
 war : they were conquered not for want of manhood, but for want of 
 men. Hence we learn the great lesson, that without a free, independent, 
 and enterprising population no nation can achieve the highest greatness. 
 The Spartans and Messenians were exactly in the same relation as the 
 Turks in those parts of the empire where the population is com- 
 posed mainly of Greeks ; or as Great Britain would be if the whole 
 Bi-itish population were Irish Catholics, kept in social bondage by the 
 dominant minority of a Protestant aristocracy. The fundamental cause 
 of the fall of Sparta, therefore, is an open secret which any man may 
 read. It fell mainly because it wanted the root of democratic energy, 
 out of which alone a strong aristocracy can be sustained. Of the other 
 vices in its constitution I shall say nothing. The one-sidedness of its 
 military education has been noted by Aristotle ; and the dark deeds of 
 its unscrupulous oligarchy have been largely exposed by Mr. Grote. To 
 us happily it affords few lessons which may not be more effectively learned 
 from the grander polity of Rome. Of this anon. But the chronological 
 sequence demands that in this place first we enquire what lessons are to 
 be derived from the most brilliant of the ancient Greek states, that state 
 which in every higher sense to the world at large means Greece, viz., 
 
 ATHENS. 
 
 Of this state, as every schoolboy knows who has not heard of 
 Codrus 1 ? the original polity was monarchical. The reasons above 
 stated, whatever the mythical account of the matter may be, led step 
 by step to the constitution of the most celebrated, the most brilliant, but 
 also one of the most short-lived democracies that the history of the 
 world presents. By the jealousy of the Attic aristocracy, kings were 
 first changed into archons for life, archons for life yielded to decennial 
 archons, and decennial archons became at last annual, with no high execu- 
 tive authority, but only judicial functions and recognized social position
 
 The first great name in the more recent history of Athens is Solon, 
 B.C. 600. This great legislator found the mass of the people suffering 
 under oppression of the most grievous sort, which had arisen out of the 
 long continued exclusive rule of the aristocracy, unchecked either by 
 kingly control from above or popular power from below. For there is 
 no maxim of political science more certain than that every privileged 
 body, exercising for a long time supreme power without check is sure to 
 abuse that power : there will grow up what we call a one-sided class 
 legislation by which the unprivileged classes will feel themselves 
 aggrieved. This state of things Solon found in Athens, and it is his 
 immortal glory to have put an end to it by the sole weight of his 
 wisdom and his character. Happy the people who in a great popular 
 crisis have a great man to rely on ; happier still if they can discern the 
 great man when he is there, and submit themselves to him, as the feeble 
 ought always to do to the strong, the bad to the good, and the foolish to 
 the wise ! Solon not only settled the law of debtor and creditor, which 
 in ancient Athens, as in ancient Rome, was on a most iniquitous footing, 
 but he balanced, or did the best he could to achieve a balance between 
 the old aristocratic and the young democratic elements in the constitu- 
 tion of such a nature as seemed best calculated to perpetuate both the 
 reasonable influence of the one, and the just claims of the other. This 
 constitution consisted of a court of the highest aristocratic dignity, called 
 the Court of the Areopagus, of a senate or ftovXr), answering to the 
 yepovffia of Sparta, and an e/MrXjjertu or popular assembly. Of the exact 
 constitution and character of the Areopagus in those most ancient times, 
 as well as of the character and position of the Solonian Senate, we are 
 most imperfectly informed ; but are fairly entitled to conclude that both 
 these bodies originally possessed an aristocratic character, and exercised 
 an aristocratic influence, which within a very short period altogether dis- 
 appeared. Certain it is that no people long trained to aristocratic supre- 
 macy bounds to extreme democracy by a leap ; and we shall not be 
 surprised, therefore, to find the first great democratic movement against 
 the mixed constitution contemplated by Solon made by Clisthenes in the 
 year 510 B.C., the epoch of the Roman Tarquins, inspired with irresisti- 
 ble strength by the maritime element which decided the Great Persian 
 War 480 B.C., and crowned with the cornice of completeness by the 
 strong hands of Pericles in the generation immediately following. From 
 this time, say 460 B.C. to the Battle of Chseronea, and the ex- 
 tinction of Greek independence by Philip of Macedon in the year 338, 
 there prevailed in Athens a democracy of the most free and unfettered 
 description. In this democracy the sole sovereignty lay in the assembly 
 of the people ; the Senate was only a standing committee of their number; 
 the authority of the Court of Areopagus became merely honorary and 
 j udicial. What then did it achieve 1 How did it work 1 And why was 
 it of so limited duration ? These are interesting questions which admit 
 of being answered with the utmost distinctness and precision. But first 
 let me make two important remarks which are absolutely necessary to 
 any intelligible view of this subject. The Athenian democracy was not 
 a democracy of household suffrage, or of manhood suffrage, in the sense 
 in which our Radicals use these words ; or as these words become facts
 
