4;l^'t^]^6iIli ■tJiUlCI'iJ.'OiHK' ,;l(?Ui Charles Bradlaugh ytniA . uiwi liTi* Iflf tit. I ■:(!i:iV.rti'>i:';'-ViinjMii.''.(;'; m THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES \^ SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. LONDON : FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.G. 1890. LONDON PRINTED BY A. BONNER, 34 BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, EX. ■DA BUs CONTENTS. -**^ PAGE. SPEECHES AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS : June 23RD, 1S80 .. .. .. .. .. i April 28th, 1881 .. .. .. .. .. 8 February 7TH, 1882 .. .• .. .. 13 May 4TH, 1883 .. .. .. .. .. 23 SPEECH AT NORTHAMPTON ON INDIA, November iqth, 1883 •• •• •• •• •• •• 3^ ON CAPITAL AND LABOR, January 7TH, 1886 .. 47 SPEECH IN HOUSE OF COMMONS ON MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS, April 22Nd, 1887 .. .. .. 65 ON SECOND READING OF AFFIRMATION BILL, March 14TH, 1888 .. .. .. .. 74 ON THE COMPULSORY CULTIVATION OF WASTE LANDS, May iith, 1888 .. .. .. .. 82 BEFORE ROYAL COMMISSION ON MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS, July, 1888 .. .. .. .. 90 SPEECH IN HOUSE OF COMMONS ON RELIGIOUS PRO- SECUTIONS ABOLITION BILL, April i2TH, 1889 119 ON PERPETUAL PENSIONS, May i6th, 1889 .. 126 ON THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND, August 27TH, 1889 .. .- •• •• i35 SPEECH AT BOMBAY TO INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS, December 29TH, 1889 .. •• •• •• 152 SPEECH IN HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE KASH- MIR QUESTION, July 3RD. 1890 .. .. 158 3G484i2 rmRiRv IV CONTENTS. PAGE CLOSING ADDRESSES AT CONGRESSES OF THE NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY : NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, June ist, 1879 .. LONDON, May i6th, 1880.. BURY, June 5TH, 1881 INTERNATIONAL FREETHOUGHT CONFER ENCE, LONDON, September 25TH, 1881 EDINBURGH, May 28th, 1882 MANCHESTER, May 13TH, 1883 PLYMOUTH, June ist, 1884 BIRMINGHAM, May 24TH, 1885 GLASGOW, June 13TH, 1886 SOUTH SHIELDS, May 20TH, 1888 172 174 178 184 190 194 199 203 206 209 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. FOUR SPEECHES DELIVERED AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DURING THE PARLIAMENTARY STRUGGLE. First Speech: June 23rd, 1880. Mr. Speaker, — I have to ask the indulgence of every mem- ber of this House while, in a position unexampled in the history of this House, I try to give one or two reasons why the resolution which you have read to me should not be enforced. If it were not unbecoming I should appeal to the traditions of the House against the House itself, and I should point out that in none of its records, so far as my poor reading goes, is there any case in which this House has judged one of its members in his absence, and taken away from that member the constitutional right he has. (' Hear, hear.') There have been members against whom absolute legal disqualification has been urged. No such legal disqualification is ventured to be urged by any member of this House against myself. But even those members have been heard in their places ; those members have been listened to before the decision was taken against them ; and I ask that this House shall not be less just to myself than it has always been to every one of its members. (' Hear, hear.') Do you tell me I am unfit to sit amongst you ? (* Hear, hear,' and 'Order, order'.) The more reason, then, that this 2 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. House should show the generosity which judges show to a criminal, and allow every word he has to say to be heard. But I stand here, Sir, as no criminal. I stand here as the chosen of a constituency of this country, with my duty to that con- stituency to do. I stand here, Sir — if it will not be considered impertinent to put it so — with the most profound respect for this House, of which I yet hope and mean to form a part, and on whose traditions I should not wish to cast one shadow of reproach. I stand here returned duly ; no petition against my return ; no impeachment of that return. 1 stand here returned duly, ready to fulfil every form that this House requires, ready to fulfil every form that the law permits this House to require, ready to do every duty that the law makes incumbent upon me. I will not in this presence argue whether this House has or has not the right to set its decision against the law, because I should imagine that even the rashest of those who spoke against me would hardly be prepared to put in the mouth of one whom they consider too advanced in politics an argument so dangerous as that might become. I speak within the limits of the law, asking for no favor from this House for myself or for my constituents, but asking the merest justice which has always been accorded to a member of the House. (* Hear, hear,' and ' Order '.) I have to ask indulgence lest the memory of some hard words which have been spoken in my absence should seem to give to what I say a tone of defiance, which it is far from my wish should be there at all; and I am the more eased because although there were words spoken which I had always been taught English gentlemen never said in the absence of an antagonist without notice to him, yet there were also generous and brave words said for one who is at present, I am afraid, a source of trouble and discomfort and hindrance to business. I measure the generous words against the others, and I will only make one appeal through you. Sir, which is, that if the reports be correct that the introduction of other names came with mine in the heat ot passion and the warmth of debate, the gentleman who used those words, if such there were, will remember that he was wanting in chivalry, because, while I can answer for AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 3 myself, and am able to answer for myself, nothing justified •the introduction of any other name beside my own to make a prejudice against me. (Cheers, ' Question,' and * Order'.) I fear lest the strength of this House, judicially exercised as I understand it to be — with infrequency of judicial exercise — that the strength of this House makes it forget our relative positions. At present I am pleading at its bar for justice. By right it is there [pointing to the seats] I should plead. It is that right I claim in the name of those who sent me here. No legal disqualification before my election, or it might have been made the ground of petition ; no legal disqualification since my election — not even pretended. It is said : " You might have taken the oath as other members did ". I could not help, when I read that, Sir, trying to put myself in the place of each member who said it. I imagined a member of some form of faith who found in the oath words which seemed to him to clash with his faith, but still words which he thought he might utter, but which he would prefer not to utter if there were any other form which the law provided him ; and I asked myself whether each of those members would not then have taken the form which was most consonant with his honor and his conscience. If I have not misread, some hon. members seem to think that I have neither honor nor conscience. Is there not some proof to the contrary in the fact that I did not go through the form, believing that there was another right open to me ? (* Hear, hear,' and ' Order '.) Is that not some proof that I have honor and conscience ? Of the gentlemen who are now about to measure themselves against the rights of the constituencies of England, I ask what justification have they for that measurement ? They have said that I thrust my opinions on the House. I hold here, Sir, the evidence of Sir Thomas Erskine May, and I can find no word of .any opinion of mine thrust upon the House at all. I have read — it may be that the reports misrepresent — that the cry of ** Atheist " has been raised from that side. [Pointing to the Opposition side.] No word of all mine before the committee put in any terms those theological or anti-theological opinions in B 2 4 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. evidence before the House. I am no more ashamed of my own opinions, which I did not choose — opinions into which I have grown — than any member of this House is ashamed of his ; and much as I value the right to sit here, and much as I beheve that the justice of this House will accord it to me before the struggle is finished, I would rather relinquish it for ever than it should be thought that by any shadow of hypocrisy I had tried to gain a feigned entrance here by pretending to be what I am not. (Cheers, and cries of ' Order '.) On the Report of the Committee as it stands, on the evidence before the House, what is the objection to my either affirming or taking the oath ? It is said I have no legal right to affirm. I will suppose that to be so. It is the first time that the House has made itself a court of law from which there may be no appeal, and deprived a citizen of his constitutional right of appeal to a court of law to make out what the statute means in dealing with him. There is no case in which this House has overridden everything, and put one of its members where he had no chance of battling for his right at all. Take the oath. It is possible that some of the lawyers, who have disagreed among themselves even upon that (the Opposition) side of the House, may be right, and that I may be wrong in the construction I have put upon the oath ; but no such objection can come. There is no precedent — there is, I submit respectfully, no right — in this House to stand between me and the oath which the law provides for me to take : which the statute, under penalty even upon members of this House themselves if they put me out from my just return, gives me the right to take. What kind of a conflict is provoked here if this resolution be enforced ? Not a grave conflict in a court of law, where the judges exclude passion : where they only deal with facts and evidence. I do not mean that these gentlemen do not deal with facts ; but, if I am any judge of my own life's story, there have been many things put against myself which I can hardly reckon in the category of facts. I don't mean that they are not right, for hon. members may know more of myself than I do myself; but, judging myself as I know myself, some of the members who have attacked me so glibly during the last few days must have AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. ^ been extraordinarily misinformed, or must have exceedingly misapprehended the matters they alleged. It has been said that I have paraded and flaunted some obnoxious opinions. I appeal to your justice, Sir, and to that of the members of this House, to say whether my manner has not been as respectful as that of man could be — whether in each case I have not withdrawn when you told me. If I now come here with even the appear- ance of self-assertion, it is because I would not be a recreant and coward to the constituency that sent me to represent them ; and I mean to be as members have been in the best history oi this assembly. I ask the House, in dealing -with my rights, to remember how they are acting. It is perfectly true that by a majority they may decide against me now. What are you to do then ? Are you going to declare the seat vacant ? First, I tell you that you have not the right. The moment I am there [pointing inside the House] I admit the right of the House, of its own good will and pleasure, to expel me. As yet I am not under your jurisdiction. As yet I am under the protection of the law. A return sent me to this House, and I ask you. Sir, as the guardian of the liberties of this House, to :give effect to that return. The law says you should, and that this House should. And naturally so ; because, if it were not so, any time a majority of members might exclude anyone they pleased. What has been alleged against me ? Politics ? Are views on politics urged as a reason why a member should not sit here ? Pamphlets have been read : I won't say with accuracy, because I will not libel any of the hon. members who read them ; but, surely, if they are grounds for disqualification they are grounds for indictment to be proved against me in a proper fashion. There is no case in all the records of this House in which you have ransacked what a man has written and said in his past life and then challenged him with it here. My theology ? It would be impertinent in me, after the utterances of men so widely -disagreeing from me that have been made on the side of religious liberty during the past two nights — it would be impertinent in me to add one word save this. It is said that you may deal O SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. with me because I am isolated. I could not help hearing the ring of that word in the lobby as I sat outside last night. But is that a reason, that because I stand alone the House are to do against me what they would not do if I had 100,000 men at my back ? (Cries of ' Oh ! '.) That is a bad argument, which pro- vokes a reply inconsistent with the dignity of this House, and which I should be sorry to give. I have not yet used — I hope no passion may tempt me to bo- using — any words that would seem to savor of even a desire to enter into conflict with this House. I have always taught, preached, and believed in the supremacy of Parliament, and it is not because for a moment the judgment of one Chamber of Parliament should be hostile to me that I am going to deny the ideas I have always held ; but I submit that one Chamber of ParUament — even its grandest Chamber, as I have always held this to be — has no right to override the law. The law gives me the right to sign that roll, to take and subscribe the oath, and to take my seat there [pointing to the benches]. I admit that the moment I am in the House, wdthout any reason but your own good will, you can send me away. That is your right. You have full control over your members. But you cannot send me away until I have been heard in my place, not a suppliant as I am now, but with the rightful audience that each member has always had. There is one phase of my appeal which I am loth indeed to make. I presume you will declare the seat vacant. What do you send me back to Northampton to say ? I said before, and I trust I may say again, that this assembly is one in which any man might well be proud to sit — prouder I that I have not some of your traditions and am not of your families, but am of the people, the people that sent me here to speak for them. Do you mean