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is getting over , to suggest that senatorial orators should write their speeches and send them , unspoken , to the Times , and Daily News , and Morning Chronicle . But , at least , why does not the House come to an agreement to avoid those ludicrous trots past Mr . Hayter ? The ftrce is confessed : and why not therefore a common system of proxiesj ^—or votes by telegraph , —^ or by post ? The House could then sit till September , and yet be on the Moors or the Rhine , or the Mediterranean . To keep a House , you only want 40 members ; and Mr . Hayter could pick up that sacred number from the Irish patriots who vote with Keogh .
Certainly , if a country , with not too many public amusements , cannot make up its mind to give up House of Commons oratory , which does provide us with occasional passages and parenthetical scenes that are more than amusing , we could afford to do without what are called debates in the House of Lords . Observe the proceedings last night , in that august but supererogatory assembly . The India Bill stood for a second reading , and the House was unusually fullthat is , in addition to the steady attendance of seventeen old peers , there were ten or twenty middle aged peers , and ten or twenty more quite young peers , who ,
you could see , by the attention they directed from the old peers to the young peeresses , were there more in compliment to ladies than to lords . That was a House collected for the revision of Commons legislation upon the government of the 150 , 000 , 000 fellow-subjects , Sir . But what did it do ? Why , it said , " Hear , hear , " when Lord Truro , wofully worn out in body and mind , talked an ancient lawyer ' s routineries on that question of the supply and demand world , which he hasn't a notion of , as it was involved in the Combination of Workmen Bill—just up , and in Lord Kinnaird ' s timid hands , from the Commons . Lord Truro , obeying a
tendency to consult the aristocratic suspicions of the audience he always failed with , considered it a dangerous bill ; and the old peers , middle aged peers , and young , peers , who didn't know anything about the matter , were ready to agree with Lord Truro—on matters they don't know anything about , the House of Lords always agreeing to follow the grey-headed law lords , who are supposed to form a sort of link between the peers and mankind . They had no doubt whatever that the first grey-headed law lord was right when a second grey headed law lord ( the Lord Chancellor ) rose , and from similar motives and
analogous ignorance abused the bill ; and the result was , that an excellent measure , embodying a good principle , and promising to act as the basis for future better measures in the same direction , was thrown out ; after which the class of capitalists cannot say that the class of landowners is unsympathetic . Well , if that debate could have been prevented by an arrangement which should keep peers at , instead of in , their seats , the peers would have been , this Saturday , more popular with the democracy ; for the result , without a reason offered , would have been a less impertinence to the people , and to the Commons , than such a result with such
inadequate and malapropos reasons . Then , of course , it la obvious that it would have been an advantage to the public and to the steady attendance of old lords , if such a debate as there was last night on the India bill could have been prevented . Wo submit without much murmuring to the Lords voting on what the Commons have voted ; but is it not too bud to the most constitutional of us to expect us to read how the Lords debated what the Commons have already exhausted ? The Commons had not left the Lords a fresh word to say on the India Bill ; and yet at the India Bill the Lords went last night , as if the subject had suddenly turned up , qnite now , and there was an intense eagerness to hear all about it . Constitutionally , the fiction is akin to
stage asides , that the Lords never know what has passed in the Commons ; and the consequence of keeping up so insane a delusion , is tho furco which , neither to their dignity nor credit , tho Upper House , last night , performed . Their Lordships might take this hint : that thoy huvo only one chance of prolongi ng * » rather , renewing their vitality ; and that is by getting rid of the fiction— -acknowledging the fact , and dividing tho topics of tho day with tho Commons ; in other words , by anticipating the Commons in one half of its privileges— . of bring interesting , This lenient British ago only requires iiK ( Jovornors to nmiiHo it ; aind tho Lords could bo iih ludicrous as tho Commons , if thoy would only try , , A Sxkajncucu . Bnliirriny Morning-
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WENDELL PHILLIPS'S REPLY TO THIS LETTERS OF " ION" ON THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY LEADERS . The render nmy remember , that n fow months ngo three article *) appeared in this place , upon tho Anti-Slavery agitation and tho Auti-Slavery Lender * of
America . " The War of Ideas , " the second of the three articles which appeared in Leader , No . 138 , was reprinted in some of the American journals , and notably in the Liberator , a celebrated Abolitionist paper , which has always followed the manly rule of quoting adverse criticisms in its-own columns , —r-not that the article bearing the signature below was adverse , but it was so understood , and therefore quoted in the Libe rator y and replied to by Mr . Wendell Phillips , in the Boston Melodeon on January 27 th ultimo ( at the twenty-first annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society ) , in a speech as long as that of Mr .