 in the Paudemouian rabblement which rules New York. Every free- 
 born Athenian of full blood, and at some periods also of half blood, -was 
 a voter in the eKKXrioria. But these free Athenians were not above 20,000 
 in a population of 450,000, all the rest being children, women, and slaves. 
 On common occasions it was difficult to get 6,000 people to assemble in 
 the Pnyx for the transaction of public business. Now although this 
 assembly of a few thousand citizens of course included all classes of 
 people, it cannot be doubted that it excluded the great mass of that 
 lowest and most degraded class which universal suffrage admits in New 
 York, and would admit according to the theories of the American party 
 in this country. As compared with the democratic ideal which New 
 York has attained, and which our extreme democratic schemers hope to 
 attain, the constituency of Athens was a most select body. The second 
 remark that I have to make is, that it is a great fallacy to imagine that 
 the brilliant exhibition of intellect which was the glory of Greece had 
 anything to do with the democratic form of government under which 
 Attic political influence attained its zenith. Some of the most renowned 
 names in Greek literature belong to ages and centuries with which 
 Athenian democracy had nothing to do. Homer, Thales, Pythagoras, 
 and Herodotus were all Asiatics. What produced that magnificent 
 efflorescence of human thought, which we call Greek literature, 
 was first the peculiar gift of God to that people, and second 
 the possession of that amount of popular freedom which is necessary 
 for the happy evolution of all moral and intellectual energy. But 
 it is a mistake to suppose that the liberty of any people has 
 anything to do with a democratic form of government. There is no 
 country hi which more real personal, moral, and intellectual liberty 
 is enjoyed than Great Britain ; and we have produced a national litera- 
 ture which in most respects vies with, and in some respects surpasses, 
 the highest literature of ancient Greece. The star of Shakespeare 
 rose when the monarchy was still the most marked feature of our 
 mixed constitution. Cowper and Burns, Byron and Scott, Words- 
 worth and Tennyson, expanded the iridescent plumage of their 
 fine conceptions, under what Radicals call the " cold shade of aristo- 
 cracy." Nay, even under the petty princedoms of Germany, before 
 the great uprising of popular energy in the year 1813, the greatest 
 literature was produced that has thrown a light over Europe since 
 the days of Shakespeare and Lord Bacon. Let the Athenian demo- 
 cracy, therefore, get full credit for its political achievements, but not 
 for fruit which grew in gardens which it never watered. What its 
 achievements were is shortly said. The great virtue of all demo- 
 cracies is energy and enterprise : indomitable and lofty enterprise is 
 what all impartial men admire in the democracy of Athens. The 
 deliverance of eastern Europe from the yoke of Oriental despotism, and 
 the sovereignty of the Greek race in ^Egean seas maintained for a long 
 period against Persian tyranny, may fairly be considered as the two 
 great social results from Athenian democracy, for which the world can 
 never cease to be grateful. The answer to the second question, how 
 the government worked 1 will, I am afraid, prove less satisfactory. 
 No doubt it was better in all respects than the government of self-
 
 10 
 
 constituted local autocrats such as Pisistratus and Dionysius with 
 which it stood contrasted ; better in most respects than the aristocratic 
 government of Sparta ; not indeed because that government contained 
 the aristocratic element, but because the aristocracy there rested, as we 
 have seen, on no popular basis : but, in spite of its brilliancy, a cool 
 iudge will say that it was a bad form of government, and, moreover, that 
 notwithstanding its comparatively select character, it was ruined in a 
 remarkably brief period precisely by those vices, which essentially belong 
 to an unmixed democratic constitution. It fell by one great fault and 
 two great sins, by the insolence of unbridled energy, by faction and by 
 corruption. The imperiousness of popular conceit sent Xicias to Syracuse 
 iust as the haughtiness of military absolutism, in these latter days, brought 
 Napoleon to Moscow ; and both found a grave where they had hoped to 
 grasp a crown; for "before honour comes humility"; and moderation, 
 which despotism and democracy alike disown, is the only safe guardian 
 of power. As for the faction and corruption, which are a neverfailing 
 growth from the rank soil of pure democracy, how effectually they com- 
 pleted the work of exhaustion, which the struggles of the Peloponnesian 
 war had commenced, the orations of Demosthenes sufficiently declare. 
 Had the Athenians acted with as much vigour against the petty barbaric 
 king of Pella, as one hundred and forty years before they had exhibited 
 against the great king of the East, the Macedonian captain never could 
 have set foot south of Mount Olympus ; but a century and a half of 
 unlimited democratic energy had done its perfect work; a general 
 popular langour, the national legacy of over-exertion, had left the people 
 a willing prey to the hireling vendors of smooth lies, by whom they 
 were habitually surrounded. A single Demosthenes pleaded power- 
 fully for a decided exhibition of the ancient energy : the people 
 came at last to his repeated call, but they came too late; and 
 one bloody battle laid their brilliant democracy helpless at the 
 feet of a barbarian autocrat, from whose country, as Demosthenes has it, 
 a few years before, they would not even have thought it reputable to 
 purchase a slave ! Such, so far as Athens is concerned, seem 
 to me to have been the main causes of her lamentable fall. 
 But there was another cause altogether external to the Athenian Con- 
 stitution which enabled Philip, in a short career of conquest, to spread 
 the net of his bondage so successfully round every Greek State. This 
 other cause, however, is only another leaf from the same large chapter 
 of democratic dissention, which occupies so large a space in the book of 
 the world's history. The relation of the States of Greece to one another 
 was thoroughly democratic. They had a common language, a common 
 religion, and a common literature ; but they had no national unity. 
 Had there been such a thing as a Greek kingdom, and a King of Greece, 
 Philip of Macedon would never have been heard of on the large stage 
 of history, any more than the petty dynasts who sat on that rough 
 northern throne before him. Greece was subjugated by Macedonia, 
 because the parts of Greece hung as loosely together as the extreme 
 democratic policy of Calhoun would have made the states of America 
 hang together. An aggregate of perfectly independent states cannot 
 exist together long without war: in politics neighbours are always
 
