The Comparison: In which Mock Reform, and Constitutional Reform, are Considered. Or, Who are the Enlightened and Practical Statesmen of Talent and Integrity to Preserve Our Laws and Liberties? Addressed to the People of England

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J. M'Creery, 1810 - Elections - 106 pages

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Page 34 - That no person who has an office or place of profit under the King, or receives a pension from the crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the house of commons.
Page 51 - ... not from any implicit reverence or habitual superstition, but as institutions best calculated to produce the happiness of man in civil society ; and it is because we are convinced that abuses are undermining and corrupting them, that we have associated for the preservation of those principles. We wish to reform the constitution, because we wish to preserve it.
Page 51 - Lordships' permission, I will now proceed to read it. ' " May 12, 1792. We profess not to entertain a wish that the great plans of public benefit which Mr Paine has so powerfully recommended should be carried into effect ; nor to amuse our fellow-citizens with the magnificent promise of obtaining for them the rights of the people in their full extent...
Page 51 - Paine has so powerfully recommended,, should be carried into effect;" nor to amuse our fellow-citizens with the magnificent promise of obtaining for them " the rights of the people in their full extent," the indefinite language of delusion, which, by opening unbounded prospects of political adventure, tends to destroy that public opinion, which is the support of all...
Page 59 - ... determined, with the frankness belonging to sincere affection, to warn its new brethren against a danger to which they might otherwise become exposed through mere inadvertency. That the distinguished persons who have adorned the Senate, and now adorn your society, may be found equal to the sublime effort of virtue which their situation now demands, and may on that account receive the blessings of their country and of mankind to the latest posterity, is the sincere, the ardent wish of the Society...
Page 51 - ... the course. We view man as he is, the creature of habit as well as of reason. We think it therefore our bounden duty to propose no extreme changes, which, however specious in theory, can never be accomplished without violence to the settled opinions of mankind, nor attempted without endangering some of the most inestimable advantages we enjoy.
Page 52 - But until the country shall have expressed its opinion upon this subject, the examples of the other nations of Europe should deter us from any precipitate attempt to hurry on to premature or violent operation, a measure on which the best interests of the nation so essentially depend. For myself, I beg leave to repeat, that when, I feel it my duty to give my support to it, it is on those principles which I have before laid down ; those principles depend on practical views, which have been approved...
Page 82 - Lords, can I forget his powerful observations, when, in his place in Parliament, he stated his conviction of the absolute impossibility of providing for all the variety of human events, by any previous speculative plans : For, said he, I think, that if a number of the wisest, ablest, and most virtuous men that ever adorned and improved human life, were collected together, and seated round a table to devise...
Page 82 - ... opinion he was wont to illustrate by the familiar but apt example of building a house, which, notwithstanding all the study and consideration previously bestowed upon the plan, was never yet known to supply every want or to provide all the accommodations which, in the subsequent occupation of it were found to be necessary.
Page 52 - ... all we every day hear, I doubt much whether there exists a " very general disposition in favour of this measure) there will then " be a fair prospect of accomplishing it, in a manner consistent " with the security of the Constitution. But until the country " should have expressed its opinion upon this subject, the exam...

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