that I am to go back to Northampton as to a court, to appeal against you — that I am to ask the constituency to array themselves against this House ? I hope not. If it is to be, it must be. If this House arrays itself against an isolated man — its huge power against one citizen — if it must be, then the battle must be too. But it is not with the constituency ot Northampton alone — hon. members need not AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 7 mistake — that you will come into conflict if this appeal is to go forward, if the House of Commons is to override the statute law to get rid of even the vilest of members. Had you alleged against me even more than against one man whose name was mentioned in this House last night, I should still have held that the House cannot supersede the rights of the people. But not as much is alleged against me as was alleged against that man, in whose case the House itself said that its conduct had been subversive of the rights of the people. I beg you, for your own sakes, don't put yourselves in that position. I have no desire to wrestle with you for justice. I admit that I have used hard words in my short Hfe, giving men the right in return to say hard things of me ; but is it not better that I should have the right to say them to your faces ? If they are within the law, let the law deal with me fairly and properly ; but, if they are without the law, not unfairly, as I submit you are doing now. You have the power to send me back ; but in appealing to Northampton I must appeal to a tribunal higher than yours — not to courts of law, for I hope the days of conflict between the assembly which makes the law and the tribunals which administer it are passed. It must be a bad day for England and for Great Britain, if we are to be brought again to the time when the judges and those who make the law for the judges are in rash strife as to what they mean. But there is a court to which I shall appeal : the court of public opinion, which wilJ have to express itself. You say it is against me. Possibly ; but if it be so, is it against me rightly or wrongly ? I am ready to admit, if you please, for the sake of argument, that every opinion I hold is wrong and deserves punishment. Let the law punish it. If you say the law cannot, then you admit that you have no right ; and I appeal to public opinion against the iniquity of a decision which overrides the law and denies me justice. I beg your pardon. Sir, and that of the House too, if in this warmth there seems to lack respect for its dignity; and as I shall have, if your decision be against me, to come to that table when your decision is given, I beg you, before the step is taken in which we may both lose our dignity — mine is not much, but yours is that of the Commons of England — I beg 8 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. * you, before the gauntlet is fatally thrown : I beg you, not in any sort of menace, not in any sort of boast, but as one man against six hundred, to give me that justice which on the other side of this hall the judges would give me were I pleading there before them. (Loud cheers and cries of * Order ', amid which Mr. Bradlaugh again bowed and retired.) Second Speech : April 28tli, 1881. Mr. Speaker, — I have again to ask the indulgence of the House while I submit to it a few words in favor of my claim to do that which the law requires me to do. Perhaps the House will pardon me if I supply an omission, I feel unintentionally made, on the part of the hon. member for Chatham [Sir J. E. Gorst] in some words which have just fallen from him. I understood him to say that he would use a formal statement made by me to the Committee against what the Chancellor of the Duchy had said I had said. I am sure the hon. and learned member for Chatham, who has evidently read the proceedings of the Committee v/ith care, would, if he had thought it fair, have stated to the House that the statement only came from me after an objection made by me — a positive objection on the ground that it related to matters outside this House, and that the House in the course of its history had never inquired into such matters ; but I can hardly understand what the member for Chatham meant when he said that he contrasted what I did say with what the Chancellor of the Duchy said I said ; for it is not a matter of memory, it is on the proceedings of this House, that being examined formally before the Committee, I stated : " That the essential part of the oath is in the fullest and most complete degree binding upon my honor and conscience, and that the repeating of the words of asseveration does not in the slightest degree weaken the binding of the allegiance on me ". I say now I would not go through any form — much as I value AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 9 the right to sit in this House, much as I desire and believe that this House will accord me that right — that I did not mean to be binding upon me without mental reservation, without equivoca- tion. I would go through no form unless it were fully and com- pletely and thoroughly binding upon me as to what it expressed or promised. Mine has been no easy position for the last twelve months. I have been elected by the free votes of a free constituency. My return is untainted. There is no charge of bribery (cheers), no charge of corruption, nor of inducing men to come drunken to the polling booth. I come here with a pure untainted return — not won by accident. For thirteen long years have I fought for this right — through five contested elections, including this. It is now proposed to prevent me from fulfilling the duty my constituents have placed upon me. You have force ; on my side is the law. The hon. and learned member for Plymouth spoke the truth when he said he did not ask the House to treat the matter as a question of law ; but the constituencies ask me to treat it as a question of law. I, for them, ask you to treat it as a question of law. I could understand the feeling that seems to have been mani- fested were I some great and powerful personage. I could understand it had I a huge influence behind me. I am only one of the people, and you propose to teach them that on a mere technical question you will put a barrier in the way of my doing my duty which you have never put in the way of anyone else. The question is, has my return on the gth of April, 1881, anything whatever to impeach it ? There is no legal disqualifica- tion involved. If there were, it could be raised by petition. The hon. member for Plymouth says the dignity of this House is in question. Do you mean that I can injure the dignity of this House ? This House which has stood unrivalled for centuries ? This House, supreme among the assemblies of the world ? This House, which represents the traditions of liberty ? I should not have so libelled you. How is the dignity of this House to be hurt ? If what happened before the gth of April is less than a legal disqualification, it is a matter for the judgment of the con- stituency and not for you. The constituency has judged me ; lO SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. it has elected me. I stand here with no legal disqualification, upon me. The right of the constituency to return me is an un- impeachable right. I know some gentlemen make light of con- stituencies ; yet without the constituencies you are nothing. It is from them you derive your whole and sole authority. The hon. and learned member for Plymouth treats lightly the legal question. It is dangerous to make light of the law — dangerous, because if you are only going to rely on your strength of force to override the law, you give a bad lesson to men whose morality you impeach as to what should be their duty if emergence ever came. ('Hear, hear.') Always outside the House I have advocated strenuous obedience to the law, and it is under that law that I claim my right. It is said by the right hon. baronet who interposes between me and my duty that this House has passed some resolution. First, I submit that that resolution does not affect the return of the gth April. The conditions are entirely different : there is nothing since the date of that return. I submit, next, that, if it did affect it, the resolution was illegal from the beginning. In the words of George Grenville, spoken in this House in 1769, I say, if your resolution goes in the teeth of the law — if against the statute — your resolution is null and void. No word have I uttered outside these walls which has been lacking in respect to the House. I believe the House will do me justice, and I ask it to look at what it is I claim. I claim to do that which the law says I must. Frankly, I would rather have affirmed. When I came to the table of the House I deemed that I had a legal right to do it. The courts have decided against me, and I am bound by their decision. I have the legal right to do what I propose to do. No resolu- tion of yours can take away that legal right. You may act illegally and hinder me ; and unfortunately I have no appeal against you. " Unfortunately " perhaps I should not say. Perhaps it is better that the Chamber which makes the law should never be in conflict with the courts which administer the laws that the Chamber makes. I think the word " unfortu- nately" was not the word I ought to have used in this argument. But the force that you invoke against the law AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. IT to-day may to-morrow be used against you, and the use will be justified by your example. It is a fact that I have no remedy if you rely on your force. I can only be driven into a contest, wearying even to a strong man well supported, ruinous and killing to one man standing by himself — a contest in which, if I succeed, it will be injurious to you as well as to me. Injurious to me because I can only win by lessening your repute, which I desire to maintain. The only court I have the power of appealing to is the court of public opinion, which I have no doubt in the end will do me justice. The hon. member for Plymouth said I had the manliness on a former occasion to make an avowal of opinions to this House. I did nothing of the kind. I have never, directly or indirectly^ said one word about my opinions, and this House has no right to inquire what opinions I may hold outside its walls. The only right is that which the statute gives you ; my opinions there is no right to inquire into. I shelter myself under the laws of my country. This is a political assembly, met to decide on the policy of the nation, and not on the rehgious opinions of the citizens. (Cheers.) While I had the honor of occupying a seat in the House, when questions were raised which touched upon religious matters, I abstained from uttering one word. I did not desire to say one word which might hurt the feelings of even the most tender. (' Hear.') But it is said, why not have taken the oath quietly ? I did not take it then because I thought I had the right to do some- thing else, and I have paid the penalty. I have been plunged in litigation fostered by men who had not the courage to put themselves forward. (Loud cheers below the gangway.) I, a penniless man, should have been ruined, if it had not been that the men in workshop, pit, and factory had enabled me to fight this battle. (Interruption.) I am sorry that hon. members cannot have patience with one pleading as I plead here. It is no light stake, even if you put it on the lowest personal grounds, to risk the ambition of a life on such an issue. It is a right ambition to desire to take part in the councils of the nation, if you bring no store of wisdom with you, and can only learn from the great intellects that we have. (' Hear, hear.') What will 12 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. you inquire into ? The right hon. baronet would inquire into my opinions. Will you inquire into my conduct, or is it only my opinions you will try here ? The hon. member for Plymouth frankly puts it, opinions. If opinions, why not conduct ? Why not examine into members' conduct when they come to the table, and see if there be no members in whose way you can put a barrier ? (' Hear, hear.') Are members, whose conduct may be obnoxious, to vote my exclusion because to them my opinions are obnoxious ? As to any obnoxious views supposed to be held by me, there is no duty imposed upon me to say a word. The right hon. baronet has said there has been no word of recantation. You have no right to ask me for any recantation. Since the gth April you have no right to ask me for anything. If you have a legal disqualification, petition, lay it before the judges. When you ask me to make a statement, you are guilty of impertinence to me, of treason to the traditions of this House, and of impeachment of the liberties of the people. My difficulty is that those who have made the most bitter attacks upon me only made them when I was not here to deal with them. One hon. and gallant member recently told his constituents that this would be made a party question, but that the Conservative members had not the courage to speak out against me. I should have thought, from reading " Hansard ", not that they wanted courage, but that they had cultivated a reticence that was more just. I wish to say A. word or two on the attempt which has been made to put on the Government of the day complicity in my views. The Liberal party has never aided me in any way to this House. (' Oh ! ' from the Opposition.) Never. I have fought by myself. I have fought by my own hand. I have been hindered in every way that it was possible to hinder me ; and it is only by the help of the people, by the pence of toilers in mine and factory, that I am here to-day, after these five struggles right through thirteen years. I have won my way with them, for I have won their hearts, and now I come to you. Will you send me back from here ? Then how ? You have the right, but it is the right of force, and not of law. When / AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. I3 I am once seated on these benches, then I am under your jurisdiction. At present I am under the protection of the writ from those who sent me here. I do not want to quote what has happened before ; but if there be one lesson which the House has recorded more solemnly than another, it is that there should be no interference with the judgment of a constituency in sending a man to this House against whom there is no statutory disqualification. Let me appeal to the generosity of the House as well as to its strength. It