 11 
 
 enemies ; and so the Greek states in their mad rage for separate equality 
 and independence what they called autonomy exhausted their strength 
 in hereditary jealousies, and ever-reviving feuds ; and thus an adroit enemy 
 by playing them off cunningly one against the other, though decidedly 
 inferior in strength to any two of them taken together, became in the 
 end easily the master of the whole. Thus ended that insane rage for 
 liberty and equality (but without fraternity) among the energetic Greek 
 people, of which the seed wherever it appears is always insolence and the 
 fruit slavery. A thousand years' servitude is certainly a very heavy 
 price to pay for a hundred years of the most unfettered liberty. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 The order of time now brings us to the Romans, the great soldiers, 
 statesmen, and lawyers of antiquity. The Roman constitution presents 
 a medium between the one-sided aristocracy of Sparta and the one-sided 
 democracy of Athens. Its cradle, like that of both the great Greek 
 states, was monarchical : but while in Sparta the kingship remained with 
 a divided but not therefore ineffective personality, in Rome it was violently 
 expelled, and its very name became the shibboleth of national abhor- 
 rence. In Rome the government was at first so much the more aristo- 
 cratic than at Sparta, as there was no king to divide the honours or the 
 authority of the state with the closely banded strength of the patrician 
 interest ; but there was a people in Rome instead of a population of 
 helots, and this people gradually grew in strength, and knew to assert 
 its rights so powerfully, that in the full aspect of its manhood the 
 Roman polity might well be described as a strong aristocracy moderately 
 tempered by popular rights. In this respect it presents a striking 
 analogy to the British constitution as it existed before the Reform Bill 
 of 1832 ; and indeed, if the Roman aristocracy had been wise enough to 
 retain their king, they might have boasted a constitution that, in its 
 whole history, would have presented a close parallel to our own. Even 
 as it is, there is no state in whose fortunes so much of British constitu- 
 tional history lies prefigured as in ancient Rome. The Roman senate 
 was a body composed of three hundred of the most honourable and well- 
 tried members of the state, belonging principally to aristocratic families, 
 and holding their seats for life. Our own House of Lords and our 
 House of Commons melted into one, and constantly recruited by elections 
 made in a popular assembly under strong aristocratic influences, would 
 give a pretty accurate idea of the Roman Senate. As in Sparta so in 
 Rome, the real governing power lay in this aristocratic House of 
 Commons ; and it was this aristocratic preponderance, combined as 
 in Sparta with stern habits of military discipline, and with what 
 Sparta did not possess, a sturdy and orderly yeomanry, to which Rome 
 owed its victory over the Etruscans, the Samnites, the Gauls, and the 
 Carthaginians, and the establishment of a polity that was commensu- 
 rate with the girth of the civilized world. But this form of government, 
 though successsful as an engine of conquest and control, was hi 
 its internal arrangements very far from perfect. The unity and central 
 strength which the presence of a king might more fitly have imparted 
 was supplied by the compact adhesiveness of the aristocracy; and the
 
 danger arising from the annual struggle for the double consulship could 
 only be staved off so long as the aristocracy were strong enough to direct 
 the popular elections, and wise enough not to quarrel among themselves. 
 But popular power was always growing, and a wider field was always 
 opening up for personal ambition among the candidates for the consul- 
 ship ; and, worst of all, manners were being more and more corrupted 
 by the enormous influx of wealth from the subjugated dependencies in 
 the East : all these influences made the wise preponderance of a 
 patriotic aristocracy in the course of a few centuries impossible, and 
 the aristocratic constitution of Home was, by the agency of demo- 
 cratic violence, changed to a military despotism within five hundred 
 years after the expulsion of the kings. The history of this over- 
 throw of so famous a polity, in which Polybius and the Komanized 
 Greeks saw so many elements of excellence, is exceedingly instruc- 
 tive. It was to the democratic element that aristocratic Rome finally 
 succumbed. The form in which a democracy always asserts its power is 
 faction ; and faction is never more potent than when democracy has to 
 assert its position and gain its triumphs in the face of a powerful aristo- 
 cracy. Now this was exactly the situation of affairs in ancient Rome. 
 So long as the constitution stood, it stood by virtue of a wise balance of 
 parties ; when it fell, it fell by a disturbance of that balance ; and the men 
 who ultimately succeeded in laying the yoke of permanent servitude on 
 the whole people, mounted into power borne forward on the big wave of 
 democratic passion and applause. How came this about 1 First of all 
 by the fault of the aristocracy themselves. They were strong enough for 
 a firm government, but too strong for a just government. Their grasp of 
 power had been too close, and their lease too long, to allow of their treat- 
 ing the rights of the increasing commons with that generous sympathy 
 which they deserved. The consequence was as it always must be under 
 such circumstances the creation of demagogues, and the inauguration 
 of schemes, which, when once cherished, could not end otherwise than in 
 the overthrow of the governing power, and the introduction of a despot 
 under the guise of a demagogue. In the principal popular assembly, that 
 in which the highest magistrates were elected, the aristocracy had always 
 asserted a more than equitable influence : and it was to counteract this 
 that the tribunes, or deans of the people, as we may perhaps call them, 
 made it their object always more and more to extend the jurisdiction of 
 the comitia tributa an assembly of the people of purely democratic con- 
 stitution, and entirely under the control of the demagogues or popular 
 leaders of the hour. The result of this continual striving was that in 
 year 286 before Christ just about the time when the Ptolemies 
 were founding their famous lettered monarchy in Alexandria, one Hor- 
 tensius, a noble of plebeian extraction, during a season of great popular 
 discontent got a bill passed which gave the democratic assembly of the 
 tribes voting by universal suffrage unlimited power to make laws inde- 
 pendently of the senate. From that moment an imperium in imperio 
 was created, under the operation of which no constitution could stand, 
 much less a constitution which depended so completely for its existence 
 on the balance of opposing and yet co-operating parties as that of Rome. 
 The doom of the city was from that moment fixed. The severe ordeal of
 
