Note 71 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED. (continued 2)
Reading edition
By the condescending humility of men of high rank, and the aspiring ambition of men of no rank, they to all appearance become equal at every general election. The following is one among the few instances of an independent spirit in a candidate's address:—
"To the Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders of the County of York.
"Gentlemen,—I have had the honour to represent the county of York in three successive Parliaments: I have been diligent in my attendance, and have performed my duty with a clear and unbiassed conscience. I have now an opposition declared against me, for what reasons I do not know, except that I am not disposed to obey the dictates of the associators at York. I do not wish to serve you upon such terms. I will never go to Parliament in fetters; nor did I, nor ever will I disguise my principles, which all go to the support of our excellent constitution in Church and State. I avow myself an enemy to tumults, sedition, and rebellion, and will never support any but a British interest. Consistently with that, I am a friend to the people, and am determined to preserve my independency, yielding neither to any influence of ministers, nor to any clamours of a faction.
"Upon these principles I shall esteem it a high honour to be returned for this great county, and shall be thankful for your support.—I am, gentlemen, etc.,
"Edwin Lascelles.
"September 12, 1780."
In Mr. Edmund Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol, on the 3d of November 1774, he gave such cogent reasons for not signing any engagement to obey in all cases the instructions of his constituents, that I cannot resist the temptation of inserting an extract, for the contemplation of those who are advocates of a contrary system:—
"Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfaction to theirs; and above all, ever and in all cases to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any men, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you not only his industry, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
"My worthy colleague says his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion, in which one set of men deliberate and another decide, and where those who form the conclusion are three hundred miles distant from those who hear the argument?
"To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear, and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience; these are things utterly unknown to the laws of the land, which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.
"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member of that place ought to be as far as any other from any endeavour to give it effect."