has traditions- of liberty on both sides. I do not complain that members on that (the Con- servative) side try to keep me out. They act according to their lights, and think my poor services may be injurious to them. (Cries of 'No'.) Then why not let me in? (Cheers.) It must be either a political or a religious question. I must apologise to the House for trespassing upon its patience. I apologise because I know how generous in its listening it has been from the time of my first speech in it till now. But I ask you now, do not plunge with me into a struggle I would shun. The law gives me no remedy if the House decides against me. Do not mock at the constituencies. If you place yourselves above the law, you leave me no course save lawless agitation instead of reasonable pleading. It is easy to begin such a strife, but none knows how it would end. I have no court, no tribunal to appeal to ; you have the strength of your votes at the moment. You think I am an obnoxious man, and that I have no one on my side. If that be so, then the more reason that this House, grand in the strength of its centuries of liberty, should have now that generosity in dealing with one who to-morrow may be forced into a struggle for public opinion against it. (Cheers.) TMrd Speech : February 7th, 1882. Mr. Speaker, — In addressing the House for the third time from this position, I feel the exceeding difficulty of dealing fairly with myself without dealing unfairly with the House. If I were to 14 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. follow the hon. member who has just sat down into his errors of law, of history, and of memory, into his reckless misconceptions as to what are the views I hold and write about, I should only be giving pain to numbers of members here, and departing from that mandate with which my constituents have trusted me. It is — I say it with all respect — not true that I done anything more with reference to the succession than maintain the right of Parliament, meaning by Parliament both Houses, to control it ; and any member who pretends that I done anything else, either does it, not having read what I have written, or heard what I have said, or having forgotten entirely what I have written or said, and being extremely careless in representing my views to the House. I regret that the hon. member [Mr. Newdegate] should have imported into the discussion some fact supposed to have occurred in a police-court since I stood here before. I can only give the House my positive assurance that the hon. member is perfectly inaccurate in his representation of what took place. It is exceed- ingly painful to bandy words in this way. The hon. member was good enough to say he did not hear. He could not well have heard, for the magistrate did not refuse my affirmation at all. I happened to have been before Sir J. Ingham before, and he knew me, and knew the particular form of affirmation ; and when the clerk read it to me no discussion took place on the subject. I hope the House will forgive me for contradicting such a small thing, but small things are sometimes much used. They have been used to work my ruin since I stood here before ; and I regret that the shame of reticence did not at least keep it from this House : that the hon. member thought it his dut}'-, by a common informer, to attempt to drive me into the Bankruptcy Court, and outside this House has boasted that the question would be solved in that way. It may be a brave boast, it may be consonant with piety from the hon. member's point of view ; but I believe that every other gentleman's sense of piety would revolt against the notion of driving a single man into bank- ruptcy, and then canvassing for subscriptions — ('hear, hear') — for the " bold and vigorous, and patriotic and noble conduct ", as the advertisement said, which consisted in hurrying in a cab to AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. I5 find the common informer to issue a writ against me. I dismiss that, however. I ask the House to pardon me for having wasted its time on this poor thing. I do not hope, I dare not think, tliat any word I may say here will win one vote ; and I would have let this go silently against me, were it not that I owe a duty to the constituency that has twice entrusted me with its suffrages, a duty to every constituency right through the land in time to come — ('hear, hear') — whose representative may be challenged as Northampton's has been. (' Hear, hear,' and ' No '.) Some gentlemen say " No ", but where is the challenge to stop ? (' Hear.') It is not simply theology, it is politics too. (' Hear, hear.') It is not simply theology that is brought before the House, but the wild imaginings of some member who, with the nightmare of panic upon him, and a wild imagining of the French Revolution clothed in terrors of which I know nothing, comes here to tell you of mighty Russia successful, and of the unfortunate United States with its Presidents assassinated because of religious and political opinions. Panic of that kind is not evidence as to my opinions. If this House intends to try me for my opinions, let it do it reasonably, and at least have the evidence before it. I would show you how unfair it is to trust to memory of words. The hon. member was good enough to tell the House that I had declared to a Committee of the House that certain words were meaningless. I hold in my hand the report of the Committee and the minutes of evidence ; and no such words exist in any declaration of mine. (' Hear, hear ' ; and Mr. Newde- gate shook his head.) The hon. member does not believe me. I cannot make more than facts. I cannot make the compre- hension which should distinguish, when prejudice has determined that nothing shall be right that is put. The only way in which it can be pretended that anything of the kind in reference to the oath can be brought in, is by taking my letter of the 20th of May, written outside the House, which does not contain a specific declaration the hon. member has put into it, which letter I protested ought not to be brought before the Committee at all, which I never volunteered to the Committee — (Opposition laughter) — which I objected to the Committee having before l6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. them. (' Oh ! ' and laughter from the Opposition.) The gentle- men who laugh, laugh because the laugh is the only answer that could be given. No reason can be given in reply, no facts- can be quoted ; and I ask hon. members who laugh to remem- ber that I am pleading as though a quasi-criminal at this bar, and that I have a right to an audience from them ; and I appeal to the House at least to give me a silent hearing. Judges da that. If you are unfit to be judges, then do not judge. (' Hear, hear.') It shows, at least, the difficulty of dealing with a ques- tion like this, when those who are to judge have come to a judgment already, not upon any facts, but upon what they think ought to be the facts. I ask the House to deal legally and fairly with me. Legally you are bound to deal ; fairly, as an assembly of English gentle- men, you ought to deal with me, even if you have differences with me, even if you think my opinions so obnoxious, even if you think that the politics with which you identify me in your minds are dangerous to you. (' Oh, oh ! ') If I am not dangerous, why not let me speak there [pointing to the seat he occupied last Session] ? If there is no danger, why strain the law ? If there is no danger, why disobey the law ? It is put by the hon. gentleman who spoke last that there are certain words of the oath which the courts of law have declared essential. The courts of law have declared the exact opposite. So far as a decision has been given, the very report of the Committee shows that the highest court oi judicature in this, realm has decided the words are not essential to the oath at all. I ask the House to deal with me with some semblance and show of legality and fairness ; and first I say that they ought not to go behind my election of the gth of April, 1881, and that the House ought to reject the resolution moved by the right hon. gentleman, because it deals with matters which antedate my election, and because the House has nothing to do with me before the 9th of April, 1881. That is the return of which the Clerk at the table has the certificate. That is my only authority for being here. If I did aught before that rendered me unworthy to sit here, why did the House let me sit here from the 2nd of July to the 29th of March ? If what I did AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. ly entitles the House not to receive me, why has not the House had the courage of its opinions and vacated the seat ? Either the seat is mine in law, and in law I claim it from you, or I am unworthy to hold it ; and then why not vacate the seat and let the constituency express its opinion again ? But my return is unimpeached, it is unimpeachable, and there has been no petition against me. The hon. member who went into back alleys for common informers could not find a petitioner to present a petition against it. If I speak with temper — (Opposition laughter) — the House, I trust, will pardon me. I have read within the last few days words spoken, not by members of no consequence, but by members occupying high position in this House, which made me wonder if this is the House of Commons to which I aspired so much. I have read that one right hon. member, the member for Whitehaven — (laughter from the Ministerial side) — was prompted to say to his constituents that I was kicked down stairs last Session, and that he hoped I should be again. If it were true that I was kicked downstairs, I would ask the members of the House of Commons on whom the shame, on whom the dis- grace, on whom the stigma ? I dare not apply this, but history will when I have mouldered, and you too, and our passions are quite gone. But it is not quite true that I was kicked down- stairs, and it is a dangerous thing to say that I was, for it means that hon. members who should rely on law rely on force. It is a dangerous provocation to conflict to throw to the people. If I had been as wicked in my thought as some members are reported to have been in their speech, this quarrel, not of my provoking, would assume a future to make us all ashamed. I beg this House to believe, and I trust. Sir, that you at least will believe me, that I have tried as much as man might to keep the dignity of this House. I submitted last Session, and the Session before, to have things said against me without one word of reply, because having had your good counsel, I felt it might provoke discussion upon matters which this House would willingly not have speech upon, and that I had far better rest under some slight stigma than occupy the House with my personality. I appeal to the recollection of every member of the l8 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. House whether from the moment of my entering into it I did not utterly disregard everything that took place prior to my coming into it, and direct myself to the business for which my con- stituents sent me here. The most extraordinary statements are made as to my views, statements as inaccurate as those which have fallen, no doubt unconsciously, from the hon. member who has last addressed the House. One noble lord in a great London gathering con- voked against me — a gathering which was not as successful as some that have taken place in my favor — denounced me as a Socialist. I do not happen to be one. I happen to think that Socialists are the most unwise and illogical people you can happen to meet. But the noble lord knew that I ought to be something. (Laughter.) I am a red rag to a wild Conservative bull, and it must rush at me and call me Socialist. I ask this House to be more fair and just. If I am to be tried, at least let me be tried for the opinions I hold and the views I express. Why, there are members who have soiled their tongues with words about social relations and marriage for which I have no proper reply in this House, as unfortunately the forms of the House do not permit me to use the only fitting answer, and perhaps it is as well. But I ask the House, Do not let this be the kind of weapon with which a return is met. Deal with me as the law directs, and in no other way. It is said "You have brought this upon yourself". ('Hear, hear.') One baronet who has spoken of me with a kindness more than I deserve, in the very borough which I represent, said I had brought it upon myself, because when I originally came to the House I flaunted and most ostentatiously put my opinion upon the House. (' Hear, hear.') Well, not one word of that is true. Not a shadow of it is true. I hold in my hand the sworn evidence of Sir Erskine May. I do not ask gentlemen to take my word, for it is clear they will not, but that of their own officer. And when the right hon. baronet said I claimed under the statute, and drew an inference from it, he knows that my claim contained no such words, until the clerk at the table of the House c'-'allenged me as to the law under which I claimed. I do not c rel with him, but I submit that the clerk of the House had AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 19 no right to put that question to me. I submit that the House had nothing whatever to do with it — that it certainly is no ostentatious flaunting by me. I submit that, at any rate, it is prior to the gth of April, 1881, and the House has no right to revive it against me. I ask the House to try and deal with me with some show of fairness. They will find that when I was before the Committee, instead of obtruding my opinions, I said I had never directly or indirectly obtruded upon the House any of my utterances or publications upon any subject whatever ; and when pressed by one of the members sitting on that (the Opposition) side of the House as to certain opinions I was supposed to hold, by asking me particular words I was supposed to have used in a judicial proceeding, I said that if the Committee wished I would answer, but that 1 objected to answer, because I had carefully refrained from saying any word which would bring my opinions before the House. 