 13 
 
 the Punic wars prevented the great internal schism of which the seed was 
 thus sown from bursting into blossom, for more than a century ; but 
 shortly after that vital danger was outlived, the great contest between the 
 aristocracy and the democracy broke out, which ended, as such contests 
 almost invariably do, in the overthrow of popular liberty. The immediate 
 occasion to this terrible struggle sprung, as might have been expected, out 
 of the undue preponderance of the aristocracy. When the popiilation of 
 Italy was comparatively thin, a great part of the land which had been 
 conquered by the Romans, naturally fell into the hands of the already 
 existing proprietors of the old families who could most conveniently 
 manage it. Nevertheless, their legal position in reference to this public 
 land was that only of occupancy ; they had no right of ownership, and 
 the State might at any time reclaim the usufruct which it had allowed. 
 But there is nothing so difficult in the execution of social justice as the 
 reclamation of possessory rights which have been allowed to lie dormant. 
 The consequence was that when the first of the Gracchi, a noble of the 
 Whig or Liberal party as we would phrase it, in the year 133 B.C. 
 brought forward a measure for dividing the public lands amongst the people, 
 and creating a class of small proprietors to counter-balance the over- 
 growth of the aristocracy, the internecine war between the now hostile 
 elements of the State commenced with a decision and a savageness of 
 which only Romans were capable, and ended, after a century of the 
 most terrible deluge of bitterness and blood, in the establishment of an 
 unlimited despotism by Augustus Caesar. The details of this sanguinary 
 struggle furnish the most awful warning of the terrible results that must 
 always follow, when a violent and excited democratic assembly is 
 brought into direct collision with a strong and a determined aristocracy. 
 Each will naturally assert supremacy in its own sphere, and where 
 passion receives no counsels of compromise from reason, Force comes in as 
 the divine arbiter. It is always difficult in such cases to apportion the 
 blame among the parties. In the matter of the Agrarian laws the 
 aristocracy was confessedly wrong ; but the palliation of their offence lay 
 in this that they were acting defensively against what, from their point 
 of view, they could not but regard as an unwarranted aggression on 
 their prescriptive rights ; and the real blame of initiating the long career 
 of civil violence in which the history of Rome thenceforth consisted, lay 
 neither with the demagogic Gracchi, nor with their aristocratic antagonists, 
 but with that rash Reform Bill of 286, which we have mentioned, 
 called the lex Hortensia, constituting a purely democratic assembly, with 
 paramount authority, right in the face of the supreme legislative and 
 executive council of the state. Such an assembly, especially in an age 
 of increasing wealth, luxury, and corruption, could not but be used as a 
 stepping-stone in the march of ambitious men for mounting to the consul- 
 ship ; the consulship, by the help of the military power, which in Rome 
 it always implied, could easily be prolonged into a dictatorship for life ; 
 and this was only a pleasant name for a perpetual despotism. Of the 
 prominent men who availed themselves of this democratic engine to 
 destroy the liberties of their country, Marius, Pompey, and Julius Coesar 
 were the most prominent. Marius, a rough, rude, and uncultivated 
 soldier to whom the overthrow of a shaggy Gaul as unmannerly as
 
 14 
 
 himself, or the bearding of a reverend senator fenced round by every 
 form of law, was a work of equal delight, provided it afforded scope 
 to his energy and fuel to the restless fire of his ambition ; Pompey, 
 a man as a soldier more fortunate than brave, as a democratic 
 leader more plausible than forcible ; and Caesar, who to the vigour 
 of a great soldier and the unscrupulousuess of a thorough demagogue 
 added the manners of a gentleman, the intellect of a statesman, and 
 the attitude of a king. Commencing life as a champion of the people, 
 and pushing himself into popularity by all those acts of courting 
 the multitude and galling the nobility, which at Rome were practised as 
 a trade, this great man had only to wait for the blunders of his less able 
 competitors, and vigorously to use them. By the favour of the people 
 he received the decennial command of those armies, which he speedily 
 used for robbing them of their liberty. In all this he acted according to 
 the highest standard of personal virtue, no doubt most falsely and most 
 selfishly, but for the situation of affairs not unwisely. Xearly a century 
 of feverish faction and sworded violence had made the once admired 
 balance of the stable Roman polity like the memory of a dream. There 
 was no peace now to be looked for in the regular way ; no order, no 
 law. Democracy had done its perfect work, and was happy if its own 
 minister clad with irresponsible power might lay the demons which its 
 own conjurings had raised. A civilized servitude was at all events better 
 than a sanguinary freedom. 
 
 PRUSSIA. 
 
 We now pass by a single leap across the vast chasm of centuries from 
 ancient Rome to modern PRUSSIA, in order to present to our imagina- 
 tions a well-marked type of a purely monarchical form of government. 
 What the classical nations of antiquity combined to reject, and in their 
 circumstances would likely have found impossible, a well ordered govern- 
 ment under an absolute kingship, that modern Europe has realized in 
 Prussia with the most distinguished success. In estimating the 
 capabilities of this form of government however we must bear in mind 
 that the Prussian power is of too modern a date to justify any very large 
 conclusions with regard to the permanency of its political constitution, 
 and that, in the shape of a reaction from the terrible blow of the battle 
 of Jena, in 1806, it has already received into its autocratic body a certain 
 infusion of the democratic spirit of the age which takes it out of the 
 category of pure monarchy. We may define the Prussian polity there- 
 fore, since 1806, as an absolute monarchy, guided by the intelligence and 
 qualified by the democratic spirit of the eighteenth century. Certain it 
 is, however, that it has grown up rapidly to its present magnitude and 
 importance chiefly under monarchical influences of the most unqualified 
 character. The formal date of the reception of Prussia into the sisterhood 
 of European monarchies, was the 18th of January, 1701 ; but the real 
 commencement of the central vigour and power of growth which has char- 
 acterised this kingdom was the battle of Fehrbellin, gained by Frederick 
 William, the Great Elector, over the Swedes in the year 1675. In estimat- 
 ing the causes of the growth of a great nation much no doubt is due to the 
 fortunate epiphany of the right man at the right time and the right place :
 