Gladstone ' s introducing the Budget . The American Anti-Slavery Society has published his speech from the phonographical report of J . M . W . Yerrington , and Mr . Richard Webb , of Dublin , has done the same in this country , adding to it numerous and instructive notes necessary to readers on this side the Atlantic . Mr . Wendell Phillips has a reputation of being the first speaker in the United States . Theodore Parker , no mean authority , lately said , when speaking of Edward Everett , some time since American Minister in England , "he ( Everett ) has an eloquence—it is surpassed only by one voice "—pointing at the same time to Wendell Phillips .
It is not possible for us either to quote , or to reply adequately to , so protracted a speech as that now in question , occupying thirty-six pages of an octavo pamphlet , and it is on this account that we have so far described the Orator and his Oration , in the hope that any who may have been in any way influenced by our view of the question , as expressed in previous articles , may be induced to obtain the speech , * and judge for themselves .
Mr . Phillips maintains that our observations have been answered many times . So far , however , from their being irrelevant , he appears to admit the only objections upon which we dwelt . Probably our third articlef has not come under his notice , which indeed constitutes the reply , so far as a reply is needed to Mr . Phillips ' s present oration . Mr . Phillips ' s words are ( p . 5)—" Ion ' s charges are the old ones—that we Abolitionists are hurting our cause—that instead of waiting for the community to come up to our views , we fall at once , like children , to abusing everybody and everything . '
Again , page 12 , he remarks— " It is said that in dealing with slave-holders they ( the Abolitionists ) indulge in fierce denunciations , instead of appealing to their reason and common sense by plain statements and fair arguments ; " and presents a vigorous enumeration of other things which they are said to have done instead of what they ought to have done . The error of this enumeration consists in the one word " instead . " Mr . Phillips entirely misunderstands us . We did not say that the -Abolitionists denounced " instead" of reasoning : we said they denounced as well as reasoned , and that their denunciations inflamed tho passions , so that their reasonings were often lost upon the persons to whom they were addressed .
There are passages of Mr . Phillips ' s speech at which wo feel disappointed , at being so misunderstood . Writing in favour of the Abolition of Slavery in America , is something like writing in favour of Temperance in England . Unless you agree entirely with tho Temperanco reformer you had better not write at all , and unless you entirely agree with the Abolitionist lie is very apt to regard you in tho light of an enemy . " There are some , " says Mr . Phillips , " who come upon our platforms , and give us tho aid of names and reputations less burdened than ours with popular odium . * *
These men are over parading their wish to draw a lino between themselves and us , because they must be permitted to wait—to trust more to reason than to feeling —to indulge n generous charity . * * I reject with scorn , " exclaims our impetuous and indignant orator , " these implications , that our judgments are uncharitable . These lectures , to which yon , sir , ( addressing tho chairman , ) and all of us , have ho often listened , would be impertinent if thoy were not rather ridiculous , for the gross ignorance they betray of tho community , of tho cause , and of tho whole courso of its friends . "
If this languago is addressed to tho writer of the ^ e articles it is founded on a misapprehension , both of tho spirit ; and texture of bin argument . This language , howovcr , shall hot repel our sympathy , or suppress onr opinions . \ Tho cause of tho oppressed is tho common cause of th e human family . It in not tho monopoly of any Society . Tho humblest man lias a right to make what contribution ho can to tho furtherance of liberty , and to givo that opinion which ho thinks most likely to effect that object , and to stand up , equally against tho fallacies of tho Slaveholders , and tho denunciations of tho Abolitionists . It happens that tho author of tho criticisms Mr .