1 therefore ask the House whether it is not monstrously unfair to say that I have obtruded any opinions here when I have expressly, carefully, and thoroughly kept them from the House ? But it is said by the right hon. baronet that it would be a profanation to allow me to take the oath, and that the House would be no party to such a profanation. (Opposition cheers.) Does the House mean that it is a party to each oath taken ? (* Hear.') There was a time when most clearly it was not so a party. There was a time when the oath was not even taken in the presence of members at all. But does the House mean it is a party now ? Was it a party the Session before last ? Was it a party when Mr. Hall walked up to that table, cheered by members on the other side who knew his seat was won by deliberate bribery ? (Loud Opposition cries of 'Order'.) Bribery sought to be concealed by the most corrupt perjury. Did the House join in it ? (Renewed cries of ' Order '.) If the House did not join in it, why did you cheer so that the words of the oath were drowned ? But was the House a party when John Stuart Mill sat in this House ? (' Hear ' ; ' No '.) A member who is, I think, now within the walls of the House — the hon. member for Greenwich — in addressing his constituents, said that Mr. Bradlaugh's opinions were hardly c 2 20 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. more objectionable than those of some other members of the House. If the hon. member knew that, then he was a party to the profanation of the oath ; but perhaps they were on his own side, and he did not feel the profanation so acutely. (* Hear^ hear,' and laughter.) But it is said, " Our real objection is that you have declared that the oath is not binding upon you". (' Hear, hear,' from Mr. Alderman Fowler.) That is exactly the opposite of what I did declare. The hon. member whose voice I hear now, I unfortunately heard on the 3rd of August, and heard so that I shall never forget it. (Mr. Bradlaugh here looked towards Alderman Fowler and paused.) The hon. member admits that is the point — that I have declared the oath is not binding upon my conscience ; but, unfortunately, all the print goes the other way. I am asked by the Committee who sat as to whether the oath is binding, and on page 15 I reply : " Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I shall regard as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree ; and I would go through no form and take no oath, unless I meant it to be so binding". Again, I am asked as to the word " swear ". I say : " 1 con- sider when I take an oath it is binding upon my honor and upon my conscience"; and with reference to the words of asseveration to which the hon. member for North Warwickshire referred, he would at least have been more generous towards myself, if generosity be possible with him, if he had said : " I desire to add — and I do this most solemnly and unreservedly — that the taking, and subscribing, and repeating these words of asseveration will in no degree weaken the binding effect of the oath upon my conscience ". I say here, Sir, before you, with all the solemnity man can command, that I know the words of the oath the statute requires me to take ; that I am ready to take that oath according to law ; and that I will not take an oath without intending it to be bind- ing upon me ; and that if I do take the oath it will be binding upon my honor and conscience. (Conservative cries of ' Oh [ oh ! ') Members of the House who are ignorant of what is honor and conscience — (Loud cries of 'Order', 'Oh, oh ', and ' Withdraw ', from the Opposition.) If members AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 21 will allow me to finish my sentence (Cries of 'With- draw'.) Members of this House who are ignorant of what is (Renewed cries from the Opposition of ' Withdraw '.) These (Mr. Bradlaugh pointing to the Opposition benches) are my judges ! Members of this House who are ignorant of what is the honor and conscience of the man who stands before them — (' Oh ', and laughter from the Opposition) — have a right to shout ' Withdraw ' ; but they must beware lest a greater voice outside — (' Oh, oh ', and laughter from the Opposition) — ^at the ballot-box, where it has a right to express it, may not only say ' withdraw ', but make withdraw all those who infringe the constitutional rights of the nation, as they seek to infringe them now. If I knew any kind of word which might convince members whom I desire to convince that I would take no pledge that I did not mean to be binding, I would use that form of words. But I have found myself so harshly judged, so unfairly dealt with, that one feels a difficulty in understand- ing whether any form of words, however often repeated, would convey any kind of conviction to some minds. I presume that this House will repeat its vote of April 26th. What then ? Will it have the courage of its opinions, and vacate my seat ? (' Hear, hear.') If it does not, this House leaves me in an unfair position before the law. I am bound to come to this table, and will come to this table, as long as the mandate of my constituents sends me here, unless the House vacates the seat. If my seat be vacated, it is my duty to bow to the House, and appeal to my constituents again ; and then the verdict rests with them. But to take away part of the right, and deal with it in this fashion, leaving me with the full legal responsibility and no kind of legal authority, I submit is not generous. Well, will this House repeat its vote of 9th May ? Will it substitute force for law ? At present the law is on my side. (' No, no,' and ' hear, hear'.) If not, let me sit and sue me. (' Hear, hear.') If not, try by petition. If not, bring an action. But shouting ' No ' won't decide the law, even with the united wisdom of the members of this House who shout it. I know that no man is a good advocate for a great principle unless he himself be worthy of the principle he advocates; and I 22 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. have felt acutely the judgment properly passed upon me by many members of this House, who, knowing their superiority to me, say how unworthy I am that this question should be fought in my person. I admit I am unworthy, but it is not my fault that I have this fight to make. I remind you of the words of one of the greatest statesmen who sat in this House more than a hundred years ago, that whenever an infringement of the constitutional right was attempted, it was always attempted in the person of some obnoxious man. (' Hear, hear.') I ask the House for a moment to carry its mind to the 3rd of August last. I do that because either I do not understand what took place then, or my memory has failed me, as the memory of other hon. members sometimes does, or things happened with- out my consciousness. I thought I had stood aside until Parliament had dealt with the pressing business of the nation. I thought that had been recognised by this House. I thought I only came saying at the very door of the House that I was ready to obey its lawful orders; and I thought I was then seized by force while saying it. My memory may not serve me well on that, but I think it does. There were plenty of witnesses to the scene. I saw one hon. member climb on to a pedestal to see how fourteen men could struggle with one. It was hardly generous, hardly brave, hardly worthy of the great House of Commons, that those sending out to the whole world lessons of freedom, liberty, and law, should so infringe and so stamp them under foot. I had no remedy in any court, or I would have taken it. With all respect to you, Sir, and the officers of this House, if there had been any possibihty of trying at law against the mighty privilege of this House, I would have appealed to that possibility. Let me now, before I finish, ask the ear of the House for one moment. It is said it is the oath and not the man ; but others, more frank, say it is the man and not the oath. Is it the oath and not the man ? I am ready to stand aside, say for four or five weeks, without coming to that table, if the House within that time, or within such time as its great needs may demand, will discuss whether an Affirmation Bill shall pass or not. I want to obey the law, and I tell you how I might meet the AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 23 House still further, if the House wiU pardon me for seeming to advise it. Hon. members have said that would be a Bradlaugh Relief Bill. (' Hear, hear.') Bradlaugh is more proud than you are. ('Hear, hear.') Let the Bill pass without applying to elections that have taken place previously, and I will undertake not to claim my seat, and when the Bill has passed I will apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. (Cheers.) I have no fear. If I am not fit for my constituents, they shall dismiss me, but you never shall. The grave alone shall make me yield. (' Hear, hear,' and ' Oh '.) Fourth Speech : May 4th, 1883. Mr. Speaker, — With the indulgence of the House, I desire to submit a very few words in support of my right to take the oath and my seat pursuant to my return. I was elected on the 4th of March of last year, and since that election I have not presented myself for the purpose of taking my seat. The House, after my election, expressed its pleasure that I should not be permitted to obey the law that Session ; and this Session the House has been engaged in considering a measure which, if it had passed, would have been a measure which would have rendered it possible, supposing my constituents to have re- elected me, for me to have taken my seat on affirmation. Last night the House felt it right to reject that measure, and now it is my duty to do what the law requires of me, and I ask the indulgence of the members who are hostile to me in the few words which it is my unpleasant duty to address to them. I ask that indulgence because my position for some time has been one of considerable pain. By the privilege of an unsworn member, I have been within hearing of everything that has taken place in this House ; but by the practice of the House I have been precluded from offering the smallest dissent to any phrase, however severe ; to any insinuation, however 24 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. harsh ; to any charge, however much I think it false. My constituents have a right to the voice and speech of two repre- sentatives in this House. (Cheers.) That is their unquestion- able ri At a gathering at which Freethinkers are present from many- foreign countries, it is an acceptable task to endeavor to trace the progress of heresy throughout the world. NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I85. It is somewhat wonderful that in the last quarter of the nine- teenth century it should be possible, in any civilised country, to make the heresy of any woman or man matter of reproach or hindrance to her or him. It is, indeed, to the heresy of the world that all progress is due. Without the sceptical challenge, the firm enquiry, the examining doubt, the testing and verifying experience, there would always have been the stagnation of ignorance, or the deterioration and warping influence of superstition. In old times much heresy was impossible ; there was no general education ; there could not be any popular heresy. The heretics were few in number, their brilliant mental achievements and often terrible sufferings marking them out in the darkness of their age and country, as stars stand out clearest in the blackest night. There are many classes of heresy. Religious heresies — challenging either the religion of a particular country, or assailing the very foundation of all religions — political heresies and social heresies. In an Inter- national Freethought Conference it is with heresies in questions- of religion that we are alone concerned. We do not, in tlius limiting our work, mean any slight to earnest workers for human enfranchisement in social or political matters. We only desire to keep our propaganda distinct and clear. Political and social needs may vary in each land, but the conflict between ignorance and reason is in truth but one conflict in all climes, whatever the formula attacked or faith asserted. In matters of religion there can only be two clear logical positions. One, the completest submission of the intellect to authority: to some book, or church, or man. The other,, the most thorough assertion of the right and duty of indi- vidual thought and judgment. These positions are so an- tagonistic that there can be no truce or peace between the defenders of the one and of the other. As Freethinkers we claim this right and duty of individual thought, the free and complete expression of the individual judgment. Guided, and aided too, this thought must needs be, by the thought of yesterday and of to-day. But we deny that yesterday's thought ought to be allowed to conclude all thinking. We deny that. yesterday's knowledge may be held to include all that is or cart lS6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. be knowable. We claim to search for truth, and to show others what we find, that they, with us, may test whether it be true or no. We assert the right to think, and to tell openly and clearly all w^e can of what it is we think, and how we think it. We affirm that in no country ought thought on matters of religion to be hindered by penal law^s. We declare that in every country religious disabilities should be swept away. We do not want to train our children while babies so that they must grow into the assailants of any creed, but we refuse to allow the priest to twist and distort the infant mind with creed and fear. We would have. children's education limited to science, leaving each unfettered to build his theory or choose his creed as brain- strength comes with growth. We have no desire to prevent or punish any religion by law. We would have all religions, like all sciences, on equal terms, the reward being in the future to the greatest discoverer of new truths, not as it has been in the past, to the most obstinate upholder of ancient delusions. We claim the same equality of citizenship for professors of belief, unbelief, and disbelief. But if special honor is claimed for any, then heresy should have it as truest servitor of human kind. W^e, here, all claim to be Freethinkers, therefore, we are no more all of one thought than w^e are of one stature or of one country. Nor do we make any claim that we, or any other thinkers, know all that can be known. We stand by the great ocean of the unknown, each mental eye seeing different shades of color on its waves, each thought-diver gathering from its depths truth- corals and pearls, that others missed to grasp or cannot reach. In one of the very oldest countries, but where education has been most general and most esteemed, there heresy has been reputed and valued, instead of