 15 
 
 nevertheless, it is quite certain that some forms of government present 
 greater facilities than others for the exercise of great political talents ; and 
 in this view it seems unquestionable that Prussia owes more of her present 
 elevation to her absolute form of government than to any other circum- 
 stance. Great kings, assisted by a ministry of skilful men, unmoved by 
 the violence of democratic faction, and undistracted by the confusion of 
 popular councils, have made Prussia. The lesson to be learned from her 
 short and brilliant career is, that a strong central power such a power 
 as in this country would appear the most intolerable despotism worked 
 by a well-calculated machinery of intellectual dexterity what they call 
 a bureaucracy can achieve results in the sphere of social organism 
 which the most vigorous free constitution may look upon with envy. 
 If rapid growth, skilful organisation both material and moral, and 
 steadily mounting ascendancy be in any way connected with a particular 
 form of government, the absolute monarchy of Prussia has as great a 
 virtue to produce these results as the unlimited democracy of America. 
 The assertion of the position of a young upstart kingdom by Frederick 
 the Great, in the seven years' war against the combination of three of 
 the most formidable European powers, was a much greater feat than the 
 victories achieved by Washington over Earl Cornwallis, which gave 
 independence to the American states in the year 1783. In popular 
 education, in general intelligence, and in the culture of the most 
 cosmopolitan learning, the monarchical Prussians have for three genera- 
 tions been the leaders of Europe ; and the signal blow which, with a 
 celerity, a precision, and an effect worthy of the great Napoleon, they 
 lately inflicted on their old rival, Austria, was the fruit altogether of a 
 monarchical foresight, burea\icratic skill, and a professional firmness 
 such as democratic councils rarely exhibit. That the Prussian govern- 
 ment, therefore, has been in some views a great success, and that its 
 name stands on the records of time as a striking proof of the political 
 virtue of an intelligent despotism, no well-informed person can deny. 
 I imagine Xenophon and Plato, whom the open vices of demagogy at 
 Athens threw into a general habit of scarcely justifiable admiration for 
 the aristocratic polity of Lacedeemon, would have found something much 
 more suitable to their tastes as cultivated Athenians in the literary absolu- 
 tion of Potsdam and the scientific despotism of Berlin. On the other 
 hand we must bear in mind, as already remarked, that had it not been 
 for the fiery ordeal of Jena and Eylau which, under the guidance of 
 Stein anu Schamhorst, resulted in the infusion of a strong popular 
 element into the Prussian military organisation, the Prussian monarchy 
 might, in the great German struggle, now in the process of completion, 
 have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. We must never 
 forget that the political successes of the late Bohemian cam- 
 paign were due as much to the popular remodel of the materials 
 of the Prussian army originating with Scharnhorst, as to the perfection 
 of the monarchical machinery so skilfully handled by Bismark. 
 The history of Prussia, therefore, proves no less manifestly than that of 
 Rome, that whether king or aristocracy be the governing power, no govern- 
 ment can achieve anything without the help of a willing people, whom 
 the constitution of the country allows to feel their individual importance ;
 
 16 
 
 and, in all probability, the parliamentary element recently introduced 
 into the governmental machinery at Berlin, increasing, as it did in this 
 country after the great civil -war, with fresh accessions of power in 
 every generation, will, before long, prove that an absolute monarchy 
 even when administered with the greatest amount of intelligent insight, 
 and paternal consideration, has become impossible in modern Europe, 
 wherever the people are determined to assert their share in the govern- 
 ment, or have not learned by a series of bloody defeats to despair of 
 themselves, and to accept humiliation as the necessary price of repose. 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 From the type of an unmixed monarchy on the banks of the Spree, let 
 us now turn to that of an unmitigated democracy beyond the Atlantic. 
 Here, however, though brilliant results are trumpeted, there is less 
 material for making any sound deductions with regard to the mere form 
 of government than even in Prussia. It is certain, no doubt, that 
 America has prospered wonderfully ; but so has Victoria prospered, and 
 so has New Zealand ; so has Glasgow in the northern, and Manchester in 
 the southern division, of this busy island ; and, the present constitution 
 of America, dating no further back than 1789, it were as absurd to 
 pronounce a judgment on its governmental capabilities now as to decide the 
 character of a man before he has passed the brilliant perils of puberty, 
 or to prophecy the result of a long voyage when the good ship has 
 scarcely left the land behind. The extravagant strain of laudation in 
 which a certain class of politicians have been forward to eulogise the 
 American polity must proceed either from the partiality of excited par- 
 tisanship, or from the hastiness of that logic which cannot distinguish 
 concomitants from causes, or from a natural reaction against that lust 
 of depreciation in which not a few English writers have indulged when 
 descanting on the peculiarities of American private and public life. All 
 that Mr. Goldwin Smith and others have written eloquently in vindica- 
 tion of American institutions maybe accepted gratefully as the refutation 
 of the partial views aud the extreme assertions of ultra conservative 
 writers in this country ; as a commendation of pure democracy to a 
 people living under the more happy system of a mixed monarchy, they 
 seem to me altogether worthless. In fact, no person has denounced the 
 fundamental vice of the democratic constitution of America in stronger 
 terms than Mr. Goldwin Smith. Hear what he says about the Presidency 
 in his late essay, one of a collection of democratically-tinted discourses 
 on political matters recently published by Macmillau : " The elective 
 " Presidency, with its patronage, has always been the grand incentive of 
 " faction, intrigue, and corruption ; and the hope of obtaining it has 
 " been the greatest cause of obliquity in the courses of public men." 
 This sentence brings to view a principle of moral corruption which 
 belongs not only to the election of the President in America, but in 
 a certain degree to the exercise of democratic functions of government 
 even under the most favourable circumstances. If the majority of men 
 w r ere wise, good, independent, impartial, and cool enough to elect their 
 best men for their highest public offices, then democracy would be the 
 best form of government. But the case is quite otherwise. All popular
 
