ave this security in parental consent; the state
takes its security in the knowledge of human nature. Parents ordinarily
consider little the passion of their children and their present
gratification. Don't fear the power of a father: it is kind to passion
to give it time to cool. But their censures sometimes make me
smile,--sometimes, for I am very infirm, make me angry: _saepe bilem,
saepe jocum movent_.

It gives me pain to differ on this occasion from many, if not most, of
those whom I honor and esteem. To suffer the grave animadversion and
censorial rebuke of the honorable gentleman who made the motion, of him
whose good-nature and good sense the House look upon with a particular
partiality, whose approbation would have been one of the highest objects
of my ambition,--this hurts me. It is said the Marriage Act is
aristocratic. I am accused, I am told abroad, of being a man of
aristocratic principles. If by aristocracy they mean the peers, I have
no vulgar admiration, nor any vulgar antipathy towards them; I hold
their order in cold and decent respect. I hold them to be of an absolute
necessity in the Constitution; but I think they are only good when kept
within their proper bounds. I trust, whenever there has been a dispute
between these Houses, the part I have taken has not been equivocal. If
by the aristocracy (which, indeed, comes nearer to the point) they mean
an adherence to the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, this
would, indeed, be a very extraordinary part. I have incurred the odium
of gentlemen in this House for not paying sufficient regard to men of
ample property. When, indeed, the smallest rights of the poorest people
in the kingdom are in question, I would set my face against any act of
pride and power countenanced by the highest that are in it; and if it
should come to the last extremity, and to a contest of blood,--God
forbid! God forbid!--my part is taken: I would take my fate with the
poor and low and feeble. But if these people came to turn their liberty
into a cloak for maliciousness, and to seek a privilege of exemption,
not from power, but from the rules of morality and virtuous discipline,
then I would join my hand to make them feel the force which a few united
in a good cause have over a multitude of the profligate and ferocious.

I wish the nature of the ground of repeal were considered with a little
attention. It is said the act tends to accumulate, to keep up the power
of great