punished. That country is China. Professor Douglas, writing for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, admits that Confucianism " has supplied the guiding principles of all that is great and noble in the life of China for more than twenty centuries ". Yet there is nothing of Ihe supernatural in the teachings of Confucius. He troubled himself much as to how men might live. He concerned himself not at all with what should be their career, or if they should NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 187 liave any career, when they were no longer Hving. This paradox has no place in his teachings. So of another great child of this Chinese race, Laou-tze. Of him Professor Douglas writes : " Of a personal God, Laou-tze knew nothing ; and, indeed, a belief in such a being would be in opposition to the whole tenor of his philosophy ". Yet these twain are, with Buddha, the great masters of Chinese thought. Perhaps the clearest record of heretic progress is preserved to us from Greece. There — almost about the very time when Buddha indelibly engraved his name on Chinese thought — philosophy lifted its head in Greece, and made thought easier in all time for all the Western world. There is not the time to- night to trace the history of Greek Scepticism, nor to linger over the page that tells of the hemlock cup which silenced the tongue without smothering the sayings of questioning Socrates. We must not even — after some centuries leap — stop to pity the sore martyrdom or to admire the eloquence of the pure, the beautiful Hypatia. Temples have been built to these and their heretic brothers and sisters, not in marble or in granite, but in working, stirring, doubting, reasoning, truth-coining, human brains. It would be ungrateful to quite pass by Arabian heresy and our indebtedness to it, even though we have not space enough to give due honor ; it is to the Arab of the tenth and eleventh centuries that we to-day owe much. When learning had been trampled down throughout all Christendom it was the Arab who not only gathered and preserved the mental legacy of India, Italy, Greece, and Egypt, but added to it the tenfold interest •of his new discovery and keen thinkings in every then possible branch of science. But our business to-night is with heresy since real heresy has been possible. That is, possible for the many. That is, since the printing press has been known in Europe, and since men talked to men openly in their own tongue. In the great arsenals of Europe huge monster cannon are built to shatter human homes, and shot and shell are cast and filled with which to load these cannon. The printing press is our grand cannon ; thought, question, and affirmation our shot and shell. Book -and tongue are our sword and bayonet ; pen and speech our l88 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. lance and spear. But neither our writers nor our speakers- have gone through the fight unscathed. Italy shows us, during the last three and a-half centuries^ a terribly full martyrs' roll. Dungeon, rack, and faggot were the ready arguments of the Roman Catholic Church. And these were freely used. The mere list of names of these Italian martyrs for Freethought would take more time than to-night can be spared ; but one name must at least be repeated with much of reverence and more of triumph : — that of the man burned in Rome 281 years ago. A man whose tongue, pen, and body were alike untiring ; who in Naples, Switzerland, France, England, Germany, and Venetia worked to make Freethought possible for us ; who lay eleven long years in prison ; who endured the rack and perished at the stake. True till death, the grand and glorious Giordano Bruno, whose ashes were scattered in Rome, but whose memory still lives, whose energy still survives, whose martyrdom we honor, and whose marble presentment we hope ere long to see challengii.g the Vatican, with the promise of the Freethought victories which the twentieth century shall bring to crown this nineteenth century effort and to redeem that sixteenth century shame. In France it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that the struggle was most fierce, and for some time least fruitful. The mass of the people fed too little to think much, and the work of the Encyclopaedists was as that of the sower on the rock so far as concerned the great mass of the nation. But the men who were imprisoned and whose books were burned during the Regency and in the reign of Louis XV made possible the more general intellectual array of this century. Fewer giants perhaps, but more men. The fire which burned Vanini in the beginning of the seventeenth century is quenched for ever; and, though the priestly hatred against Voltaire still lives, the wit they fear, and hate because they fear, has been fruitful mother of freer thought in France. Holland and Germany have been mighty for thought-leading through Europe, from Spinoza to Kant, Fichte and Feuerbach. In England, from Hobbes to Mill, a grand march of great thinkers. But it is not alone of the great thinkers we have here NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 189 to take account ; it is of the village orator, the local pamphlet- eer, the poor and often rough-mannered defender of the right of speech and of publication. These in turn have each and all had hard battles to fight. Gaol for themselves ; poverty and contumely for their families. To be " infidel " was worse than to be burglar. For the " sinner " there was welcome by the pious: he might repent. For the heretic thinker, no mercy to be shown him. But the poorer soldiers have left scant personal record of their work. This work is best known by the platform and press which they have won for our use. Who shall tell in ■each land the histories of those humbler ones who have faced hunger and mockery, prison and shame, to win even the grudged freedom we enjoy to-day ? They are the privates in the Freethought army, their loss scarce counted in each country's victorious progress. In every department of science the triumphs of heresy are 'distinct and clear. In astronomy the e pur si miiovc has been real moving onwards. The sun and moon are no longer the two great lights, with little twinkling stars, to give light to the central earth. The aforetime heresy of Copernicus and Galileo has conquered. The astronomic heresy which the priests could not crush has become the astronomic science to which they give their sanction. In geology the vast periods to which yet no maximum limit can be set utterly outshadow iha old church chronologies, which place the creation of the world B.C. 4,004 ; and the evolutionist helps us to trace back into the vastnesses of these geologic aeons how the development of life has slowly but surely progressed. To-day the churches cannot burn Darwin, Huxley, or Wallace ; Broca, Topinard, or Hovelacque ; Vogt, Haeckel, or Biichner. The priest of the old altar of the unknown is powerless save for petty spitefulness against the newer workers in the temple of truth. Even in psychology, the domain in which the priest was lord and the creed was master, even there heresy triumphs. Mental diseases are no longer demoniacal possessions ; science cures, prevents, and alleviates, where religion chained the lunatic to the walls and exorcised the devil - possessed unfortunate. Maudsley, Huxley, Tyndall, Clifford, Lewes, great living and, in thought igO SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. still living, dead, these honored names mark heresy's- triumphs. And perhaps you will pardon a poor addition to these mighty things in the mention that even in the Cortes of Catholic Spain Martos and Castelar are claiming to get rid of the oath, which we, too, have had to fight at home. Edinhnrgh, May 2StJi, 1882. It is my duty and my pleasure, as President, for the current year, to deliver the closing address of this first Freethought Conference openly held on Scottish soil. We may congratulate ourselves on its national character. Forty towns, some in the extreme south and south-west of England, have sent their dele- gates, some of them travelling over 500 miles to be present here ; so that we may take the gathering as a fair proof of real earnestness. It has been a source of great pleasure to me, and I am sure to all, to find the thorough unity and harmony of discussion prevailing. Our Scotch friends seem to have laid aside to-day their critical swords, but I trust that they do not think that we resent criticism ; we have often found theirs most useful. Let me thank all for their efforts to make everything harmonious. One speaker has referred to Scotland as a land of bigotry. Perhaps that is so ; but let us not forget that the land of bigotry is also the land of earnestness,, and I almost prefer bigoted earnestness to hypocritical indiffer- ence. There is hope of winning the one ; there is little use in the other. But Scotland has higher attractions to Free- thinkers than that of earnestness. Freethought owes enor- mously to Scotch thought, whether it be for or against itself. Some of the closest reasoners bear Scottish names. Need I add to that of David Hume the names of Dugald Stewart, of Adam Smith, of Sir WilHam Hamilton, to prove how much Scotland has contributed to our strongest thought, not claiming them as agreeing with us, but as helpers to us, since all strong, thought makes the possibility and the education of Free- NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. IQI thought ? It is right also to say here that Scotland, above the other English countries, has done most to destroy the hope of bigotry by its universities throwing open the highest educa- tion to the children of the poor. Scotch, too, is that Chambers' literature which has done so much for education, without serving one sect more than another. But I must turn from this, lest you should think that I am trying to flatter you, and I know that flattery is considered by a Scotch audience as the worst of briber}', and that you would rather I should break your heads with hard blows against your most cherished opinions than try to win you with compliment, however well deserved and sin- cerely meant. The post renewed to me by our society to-day is a post ot honor, of higher honor than could have been fore- shadowed sixty years ago. Some of you are old enough to remember hearing from lips living at that period what the posi- tion of Freethinkers was in Scotland then, how impossible it woula have been to have then held such a Conference as ours. One value the post has to me is that it brings me into contact with men of every country who hold that the position entitles me to their friendly greeting, greeting not to me for my own sake, but for your sake in whose trust I stand. This free platform that has been won needs from us to-day vigorous defence. You have heard from Mrs. Besant and Mr. Foote how that liberty is won and is grudged. Won, in that the laws against us are not enforced, but the laws are there and may be enforced. We have not yet won equality with other sects ; we have not yet won social liberty and equal right. Our platform is only tolerated. Tolerated ? But no one has right to tolerate. I have no right to tolerate the thought of the churches. They have no right to tolerate mine. Their thought is theirs of right ; mine is mine of right ; and the judgment of to-morrow only can be final both on their thought and on mine. But I ask you to remember that no strong defence can be made by one. Sixty, nay fifty, years ago men and women w^ent to gaol in Edinburgh for holding the opinions with v/hich we ar2 identified to-night. There was no society to stand by theiu ^92 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. then; no organisation to aid them then. We should be as weak as they, were it not for the pubhc opinion made by the organised propaganda we keep up. You have the right to help; you have the duty of work and the right of work, so that all the pressure may not fall on a few. None has the right to stand .alone, to refuse to join a society. Why not ? Because he could not think save for the thought before him. Because he could not know but for the destruction of the censorship which blotted pages out of the books which teach him. Because his thought would be silenced but for the struggles of gallant thinkers of yesterday. Each who links himself to our Society makes us stronger to meet the powerful organisations against us, and in some measure repays the debt he owes to the Freethinkers of the past. Mr. Foote has spoken to us of the heretical works of the great dead, of Emerson, of Rossetti, of Darwin. As he spoke I remembered the Anti-Clerical Conference in Rome, held when the CEcumenical Council was sitting there, in which I was invited to take part by Ricciardini. I was reminded also of a remarkable phrase in the London Spectator, that Carlyle had denied miracles, while Darwin left no room for a special providence. Westminster Abbey for Darwin's bones ; Belfast pulpits against Darwin's brains ; and Darwin's monument his work, destroying the Church which enshrines his coffin, and which is the most powerful foe of education in this land. The signs of persecution spoken of by Mrs. Besant are not con- fined to England, Scotland, and Ireland. There are traces of fierce activity in France and in Italy; the Roman Catholic Church in those lands must either drive back heresy or be broken ; the school is rising against the Church, the schoolmaster against the priest who trades on ignorance. Here among ourselves there is a danger in the growing strength of societies cast out from other lands, and it is not wise to ignore it. We have Cardinal Manning interfering in our political strife ; a foreign Cardinal impudently issuing his Bull to a free people ; it scarce needs another Luther to burn such Bulls as his. It is too late for Rome to try and grapple with the Rationalistic spirit of lo-day 1 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I93 Is the power of the priest broken ? I wish I felt sure .it is. Some of the weapons of the priest are broken. His rack, his faggots, his chains, his prisons are broken, but his power, while the power of the confessional exists in these lands, over our mothers and sisters is not broken, and we must break it. The power of the priest is shaken, but I fear another generation or two must pass ere it will be wholly crushed. Yet well may Mr. Foote have said so, when he knows that in Rome itself, where Bruno died, to-day orators speak, under the very shadow of the Vatican, the heresy for whose sake