 17 
 
 elections are in their nature more or less tumultuous, beating with a 
 feverish rather than a healthy pulse, and apt to be inspired by local 
 prejudice rather than by large patriotism, by party passion more than by 
 impartial reason. Moreover, politics is not a field in which the best and 
 noblest men will, except under favourable circumstances, be eager to put 
 forth their energies. Power, place, and pence, the natural rewards of 
 political influence, are supremely desired, not by the best always, but 
 often by the worst, members of the community ; and accordingly, in 
 every purely democratic country, where politics, as in America, becomes 
 a trade, it is found that politicians are among the lowest and most 
 worthless class of the community. Not the purest and the noblest rush 
 into that scramble ; mere power has no charm for a man who knows the 
 blessedness of the higher inspiration which proceeds from a love of 
 excellence ; and, besides, even those whose natural genius fits them 
 specially for public life, are repelled by then- righteous aversion to that 
 machinery of flattery, intrigue, slander, corruption, and juggle of all 
 kinds, which are the common instruments of influencing the masses under a 
 purely democratic constitution. The consequence is that an election in 
 America is often the triumph of the most unprincipled and unscrupulous 
 men over the most high-minded and the most virtuous ; and a triumph 
 achieved by the agency of the most vile, venal, and brutish elements of 
 the community. Pure democracy, indeed, in modern America, as in the 
 latter days of the Roman republic, has proved itself to be only a grand 
 machinery for debauching the public conscience. No doubt, as compared 
 with Rome, America has one advantage ; it has no oligarchy planted by 
 the constitution in direct hostile attitude to the people. But experience 
 has taught that when the excited masses of a democracy have no 
 aristocracy to quarrel with they will breed factious amongst themselves ; 
 and already, by the violence of party, we have seen the fervid young 
 commonwealth torn into two, and a total sunderance prevented only by 
 a civil war of the fiercest intensity, and the establishment of martial 
 law in the subjugated half of the once free commonwealth. One danger 
 incident to all democratic federations the infant republic has thus 
 escaped the danger of being split into a number of separate and inde- 
 pendent states. The other danger remains, of annihilating local liberty 
 by the increasing arbitrary authority of the great democratic Congress 
 assembled at Washington. Of the tendency of this body to violence 
 and interference there is sufficient evidence before the world ; but it is 
 always hopeful to think that the people in that part of the world 
 have sometimes a great deal more sense and a great deal more 
 dignity of character than the politicians who speak for them. There 
 are also certain checks to popular insolence in the American con- 
 stitution, as it stands on paper, which, if it is allowed fan' play or 
 practice, may retard, if they do not prevent, the establishment of 
 that despotism which is the natural fruit of all democracy. I 
 mean, of course, the senate, or upper house, the president, and the high 
 position and supreme sanction of the law. These checks, however, as 
 experience has proved, are not of such a nature as to be able to stand 
 against the assaulting force of hot-spurred faction. Every preponderant 
 power, whether monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic, is naturally
 
 18 
 
 tyrannical in its tendencies, and will always struggle to be tyrannical in 
 its operations. The future efficiency of the constitutional checks, there- 
 fore, against popular excess in America, so cunningly forged by 
 Alexander Hamilton, will depend principally on the moderation and 
 good sense of the people ; or rather and here lies the danger of their 
 politicians; for we may understand by inference, even in this country, 
 that the violence of demagogues, the antagonism of party leaders, and 
 the general complexity of the parliamentai'y situation, may lead a house 
 of representatives to pass measures of which the moderate and sensible 
 part of the nation do not approve. To assert the unity, and at the same 
 time maintain the freedom, of such a vast aggregate of federated states 
 as America, must prove a Herculean task ; and we cannot but wish 
 our transatlantic cousins success in their attempt to solve a social 
 problem on the large scale, which has as yet enjoyed only a verv partial 
 solution on the smallest scale. Looking at the past experience of the 
 world we may justly refuse to be very sanguine in our expectations, 
 much less dream of allowing ourselves to be led into the delusion of 
 choosing their tentative form of government as a standard model for 
 improving our own ; but while to exult prophetically in the success of 
 democracy in America would be to show too much confidence in man, to 
 despair of it altogether would be to have too little faith in God. Our 
 present business, therefore, with regard to America is to look and learn 
 and be soberminded, waiting to see whether out of that huge vat of 
 popular ferment shall be produced wine or vinegar. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 After the above strictures on five peculiar types of polity, your own 
 good sense will not have failed to make the implied inference with me, 
 that the one which remains, our British constitution, is the best of all the 
 six ; and it is the best precisely because it contains within itself all the three 
 elements that naturally belong to a complete social organism, one or the 
 other of which it has been the misfortune of the other five to reject. The 
 mixed constitution of this country presents in happy combination the unity 
 and the loyal grace which belong to a monarchy, the stability and order 
 which are characteristic of an aristocracy, and the energy and the propulsive 
 power which are the soul of a republic. It is a constitution founded on 
 a wise distrust of any single unlimited social power, and a safe confidence 
 in the equalizing virtue of opposite pressures. There is a class of intel- 
 lects in whose view this complex system of checks and balances possesses 
 no value. These are minds generally of great vigour and intensity, 
 but without breadth, and utterly incapable of appreciating the principle 
 of rich variety on which God has created the world. Endowed with a 
 transcendental faith in themselves, and an imperious instinct of 
 self-assertion, persons of this type ride on with the assured con- 
 viction that the only hindrance in the way of a political niillenium is 
 whatsoever prevents them from having the reins altogether in their own 
 hands. With them one-sidedness is excellence, and the exclusion of an 
 opposite the ideal of perfection. But those who with a large sympathy 
 and a penetrating eye, have looked into the deeper springs of physical or
 