Phillips replies to , has not been the most successful person , in selecting causes to champion utterly free from " popular odium , " and great is the mistake in supposing that he would draw any line between himself and the rig ht party , even . though they took the wrong method . He would ever prefer the side of freedom , with all its faults ten times magnified , to standing on the side of oppression , with all the proprieties in the world in its favour . The maddest , wildest , rudest , grossest right is nobler , far , than the courtliest , gracefulest wrong . Not that the Abolitionists of America are mad , wild , rude , or gross . This is not meant to
be implied . The question raised is , why should right be ever wrongly urged , and wrong rightly advocated ? We deny that our observations were quite gratuitous " impertinences , " or generated of " gross ignorance . " Mr . Phillips expressly owns ,, ( p . 6 : ) "Neither would I be understood as denying that we used denunciation and ridicule , and every other weapon that the human mind knows . " This is precisely what we said . It was the inutility of this indiscriminate warfare upon which we insisted , and we do not see in what way our argnments are answered , by the admission of the fact . We laid an information , to which Mr . Phillips pleads
guilty , and considers it a reply . Mr . Phillips , indeed , justifies the course which he pursues . He says , eloquently , "the clients of the Abolitionists are three millions of slaves , standing , dumb suppliants , on tho threshold of the Christian world , with no voicesbut those of the Abolitionists to demand justice for them . " It is on this very account that we ventured to say , that the " only" friends of the slave should take care that what they say shall be calculated to diminish the wrong . By " every weapon the human mind knows" Mr .
Phillips , who is not less honourable than eloquent , means it to be understood , every weapon " an honest man may employ . " But we deny that every " honest" weapon is a useful one . Ridicule and denunciation , for instance , like the bows and arrows of savages , or the firearms of the last century , are worn out , or very much superseded . But these points we will not re-argue . We have stated our case . The public of England and America , so far as these papers may reach them , must judge between us .
Here is one of Mr . Phillips ' s most animated passages :- — "We warn the living that we have terrible memories , and that their sins are never to be forgotten . We will gibbet the name of every apostate so black and high , that his children ' s children shall bhish to bear it We will teach caution to the living by dealing out relentless justice to the dead . . . . . We will insist on explaining the chance expressions ( whispered in a corner for liberty ) by tho tenour of a long and base life . "—Vide p . 11 . This passage would , we fear , be immensely applauded in the Melodeon , but its effect on a brave man would be different from what the orator expects . You feel so
much resentment at this language , that you would rather , as you read it , be a Slaveholder than an Abolitionist . Common manliness disposes you to stand out against such a menace , and in spite of yourself , your sympathies go over to tho side of those who aro thus attempted to bo dragooned into the cause of humanity . You hate tyranny wherever it rears its vindictive head . We still stand on Mr . Phillips ' s side , for intrinsic reasons of humanity and liberty ; but Slaveholders must either be very cowardly or very noble , and possessed of wonderful solf-governmcnt , not to stand up with prido in their own defence after listening to such a passage .
One instance further , and these strictures shall cease . Mr . Phillips says , — " Wo must plead guilty , if there ho guilt in not knowing how to separate tho sin from tho winner . " Now , tho ability to do this wo take to lio at tho root of all sound reformation . To say this separation is impossible , proceeds on tho assumption that men aro infallible— -it proceeds on tho assumption that all who err know it , that ; conscientious error is impossible , while it must bo obvious on reflection and hy a slight appeal to history and commou experience , that good men continually abet error , not knowing it to bo error . In all such canes , tho flin is wide apart from tho sinner . If sin ho not separable from tho pinner , argument is utterly unnecessary in advocacy , and denunciation is tho first , tho second , and tho third , and
tho solo weapon of rhetoric . It would bo easy to defend our own views at far greater length , and with augmented instances , but wo would rather ho supposed in the wrong than appear to wish to put ; tho AbolitionistH in tho wrong . Wo will aid thorn if wo can , and offer HUggostioiiH of our own right , whether thoy will or not . Deprive thorn of an atom of just sympathy wo novor will , and we beg them to believe , whether thoy regard or denounce uh in return , that wo honour them for their courago , their devotion . and their caune . low .
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AuousT 6 , 1853 ] THE LEADER . 761
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* Published by Twoodio , Strand , prico Od . f VidoZortcfrr , No . 140 , pago # ft
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 6, 1853, page 761, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1998/page/17/
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