he gave his life. I ask you to-night to join hands to forward this great cause. You need not lectures now and then, not applause of some favorite orator, but that every Freethinker should think it his duty to stand by the colors. There are matters connected with the press which we are bound to guard ; we must keep it thoroughly free, and we must try to create a public opinion that will prevent any taint falling on those who work for us, any slur, any injury to their means of livelihood ; we must win for the platform the right enjoyed by the pulpit, and give to our speakers the same honor as is given to the most favorite preacher. We want a platform guarded by an enlightened public opinion, so that no bishop, no member of the House of Commons, no assembly of a kirk, shall dare to join immorality with unbelief. Why should these two be united ? Why should immorality be connected with unbelief rather than with belief ? Freethought should surely rank higher than the mumbling of old prayers ! You will think that I ought not to conclude without some words as to my personal fight. I can only say that I shall fight on, that I have never been beaten in the long run yet, and that I don't mean to be now. I have been reproached for lack of education ; one word certainly I have never learned : Defeat, and I am too old to begin to learn it now. So far as their legal attacks are concerned, I will fight them in every court. If bankruptcy must come, let it come to those who commenced the fight ; we did not. Let us empty their purses, and teach them to regret that they ever provoked the struggle. That is my fight. On the hustings the fight is yours. You must show o JOA SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. no mercy, no sparing, when you deal there with the men who have insulted the women of our party. We cannot in every case win the seat, but we can always make it lost to the man who has maligned us. No seat of these that I can strike at will I spare. I have settled about a dozen of them already. I do not pretend, friends, that I shall in the future do all you wish ; a man can only do his best. My judgment may not always be yours, but I will try to guide it by the best judgments of those who have gone before. The Edinburgh society has set before us two mottoes : one that of the N. S. S., " We search for truth " : the other my own, "Thorough". For the Freethought one I say, that we do not pretend to know all truth, but we have learned enough to know how vast is that for which we search : no statute has the right to check our search ; no Church has the right to stop it ; no priest has the right to hinder it ; no curse has the right to doom it ; no prejudice has the right to forbid it. Truth we will have, if human effort may make the road to find it. Our grasp is not big enough to hold all we find, but by gripping some facts we may teach others to grip more strongly, while we learn ever that truth lies beyond. For my own motto, I will strive to justify it, both in the office you have given, and in any other I may win. And when my work is over, and the stone covers the spot wherein I lie, may I be entitled to have the word " Thorough " carven upon its face. Manchester, May i^th, 1883. Crowded as this gathering has been, I have seen gaps in it which make sorrow to me — gaps, which old faces used to fill ; gaps where sturdy friends, tried in struggle, used to sit ; gaps where younger ones sit to-day, but which are still gaps to me, carved by the hand of death, and left empty for ever. In re-electing me President I would ask you to remem- NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I95 ber that I am only what you make me. I have only the strength you give me; I wield only the authority you form for me. I am your mouthpiece, not your dictator ; your servant, not your master. I am your standard-bearer, not your leader : standing in the front rank because you put me there. It is the trust you give me, the love you bear me, the sympathy you show me, the loyal work you do in response to my appeal, that make me strong ; it is the echo you send out from every village, every valley, every township, when I call to you, that rings into every church and chapel in the land. Therefore, now, I appeal to you that in the coming year you will help and sustain me and the Executive you have elected to do your work. The world expects more from us to-day ; the opposition is fiercer, more bitter, more un- sparing than ever. It needs that we should be not reckless, but firm ; not insulting, but not flinching ; we fight not with our own strength, yet with the strength of generations upon generations who lie in their graves, but whose work lives in our work to-day. I appeal to you to organise and unite. Isolated, you are like the dust, blown by every breath of wind ; linked ■together you are rock. Children linked to;^ether could hold a strong man, who could throw them over one by one. Link yourselves together as our cause is linked with all that is great and grand, noble and sublime. There is no need to .ask you to unite for great things, but for small : a crisis finds you all ready, but I want you ready when you do not see the ■crisis, when you do not see the difficulty. I want you to form part of the political life of the district to which you belong. When men see you firm, when they admire your straight- forwardness, when they note your courage, they will turn to you as leaders in the hour of strife. A man whom I will not name, in an influential posi- tion, with wealth at his disposal, a power in chapels throughout the land, a man of lifelong integrity, said to me lately: "One thing, Mr. Bradlaugh, I cannot under- stand, and that is how ready your people are to help ours, though they disagree with us". I answered: "We are ready •to help you when we think you right ; we judge your work, o 2 196 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. not your creed ". In all contests, municipal and political^ teach men to turn to you, and try to judge with as much freedom from prejudice as you can. If a man is not all you want, yet select the best man you can find and work for him. No Freethinker who can get a vote should remain without one- He is disloyal to the cause if he leaves ungrasped a sword he might use. The suffrage is a weapon, and it is one we will use ; those members who have trampled on our rights, those members who have slandered our lives, those members whO' have gibed at our ignorance, those members who have insulted our women, we will meet those members at the polling-booth,, and we will fight them there. We may have a general election before the year now commenced has closed. There are storm- signals flying, and I promise you to keep a sharp look-out, and to give warning of the bursting. We are a fighting party ; we are fighting for our existence ; our platform is not yet free. The danger is not so much from the prejudiced folly of a man like Mr, Justice North, as from the reasoned views of such a man as Mr. Justice Stephen. All Liberals have rejoiced to hear, or to read, the hu- mane, the generous, the kindly, the broad, the liberal views of the Lord Chief Justice of England ; but we must re- member that these views only open out possibilities ; they are dicta which may grow into law, if we are careful and wise. Now, the history of the law is really our danger, and in the hands of judges determined to strain the law the platform would be made precarious. Carlile spent nearly nine years and eight months in gaol to make our platform. Poor men went from your valleys in hundreds, and lay in gaol to make the platform safe, to win the right of speech. The right of speech, the right of platform, the right of press, these rights have not been given : they have been bought with hunger, as men in gaol left their families starving outside ; they have been bought with torture of heart and torture of body ; not with the torture of the rack, for that was merciful — the rack was followed by the grave ; this torture left men — living men — surrounded by starving wives and starving children, yet they bore all that they might win freedom for us. NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I97 Our worst danger, however, is not from indictment for blasphemy, but from Rome ; Rome, which is minghng now in our poHtical strife ; Rome, which dared to send message to Northampton to bid free EngHshmen vote as the Vatican •dictated ; Rome, as to which Sir Massey Lopes in the House said he rejoiced in its aid. Rome is too bold ; we ■will not have it. Rome has cursed Italy ; it shall not curse us again. Rome shall have free church for its worshippers, free bench for its bishops, free right for its speech ; but Rome shall not touch our liberty, Rome shall not master our political life. Rome shall not put back our Freedom's clock to the time of the Middle Ages ; we will break first the hands that touch it. We see an ominous union of Newdegate and Manning ; the old ultra-Protestant has forgotten the words, bitter and coarse, with which he assailed the scarlet lady of Babylon, words too coarse for repetition in our meeting here. Yet we see him walking into the lobby arm-in-arm with the protege of Cardinal Manning, and we must admire the forgetful- ness of each. But most of all must we admire the forgetfulness of the Protestant ; for Cardinal Manning only uses the ultra- Protestant as his tool against a foe more dangerous to Rome. The fight between us and Rome must come one day. It may be far-off; it may be to-morrow — the fight between Rome and Rationalism, between the fullest assertion of the right of private judgment and the most complete submission to authority. I have now only to dismiss you and to look into the coming year. Shall we have more blasphemy prosecutions ? I think not ; at any rate as against myself, unless Sir Hardinge Giffard learns some fresh trick of law, I may hope to give reasonable account thereof. But am I right to say that I think there will be no more ? Baffled against one, may they not try to touch another whom they deem less skilful of fence ? Shall more men wear prison dress ? Shall more men live on prison food ? I cannot tell you how pained I felt, when, on visiting Holloway Gaol, I heard a letter and a number given to summon one, and then a letter and a number given to summon another, and when two men came in, in dirty brown prison garb, bearing letter and number, and I recognised them as those I knew. They have ig8 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. offended against good taste ? But do you send men to gaol for offending against good taste ? Do you dress men in prisoner's garb for offending against good taste ? Do you shut men up in small cells for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four for offending against good taste ? Do you make men pick oakum for offending against good taste ? At any rate men are not so treated who offend grossly. To-day on the walls of your city I see huge bills headed "Blood and Fire", and if religion be a reality, what could be more offensive than those bills ? And if good taste is to be the rule, what of those religionists who libel our dead, who slander our living, who shut our men out of employment, who close colleges against our women, who mock us with our ignorance while they shut us out from knowledge ? I have said many a bitter word and many a harsh thing ; perhaps some had been better not said. Yet were I to live my life again, with the knowledge of how cruel, how merci- less the Church has been, how it has made speech impos- sible, how it has poisoned our lives, I might wonder that all my language had not been bitter instead of only some. It is better not to offend, if offence may be fairly avoided, and it is better because we hurt the good men, not the bad. Good men, such as Canon Shuttleworth and my friend, Stewart Headlam ; among Dissenters, such as Charles Wil- liams : among the United Presbyterians such as Mr. Marjori- banks ; in the Church of England, such as the Vicar of Coal- ville : we regret to give these men pain, and if we needed any- thing to make our tongues gentle and to soften our memory of yesterday's wrong, we might find it in one of England's greatest judges, Christian to the utmost, creed-bound to the fullest, wrestling with his creed that he might do justice, and wringing himself with pain that he might not injure us. I ask everyone of our speakers, every one of our writers, while they are striking at the Church which has cursed the land, at least to remember that there was one strong in creed, strong in prejudice, separ- ated from us by an abyss of judgment and of feeling, who yet stretched his hand across the gulf, and strove to be gentle as •well as just. NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. IQQ I cannot part with you without reminding you how Free- thought is spreading through the world, through India, through New Zealand, through Australia, through the United States, through Holland, through Germany, through Italy, where no Atheist is precluded by his non-belief from the enjoyment of civil rights, through France, where the vast gathering round the grave of the man she loved, where the sympathy, the hope, the love, the patriotism shown, were all without shade of religion. But though the cause is winning, the struggle is not over yet. We struggle against the fetter-customs of yesterday, against the reputations made when men libelled and racked and burned the heretic. Time is on our side ? Yes, for our cause ; but Time marches with iron scythe and cuts down the living soldiers, and their blood waters the fields over which they march. Time is always on the side of Truth ; but in time they have racked our warriors ; in time they have burned our martyrs ; in time men have lain in dungeon, and the grave had given the fulness of time to the man yearning for freedom. Friends, I finish gratefully, hopefully ; gratefully, for all you have done ; hopefully for the coming year. I greet you as fellow-soldiers in the army that fights for liberty. All truth, all right are not ours, but we have the right to search for truth in trust for those who come afterwards, and we will do our best to make the search rich for those for whom we gather. Plymouth, June ist, 1884. Let me congratulate you on your unanimous and hearty way of work : this informal Parliament grows more useful every year, although there is no way of holding it together save by goodwill and by desire for the good of the common cause. Twenty-four years ago, as has been already said, I was brought up