 19 
 
 social organism, have learned a different doctrine. They have been 
 instructed that health, and virtue, and all excellence, consist in the 
 balance of extremes, the harmony of opposites, and the union of 
 apparent incompatibles. This is the doctrine which Plato and Aristotle 
 more than two thousand years ago, expounded in weighty prose, which 
 Goethe, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, in our own days, have chiselled in 
 elegant verse, and which forms, indeed, part of the current proverbial 
 wisdom of all nations advanced a little beyond sheer barbarism. But in 
 politics as in religion, nothing is more easy than to forget in practice max- 
 ims which are almost too stale to be preached on. No man of extreme 
 democratic opinion, whatever he may profess, can have any real value 
 for the British Constitution. He does not believe in moderation ; his 
 impatience is embittered by every check ; and his insolence spurs 
 him on to pluck the beard of every authority in the state which 
 sets a bound to his intolerant dictation. But if this overpowering 
 violence of the one-sided democratic politician is far removed from 
 political wisdom, it behoves us to consider seriously at the present 
 moment whether the most recent Reform movements in this country 
 may not have been conducted in a manner, and may not be tending to 
 results which will seriously endanger the permanence of our long-tried 
 mixed form of government. A single glance at the history of the last 
 three hundred years will show us, if we are not altogether blind, where 
 the political danger of the present moment lies. Before the revolution 
 of 1688 the kingly element preponderated in our constitution : up to the 
 Reform Bill of 1832 the aristocratic element : since then the democratic 
 element has asserted itself strongly, and is steadily on the increase. I 
 am not one of those who have the slightest objection to this course of 
 development. On the contrary, I admire it, in every view, as most rational, 
 and rejoice in it as most successful. But it is manifest we have now 
 reached a point where, if we do not use great caution and circumspec- 
 tion, in the heat of fervid pursuit, we run a great danger of losing at 
 one wing of the battle what we have gained at the other. In 1832 we 
 gained an immense advantage by bringing in the middle classes, as a 
 salutary counterpoise to the upper classes and the aristocracy. From 
 that moment our constitution entered on a new phasis ; and we launched 
 on a more brilliant, it may be, but, doubtless, also on a more perilous 
 career. The danger now to be guarded against is neither monarchy, 
 as in the days of Charles I., nor aristocracy, as at the commence- 
 ment of the present century, but democracy. I do not mean to say, 
 of course, that the Reform Bill of 1832 was a perfect, or could in 
 any sense be regarded as a final measure. But I do say that in all 
 succeeding Reform Bills, the prominent rock a-head which a wise state-- 
 pilot had to look out for was democracy. One great defect of that bill, 
 undoubtedly, was that it enfranchised by the arbitrary line of a .10 rental, 
 two classes of persons, of which those immediately below the line could 
 not but feel in many cases, that they were equal if not superior in social 
 value to those immediately above it. In a representative constitution 
 no class of independent and respectable citizens, whether high or low in 
 the scale should be entitled to complain that they are not represented. 
 An expansion of the Reform Bill of 1832, therefore, became necessary.
 
 20 
 
 But it did not by any means follow that to admit to the franchise any 
 class previously excluded, necessarily implied a second dose of Reform 
 on the purely democratic principle of ancient Athens and modern 
 America. A strong measure in 1867, of Reform, exactly in the same 
 direction as that in 1832, could not but disturb very seriously that 
 balance of parties on which the veiy existence of constitutional govern- 
 ment depends. If a process of this kind were to go on we could not 
 but fall ultimately, under a despotism of mere numbers ; quality 
 would everywhere yield to quantity; and in the violent struggle 
 for democratic supremacy, the government of the country would 
 fall into the hands of those who were most ready to flatter the 
 prejudices, and to magnify the wisdom of the multitude. It, is easy 
 to call this an imaginary picture ; but the course of Roman history 
 which I sketched above, under slightly different forms, foretypes the 
 changes which we may naturally be destined to run through. It must 
 be borne in mind that we have to deal in this country, and in this age, 
 with the very same elements which made democracy so formidable in 
 the later history of republican Rome, I mean an aristocracy and a pluto- 
 racy of enormous wealth, and right alongside of them a democracy of 
 great energy, of little culture, and of extreme poverty. In such circum- 
 stances should the House of Commons by the Reform Bills now projected, 
 or by others that may come after them, be so controlled, by a one-sided 
 democratic spirit, as to bring our House of Commons into direct anta- 
 gonism with our House of Lords, then the doom of our constitution is 
 sealed. We may not have a civil war, perhaps, as in the days when 
 Marius and Sylla headed alternately the democratic and aristocratic 
 butcheries in ancient Rome ; but we shall have certainly extreme counsels 
 and violent measures, and the field cleared for a military despotism 
 whenever the factions shall not be able to get on without a master. If 
 our constitution is destined to last, it can only be by maintaining firmly 
 the aristocratic element in the House of Commons, the existence of 
 which alone guarantees our safety from a fatal clash betAvixt the 
 two most powerful organs of constitutional authority. It is for this 
 reason that a Reform Bill at the present stage of our history, while 
 it enfranchised the skilled artizan class, should at the same time have 
 done something to give a real and not merely a nominal representation 
 to the upper classes of many of our large towns. Wisdom also demanded 
 that a reasonable substitute should have been provided for the loss of 
 the small boroughs, the practical utility of which has been acknowledged 
 by some of our greatest statesmen. But the demands of wisdom, which 
 speak audibly in the room of the quiet thinker, are not readily heard 
 amid the tumultuous hubbub of contending parties ; and the measures 
 of Reform which are proposed by practical politicians depend not less on 
 what will be accepted than on what should be given. The unreasonable 
 element in this region very often manages to control the reasonable ; and 
 even Solon, the most independent of all Reformers, after finishing the 
 great work committed to him, was obliged to confess that he had given 
 the Athenians not the best laws, but the best of which they were capable. 
 I have often thought also, observing the blindness of great bodies of men 
 to what is demonstrably for their benefit, that after a certain lease of
 
