at book may have been written by Locke; not one who approves
the whole conduct of any statesman, though that statesman may have been
Fox; not one who adopts the opinions in fashion in any circle, though
that circle may be composed of the finest and noblest spirits of the
age. But it seems to me that, when I look back on our history, I can
discern a great party which has, through many generations, preserved its
identity; a party often depressed, never extinguished; a party which,
though often tainted with the faults of the age, has always been in
advance of the age; a party which, though guilty of many errors and
some crimes, has the glory of having established our civil and religious
liberties on a firm foundation; and of that party I am proud to be a
member. It was that party which, on the great question of monopolies,
stood up against Elizabeth. It was that party which, in the reign of
James the First, organised the earliest parliamentary opposition, which
steadily asserted the privileges of the people, and wrested prerogative
after prerogative from the Crown. It was that party which forced
Charles the First to relinquish the ship-money. It was that party which
destroyed the Star Chamber and the High Commission Court. It was that
party which, under Charles the Second, carried the Habeas Corpus Act,
which effected the Revolution, which passed the Toleration Act, which
broke the yoke of a foreign church in your country, and which saved
Scotland from the fate of unhappy Ireland. It was that party which
reared and maintained the constitutional throne of Hanover against the
hostility of the Church and of the landed aristocracy of England. It
was that party which opposed the war with America and the war with the
French Republic; which imparted the blessings of our free Constitution
to the Dissenters; and which, at a later period, by unparalleled
sacrifices and exertions, extended the same blessings to the Roman
Catholics. To the Whigs of the seventeenth century we owe it that we
have a House of Commons. To the Whigs of the nineteenth century we owe
it that the House of Commons has been purified. The abolition of the
slave trade, the abolition of colonial slavery, the extension of popular
education, the mitigation of the rigour of the penal code, all, all were
effected by that party; and of that party, I repeat, I am a member. I
look with pride on all that the Whigs have done for the cause of human
freedom and of human happine