through a hole in the floor into the dock of the Devon- port police court ; I was not then tried for blasphemy, because the Young Men's Christian Association had been too hasty : they 200 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. had arrested me as soon as I had said : " Friends, I am about to address you on the Bible ". Even then my reputation had such a peculiar turn that it was thought that these words justified my arrest. We have had some growth since then, some change in position since then. Then, in court in Devon- port, in court at Exeter, where I fought the matter. Freethinkers were objected to, and their evidence was rejected on the ground of their heresy. We have destroyed that, but we have not yet destroyed the insult attached to our evidence-giving, we have not destroyed the power of the bigoted to make the giving painful and difficult ; but we will. This we may boast, that we have always fought within the law. We have threatened no violence, we have used no violence, we have acquiesced in no violence, we have encouraged no violence. We appeal to men's brains, to men's reason, and we may remind those who are against us that wherever Freethought makes its way in a country, there the reforming spirit in politics is orderly, peace- ful, and must be useful. I am glad that you have carried Mr. Foote's motion on the Blasphemy Laws. For years in that agitation I stood almost alone. Twenty-three years ago I was rebuked by one who then stood high in the Freethought ranks for wast- ing the energies of the party in attacking obsolete laws. Bad laws live for mischief always. They are weapons in the hands of the cruel, which may be used at any time. The iron was cold then when I struck it, and the effort was wearying ; but if we did not repeal the laws, at least we won friends enough not to leave their victims undefended when they were them- selves silenced. I ask you not to let this resolution be of words alone. You, who by your presence here, show that you are Freethinkers, I ask you, hundreds of you not enrolled in our ranks, I ask you to come boldly out and join us, for to be Freethinkers to-day, and not active workers, is treason to the common cause. In the coming year there will be fighting enough for all. On June 13th I am to argue whether Atheists have any civil rights at all ; whether holding the position you have given me, and which I am proud to hold, whether that position in free England makes me an outlaw, without political NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 201 lights. I shall argue with ten times the force because you trust me to argue it, and because I shall know that I am arguing for you and not for myself alone. I mean to win. The matter is so grave that I would not say so to you unless I felt sure, and you know that I have never said so to you unless where I have won before the finish. I cannot tell you when, nor where, but if it has to be in the House of Lords then I will go there to win, and will win there. But I will try to win before. If we want to measure progress we must not reckon it by the last twenty-four years : twenty-four years is nothing but a speck of time in history. We must not measure it by the twenty-five years before that, although that quarter of a century held in it nine years of gaol for Richard Carlile ; although in it hundreds went to prison for blasphemy, out of one shop alone nine men and two women. It is something to be proud of in our movement that women have shared in its perils ; something to be proud of that we have women now, able to endure, able to speak, able to instruct, and to make us purer by struggling by our side. We must not measure our progress by the century. One hundred years ago they burned Diderot's works, and this year Freethinkers will gather in honor of Diderot's centenary. One hundred and ten years ago in France penalty of death was put on any who should dare to publish any " book calculated to disturb the public mind ". A Nonconformist sent Mr. Foote to . gaol last year, but a hundred years ago Lord Mansfield rebuked the persecution of Nonconformists, declaring that the city of London, in paltry thieving spirit, nominated Nonconformists to offices they could not fill, so that they might fine them for the non-fulfilment ; Lord Mansfield characterised that persecution as mean and paltry ; persecution had been cruel, it had become petty. And persecution is always petty — petty, paltry, and short-sighted. The twelve months' imprisonment have given to Mr. Foote a force and an influence, not among you who love him, but among those who hate him, that no work could have won in the same time. Three hundred years ago Bruno was burned for Athe- ism ; to-day in the Italian Parliament men sit who hold views 202 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. more extreme than those for which Bruno suffered in the Piazzai dei Fiori in Rome. Then Galileo was compelled to recant, while he muttered : E pure si muove. Then Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jews, the Jews who have suf- fered so much, and who suffer still, and who, like many who are persecuted, are sometimes too ready to persecute in their turn. Take Pomponatius racked, Vanini mutilated, and then you can measure the progress made, for as against these the three, or nine, or twelve months' prison may seem as sun- shine. We, meeting in Conference, take this position : that no autho- rity save that of reason is valid ; that no place save that of freedom is worthy; we dictate only by the clash of thought, and we are against every form of ecclesiastical establishment, not because we disagree with its creed, but because every form of thought should be equal in opportunity. I thank the Plymouth Branch that opposite Mr. Foote's words they have put the word I hope to deserve, " Thorough ". We mean to be thorough. We claim no right to dictate views to others, but we do claim that none who hold ours shall be forced before a judge ; we claim education secular and universal, no social, no political, no religious disabilities put upon us ; we will not have toleration, but equality ; falsehood should not be tolerated, it should be exposed, but none should punish the man because his views are false. Leave him to- judge. Give fair play and free play to all. It would be unfair now to keep you longer, so I will only say that the morrow is full of promise. Fifty years ago education without religion was impossible ; it was superstition or nothing ; on your knees or nothing ; church prayers or nothing. Now we- may try to walk, even if we stumble. I thank you, friends, that you have trusted me to lead you for another year. There is fighting to be done, and I still can fight. I have said nothing to you to-day of my political struggle, because it would not be fair to others. Cordially agreeing as I do with what Mr. Foote- said of those who are willing to stand beside us in fighting for- liberty, you will recognise how I feel to good folk who disagree with my heresy, but who are good enough to give me their NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 203 political trust, and hopeful enough to believe that I shall not dishonoi it. Birmingham, May 2^th, 18S5. Not all of you in this great meeting are of us ; not all of you are for us : not all of you, perhaps, are even well inclined towards us ; yet all of you, every one of you, friendly or hostile,, ally or foe, is lending strength to us to-night : is helping us to mark a great step of progress in this land. Progress, but pro- gress not yet complete ; which until it is complete must be painfully won, hardly won, sorely won ; won, as he (Mr. Foote) helped to win it by gaol-suffering as payment won as she (Mrs. Besant) helped to win it by house laid desolate, and heart-strings wrung, and child's life torn away. I congratulate you on the progress Freethought has made throughout the world. Here we meet in this noble hall by grace of your good town. In New Zealand, Robert Stout and John Ballance, men holding the views I hold, speaking as openly as I speak, hold office, one as Prime Minister, the other as a Cabinet Minister. In New Zealand there is perfect equality for all before the law, without mockery of oath to make shame or taunt of. There an Affirmation Bill has given to every one the fullest right, without hindrance, without insult, without question. New Zealand gives us promise of what we shall win; win with your help, if you will give it ; win despite your hinder- ing, if you will hinder ; win in any case, for we will have it. To-day we have still many disabilities, but we have also many possibilities of hope. Disabilities not only complained of by men of our own side, but recognised as such by those outside our ranks. Mr. Justice Stephen has sketched the Blasphemy Laws in what he calls " all their naked deformity". Lord Justice Lindley, administering the law against unbelievers, admitted that there were laws against heretics of "cruel severity". We demand the repeal of all 204 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. such laws; we demand equality of civil right. We do not ask for toleration from our enemies. Toleration implies superiority ; we claim equality. We claim fair play. We say that in the conflict of thought, in the multiplicity of creeds, in the multitude of churches, in the myriads of sects, some must be wrong, all may be wrong, and the duty of each is to give fair play to all. In a country like Great Britain, in an empire with 350,000,000 of subjects holding differing faiths, the duty of a Government is to hold the scales level, giving privilege to none, putting penalty on none, yielding protection to all. And we are grateful to your Corporation in that it has held the balance even ; that it asked no pledge from us that it does not ask from all ; put no restriction on us that it does not put on all ; and I ask it to believe that we desire to take no advantage beyond that which each body has which meets in this hall. We do not deny to any the right to worship ; we do not ask that any shall not be protected in their worship if they need protection : but we do claim that we may stand as safely as they may kneel. We challenge only any special privilege for any ; we rebel against any special penalty on any ; claiming fair play for all, free ground for all, equality for all before the law. There must be, with liberty of thought, many shades of thought. We claim free utterance for all of them, however extreme any may be. Let enlightened public opinion hear all, weigh all, judge all. Let all thoughts be equal before the law, with no opinion-penalty, no opinion-impri- ment, no opinion-heartwring. Against special disabilities we are rebels. Years ago, long years ago, generations ago, the fire burned up Bruno. Those fires were relit here, and Priestley saw their flames lick up his library and his instruments; now in this hall his pictured face looks down from the place in which you have raised it high in honor, looks down on a crowd to which our speech utters his thoughts carried further than he carried them. We have the right to think as far as we can. Are you more enlightened than we ? then answer us. When our thoughts have been uttered let the best exponents of NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 205 orthodoxy answer them ; but do not burn, do not imprison. I say nothing of the small obstacles that have lain in my own path ; you have helped me to climb them, and you have lifted me higher than I could have lifted myself. We will think, and we will let our thought be heard. Mr. Foote has referred to Victor Hugo, and we may well Join in reverent tribute at his grave, for he was a big man among small men, a big pen writing clear strokes where others scratched, a painter with huge brush painting upon the world what he saw and what he dreamed, beyond the petty gutter-realities of many who mocked him. This man, dying, would have no priest at his. side ; he was, as described in the Times, a " Voltairean Deist ". A few years ago he presided with Victor Schcelcher and Maria Desraimes at a Freethought Conference at Paris. Recently he was named on the Committee of Honor for the Bruno Memorial, for that monument which marks the progress of Freethought, which climbs the Roman hill to look down on the Roman mockery that has hindered hope, poisoned Italy, and is now dying of its own corruption. We have no creed, but we have much faith ; faith in the possibility of human progress ; faith in digging after truth ; faith in searching after truth ; not in looking backwards to yesterday but in working for the morrow ; not in lying prone on the ground praying, but in climbing upwards towards the light. We be- lieve in the decrease of human woe, as men hate less, as they love more, as each helps the other to make his grip the firmer. We believe in the lessening of human hatreds, as men recognise that varying opinions may be held with equal honesty. We believe in the use of reason instead of force, in peace instead of war. Religion may bless bayonets ; Freethought cannot. To us war is murder, capture is theft ; we have no joy in ruined homes, in fire-scorched villages, in trampled fields ; we would rather strive to raise than to strike down, and we believe that bright eyes and keen intellects are better than armed men. We do not pretend that we are always right ; we only try to be. We do not pretend that we have truth, but that we search for it. Our motto is : " We seek for truth ", and with Lessing we believe that he is most ignorant who thinks he 2o6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. knows all. Let us search. If you have the truth, we will have it from you. We are ready to listen, if we may question ; ready to hear, if we may answer ; ready to receive, if we may test the purity of the coin you give. I thank those of you who are not of us. I congratulate those of you who are. I thank those who are not of us for their kindly courtesy, and I would say to them : We are on the side of the poor ; we plead for those who are mocked and insulted, for those who are called " dregs " and " scum ", and if you help us we will help you, that we may all have our truth truer, healthier, fuller in the age to come. Glasgow, June i^th, 1886. In speaking here to-night, and delivering the closing speech of this meeting, I am conscious that there are probably many present who do not hold the views with which we of the National Secular Society have been concerned to-day. On behalf of those who have to-day elected me as their President for another