 21 
 
 existence, churches and states, like individual men, become incapable of 
 receiving a new idea. If so, they must even go on as they have started, 
 come to blossom and fruitage in the one-sided way of which they are 
 capable, and perish in the unbridled excess of their pet excellence. But, 
 however this may be, states, like individuals, if they wish to live long, 
 should take care not to live too fast ; and the more spirited a steed is 
 the less need is there for a spur, and the more for a bridle. Whatever 
 changes in our electoral system may be made by Whig or Tory ministers, 
 the safety of the country is likely to depend much less on the particular 
 form of the measure framed than on the moderation and sober-mindedness 
 of the people ; and this we may most assuredly say, that the more 
 democratic a form of government becomes the more public intelligence 
 and virtue does it demand in the people, and the greater is the danger to 
 which the social machine is exposed from the very potency of the steam 
 by which it acts. 
 
 The talented Lecturer on resuming his seat was greeted with loud 
 and repeated plaudits. 
 
 Mr. W. AMBROSE (barrister-at-law) proposed a vote of thanks to Professor 
 Blackie for his able and very interesting lecture. It should be remem- 
 bered that what the professor had stated was not the opinions and the 
 language of a mere politician, but the experience and results of the study of 
 political philosophy ; and he was quite sure, considering that at this time 
 the constitution of the country was about to undergo some change, it 
 was most important that the great facts of history which had been 
 explained that evening should be well understood by all who were 
 called upon to remodel the constitution. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 CAPTAIN SAWYER seconded the vote of thanks, and expressed his con- 
 viction that the Constitutional Association, by such meetings as that, 
 and the one recently held at the Corn Exchange, would prove of immense 
 importance, and very materially increase the true Conservative principles 
 of the Government. (Applause.) 
 
 Professor BLACKIE, in acknowledging the vote of thanks, which was 
 carried amidst the greatest cheering, said it was not without trepidation 
 that he stood upon the platform, but he thought that he was in the way 
 of duty, and after it was done he thought it was pleasant to him if it 
 was to them. (Hear, hear.) As to what had been said about professors 
 leaving their sanctums, he thought it would be better for the professors 
 if they did come out of those sanctums, and bring with them practical 
 sympathy with the larger and more popular body of their fellow citizens. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 Dr. ROYLE proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. C. Turner, M.P., for his 
 courteous conduct in the chair. This country was now passing through 
 one of what might perhaps be the most eventful and trying times of her 
 history, and he believed that a great and glorious reformation would be 
 much facilitated by what they had heard that evening the result of 
 great thought, labour, and industry on the part of the professor. There 
 had been nothing said by Dr. Blackie that would influence the passions 
 or excite the prejudices of any man, but he had calmly and dispassionately 
 appealed to the reason of his audience in endeavouring to make them 
 more fit to discharge the duties which the glorious constitution imposed
 
 upon them. Dr. Royle passed a very high eulogiuin upon Mr. Turner 
 for the attention he paid both to the general interests of the country 
 and the special interests of his constituents, and remarked that the hou. 
 gentleman had that e veil ing added another to the list of deep obligations 
 owing from them. 
 
 Mr. Councillor ANDERTON seconded the motion, and expressed a hope 
 that Mr. Turner would be able to return to his duties in London, 
 strengthened by what he had listened to that evening, to counteract the 
 feeling and opinions expressed by the junior member for South Lanca- 
 shire (applause) and to show not only to that hon. gentleman, but to 
 his friend John (laughter) that they were not all Radicals even in 
 Manchester. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Mr. W. R. CALLEXDER, jun. (president of the association), who had 
 taken the chair previous to the vote of thanks being moved to Mr. 
 Turner, endorsed all that had been said of that gentleman, who not only 
 thought right, and when he addressed the House of Commons spoke right, 
 but also voted right ; and who was one of the majority who on Saturday 
 morning week affirmed the principle on which he (Mr. Callender) believed 
 a just and fair Reform Bill could only be based household suffrage, 
 coupled with proper residence and personal payment of rates. (Hear, hear.) 
 As he had not been able to address a meeting of the Constitutional 
 Association before, owing to his absence from town, he perhaps might be 
 permitted to express his regret at not being able to attend the meeting 
 at the Corn Exchange some weeks since, nor of being present with the 
 deputation which called lately upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 
 Downing-street, which he believed had materially strengthened the hands 
 of the Government. (Cheers.) He hoped that meeting would be an earnest 
 of what they should have for the future, and that the Constitutional 
 Association would become the centre of many Conservative associations 
 in South Lancashire. He hoped too that when another election took 
 place those who had been befooled last time by Mr. Gladstone's proclivi- 
 ties in former times would, fearless of him or his allies, vote in such a 
 manner as would enable Mr. Egerton and Mr. Turner to have a colleague 
 which would faithfully and truly look after, not only the private and 
 public, but the general political interests of the constituency. (Applause.) 
 
 The vote of thanks to Mr. Turner, M.P., was passed unanimously, and 
 in returning thanks the hou. gentlemen, after expressing his pleasure 
 at attending the meeting and at hearing the excellent lecture, said he 
 could confirm Mr. Calender's statement that the recent deputation from 
 the Conservatives of Lancashire was of essential service to, and felt to be so 
 by, the Government, and would tend much to counteract the democratic 
 principles of those who were bent upon undermining the constitution. 
 
 Three cheers were given for Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli, and the 
 Government, and the proceedings terminated. 
 
 BY TH03. SOWLEE AKD 6OSS. MAyCKoIK.
 
 A 000018335 o