year, I stand here to claim for them from those of you who do not agree with us a right equal to your own : a right to think, to speak, to do. You may say : Have you not that right ? Do you not use it ? We use it, but your laws do not give it to us ; you deny it to us in your habits. Habits cannot be changed in a day, but laws may. With a general election now imminent, with power in your hands, I would put two points to those who disagree with us. You gain nothing by keeping bad laws. Bad laws give us a right of complaint. While they exist your religion of love is a.f sham ; your declaration of brotherhood is a pretence. You may- say, what laws ? First, take the laws about oaths, and see how they hinder us. If we do not take them, they are a difficulty, a block in our way. If we do take them, you who compel us to do so cry out that we are hypocrites. The hypocrisy is yours : the dishonor is yours ; so long as you force your oaths on us. North of the NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 207 Tweed no unbeliever in future rewards and punishments has any right to take an oath, nor has he any right to affirm. If he state his views, or if his views be known, if he has expressed them in unguarded conversation, his evidence can be objected to. If the case be a civil one, his claim may be shut out ; if a criminal one, the criminal may escape, the innocent may suffer, for want of his excluded evidence. A juror who disbelieves in hell can neither affirm nor swear. The witness, however, may by travelling escape his disability. If he goes to Newcastle, the judge will accept him ; the objection is valid north, but not south, of the Tweed. The question ought surely not to be one of geographical limitation. Be fair; allow a man his choice between oath and affirmation. A man who is honest enough to avow unpopular opinions is a man likely to speak the truth. Every Christian should work for this reform, until the men who you say mock the oath are no longer compelled to take it. We do not ask to escape the legal penalty attached to false swearing. We are willing that the same penalty shall attach to our simple declaration. We only ask that we may not be forced to go through a form of words of which we do not know the meaning, and to which you attach meanings as various as your opinions. I do not argue with you as to the meaning of the phrases, " Swear not at all " ; " Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ". But I remind you that the Bishop of Peterborough has told you that if you pretend we are hypocrites you fail ; that if we say words to which we attach no meaning we cannot blaspheme ; that in so doing we give no pledge of belief. Secondly, we complain of the Blasphemy Laws ; laws under which Mr. Foote was imprisoned, under which Mrs. Besant was deprived of her child; laws under which the late Lord Amberley's \vill was cancelled, and the trust he made for his children's education was set aside; laws which Mr. Justice Stephen said he wanted to expose in all their hideous iniquity. We demand that these laws shall be repealed. They are of no service, save for purposes of persecution. They do not serve religion nor check heresy. Voltaire mocked at them : Hobbes sneered at them. You may lock up one or two 208 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. by means of them : but you cannot lock up thought. If your rehgion is true, you should not want them ; if it is false, you should not have them. If your religion is love, you should not use them ; if it is hate, they should be taken from you as weapon. A Bill is now brought forward to abolish them, brought- forward by religious men ; by men who believe that persecu- tion is bad, and that it shows the weakness of those who use it. We appeal for equal right. We shall win that right. You cannot prevent ; you can only hinder. Many have been burned, but burning has not stopped thought. Many have been imprisoned, but imprisoning cannot stop speech. Our platform is won, despite stake and gaol. The pen, the telescope, the- microscope, are won for fuller teaching, for finer touches, for new fact and new thought. We are heretics, you say ; we claim equal right as men. We are men, and you can be no- more. We claim the right to reason, the right to argue, the right to answer. The gaol door is no syllogism ; the gaoler's key is no argument. But you say we use mocking words. Why not ? You mock at every religion save your own, and why not we at yours ? But if you would not have us mock, treat us justly ; if you would have us kind, treat us kindly ; if you want us not to use words that hurt, then be fair. Many creeds have lived and died ; perhaps yours may be wrong. If you are sure that you are right, then you can afford to be- generous ; if you are sure that you have the truth, then the greater need to be just. I dare not fancy that you all agree with me ; I know there: are some here who think that we are not right. But remember how many have been denounced in their own time who have been honored afterwards, and though we may not deserve to be ranked with them, yet you may be wrong in your hasty forbiddal of new thought. Bacon was assailed as a Materialist ; Newton was decried as a heretic. Men who were branded Atheist in their own age have been canonised in the ages after them for their efforts for human redemption. I give you thanks for the patience with which you have listened to much with which you disagree, and I bid you all good-night. NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 209 South Shields, May 20th, 1188. It is now my dut)' to deliver the closing speech of this Conference gathering. Some of you may be inclined to ask why it is that we invite outsiders who do not agree with us to listen to declarations that must often be ofifensive to them ; you may ask why do we make parade of the strength of a movement which, from your point of view, can only be mischievous and injurious. I will try to answer that question. We ask those who do not agree with us, we ask those who think we are wrong, we ask those who say that they are right and we in error, to give us the evidence of their conviction of having the truth by working to make us as free as they are. We ask that there shall be no penalty on our opinions ; we ask that there shall be no disabilities following on the expression of our opinions ; we ask that there shall be no privilege connected with any phase of speculative thought. Have you the right ? What higher privilege do you ask than the privilege of having it ? Have you the right ? Then do you need the State to add bribe to duty ? Have you the right ? Then do you wish to have our error marked with the prison ? Have faith in your OAvn conviction. Have belief in your own creed. Fling your truth into the arena of public discussion, relying on its own virtue to bring it out the victor. Who is there among you most convinced of the truth of his religion ? On what does he rely ? His religion is but one among many ; within the limits of this empire there are scores, hundreds, of jostling creeds ; how can you be sure that you are right ? If you rely on reason, let us reason. Do not gag us when we argue, send us to gaol when we speak. Or are you only sure that you are right so long as there is no challenge ? Here is one who is sure he has fine gold, but he will not assay it ; who is sure he has gems, but will let no lapidary touch them ; who has diamond, ruby, all that is priceless, but who hides them away where none can see them, lest they should prove to be false. We appeal tc you for fair play. We ask you to join us in 210 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. demanding for all equal right before the law. We ask you to join us in working for the removal of every disability on opinion. We ask you to join us in securing the repeal of all penalties on heresy. You may say that, granted the laws are harsh, they are not often enforced. Not often enforced ! If they are enforced once, it is too often. But they are always being enforced. A man who was on this platform last night, was reproached by the pastor of his church because he had let his roof shelter my ungodly head while we were engaged in political work. We claim that within this empire, wherein exist so many different creeds, that neither the affirmation of one nor the denial of another may avail for privilege or penalty, that the sword of the law shall strike none because he differs from his neighbors in his creed. Neither law nor custom should punish unbelief nor reward belief ; a man is neither vicious nor virtuous because of his unbelief; let men's lives be tried and measured by their discharge of duties. We claim that all opinion shall be open to criticism, and that no criticism shall be subject to punishment. Mrs. Besant spoke of Freethought and Free Speech as means to an end. What end ? The enfranchisement of the human mind from the trammels of old legends, which the ignorance of some, the credulity of some, the folly of some, the fraud of some had bound around it, till like the constrictor they cramped and crippled the brain into helplessness. Means to an end ! what end ? The freeing of the human mind from the fetters of prejudice, prejudice which drives the poor into hypocrisy because of the penalty on honesty. Why should you do the Freethinker wrong ? why should you libel him, slander him, starve him ? is that the best way to teach him you are right ? The man who is outside the chapel because he deems it right to stand there should be subject to no prejudice from the man inside who kneels there because his father knelt there before him. Means to an end ! what end ? The freedom of the human mind from priestly dominance, whether it be by attempt of Roman bull or as here by a broken-horned bull, who runs against a post which hurts him more than he hurts it. Freedom from the priestly interference which twists science ere NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 211 it reaches the child, and which deforms it for men and women. The end that man may work out his own deUverance, free to use his brain as sword, as spade, as plough, without bondage to any. In the brief but pregnant speech of your townsman, he alluded to your School Board. I am glad that he and other Freethinkers sit on the School Boards of the kingdom, but I am sorry that no School Board, not one, from one end of England to the other, has ever encouraged parents to take advantage of the conscience clause and to withdraw their children from religious education. In four words, themselves a speech, Mr. Peacock said : " Education is our salvation ". It should be our salvation. One hundred years ago the ignorant population of France believed that a king might be their salvation. Now, a population spread over every land thinks that the spiritual king in Rome will be their salvation. But education, to be salvation, must begin when the sheet of the new life has nought written on it save the lines of tendencies drawn there by heredity, by the father and mother and their fathers and mothers before them ; it must be free to receive the impress of every fact, free to receive the light of every new discovery of science, free, so that as the brain grows it may examine all religions through its microscope, as the biologist examines every minute living form. Do you ask why we are not content to go on our way, why do we war against other creeds ? Because they war on us, they attack us, they will not let us have the salvation of education. You give the Bible to the young children in the school ; although it may be criticised by men, you guard it from all criticism till the edge of criticism has been blunted in child- hood by belief. We war against creeds, because if a Freethinker endowed a library of Atheist books, the law would take away the endowment and prevent their educative influence. Mrs. Besant spoke of the price some had paid for liberty. But that price is not yet paid. Richard Carlile paid a small part of it, with his nine years of prison. One after another has paid some of it. But no one has yet paid the full price, and when the grave closes over each, each has paid a little more, and even then prejudice exacts the interest of the yet unpaid purchase-money. 212 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. We are driven to attack Christianity, because it is the State religion, because it attacks us. And it is hard to say what Christianity is. Christianity in Rome will not let Bruno's monument be raised ; but in England a Cardinal goes to West- minster Abbey where Darwin lies among the saints of science. Those who to-day played their tunes outside this hall [the allusion was to the passage of a Salvation Army procession during the morning and afternoon meetings] think that they are Christians. Who is the Christian ? This Church or that ? All creeds are modifying ; all creeds are changing. And this is not only true of our own time. Religions, like languages, like nations, have their periods of growth, their prime, their full strength, their hour of decay, and out of each grows another of a higher type. I am afraid that I have kept you with my speech even now unfairly, and I will only say one or two words more ere I close this meeting. We are not here to-night in a spirit of defiance or of warfare ; we are here letting you know in what we differ, if you do not agree with us. But we are obliged outside to be at war and in defiance, so long as the laws are harsh and customs harsher, so long as the children of the poor are marked out for scorn as though to be unbeliever ought to be brand of contempt. All are infidel to every religion but their own ; all are unbelievers in the eyes of those who differ from them. And you who are against us, have you ever thought that as Bruno, who three hundred years ago was bound to the stake with iron, scorched by the flames which licked his life away, is looked on to-day as a martyr of science, so in the future some of you may be marked as infidels who are most believers, and some of us as saints who now are most condemned ? UNIVER3 "•' / ( ' ( L.TORNFA LOS ANGELES ^^ -7 UNIVERSITY O^ CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. ^H^ UUi. 1 1 IS «ec:o % MAY 9 H "i-sTl*. ..IBRAEY LOAN FEB 8 1967 '■ TWO.Wf^S FR-M REC^Dtll-ORlS N0Vlbl96S ID m DfC7- mi INTERLIBRARY LOAN3 c. ■- ^ 1S6T ^^^^ '^ ^^^^ f^j ' ■» '^gn TV /O WEEKS FROM Dm iiuij R£C£iRI NC IN-RENEWABLE S 11988 JHXlKtLIBRARY LOAJIfiT OCT ? 3 1 I LO 968 TWO WEEKS FROM DATE OF FECEtPT ^■i>?>K -^'^ '^ AK ^%fi^8Z2« L9_15m-10,'48(B1039)444 AA 000 390 538 7 i:i|i!