Now see the consequence of that state of justice which this character implies, and the explanation of all that deserved honour we confer on the preservation of such a character, and all the wise jealousy we feel at the slightest injury or deterioration it may experience. The most obvious and important use of this perfect justice is, that it makes nations safe: under common circumstances, the institutions of justice seem to have little or no bearing upon the safety and security of a country, but in periods of real danger, when a nation, surrounded by foreign enemies, contends not for the boundaries of empire, but for the very being and existence of empire, then it is that the advantages of just institutions are discovered. Every man feels that he has a country, that he has something worth preserving, and worth contending for. Instances are remembered where the weak prevailed over the strong; one man recalls to mind when a just and upright judge protected him from unlawful violence, gave him back his vineyard, rebuked his oppressor, restored him to his rights, published, condemned, and rectified the wrong. This is what is called country. Equal rights to unequal possessions, equal justice to the rich and poor; this is what men come out to fight for, and to defend. Such a country has no legal injuries to remember, no legal murders to revenge, no legal rob. bery to redress; it is strong in its justice; it is then that the use and object of all this assemblage of gentlemen and arrangement of juries, and the deserved veneration in which we hold the character of English judges, are understood in all their bearings, and in their fullest effects: men die for such things-they cannot be subdued by foreign force where such just practices prevail. The sword of ambition is shivered to pieces against such a bulwark. Nations fall where judges are unjust, because there is nothing which the multitude think worth defending; but nations do not fall which are treated as we are treated, but they rise as we have risen, and they shine as we have shone, and die as we have died, too much used to justice, and too much used to freedom, to care for that life which is not just and free. I call you all to witness if there is any exaggerated picture in this; the sword is just sheathed, the flag is just furled, the last sound of the trumpet has just died away. You all remember what a spectacle this country exhibited: one heart, one voice-one weapon, one purpose. And why? Because this country is a country of the law; because the judge is a judge for the peasant as well as for the palace; because every man's happiness is guarded by fixed rules from tyranny and caprice. This town, this week, the business of the few next days, would explain to any enlightened European why other nations did fall in the storms of the world, and why we did not fall. The Christian patience you may witness, the impartiality of the judgment-seat, the disrespect of persons, the disregard of consequences. These attributes of justice do not end with arranging your conflicting rights, and mine; they give strength to the English people, duration to the English name; they turn the animal courage of this people into moral and religious courage, and present to the lowest of mankind plain reasons and strong motives why they should resist aggression from without, and bend themselves a living rampart round the land of their birth. There is another reason why every wise man is so scrupulously jealous of the character of English justice. It puts an end to civil dissension. What other countries obtain by bloody wars, is here obtained by the decisions of our own tribunals; unchristian passions are laid to rest by these tribunals; brothers are brothers again; the Gospel resumes its empire, and because all confide in the presiding magistrate, and because a few plain men are allowed to decide upon their own conscientious impression of facts, civil discord, years of convulsion, endless crimes are spared; the storm is laid, and those who came in clamouring for revenge, go back together in peace from the hall of judgment to the loom and the plough, to the senate and the church. The whole tone and tenour of public morals are affected by the state of supreme justice; it extinguishes revenge, it communicates a spirit of purity and uprightness to inferior magistrates; it makes the great good, by taking away impunity; it banishes fraud, obliquity, and solicitation, and teaches men that the law is their right. Truth is its handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion; safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train: it is the brightest emanation of the Gospel; it is the greatest attribute of God; it is that centre round which human motives and passions turn: and justice, sitting on high, sees genius and power, and wealth and birth, revolving round her throne; and teaches their paths, and marks out their orbits, and warns with a loud voice, and rules with a strong arm, and carries order and discipline into a world, which, but for her, a would only be a wild waste of passions. Look what we are, and what just laws have done for us:-a land of piety and charity; a land of churches and hospitals and altars; nation of good Samaritans ;-a people of universal compassion. All lands, all seas, have heard we are brave. We have just sheathed that sword which defended the world; we have just laid down that buckler which covered the nations of the earth. God blesses the soil with fertility; English looms labour for every climate. All the waters of the globe are covered with English ships. We are softened by fine arts, civilized by humane literature, instructed by deep science; and every people, as they break their feudal chains, look to the founders and fathers of freedom for examples which may animate, and rules which may guide. If ever a nation was happy-if ever a nation was visibly blessed by God-if ever a nation was honoured abroad, and left at home under a government (which we can now conscientiously call a liberal government) to the full career of talent, industry, and vigour, we are at this moment that people and this is our happy lot.-First, the Gospel has done it, and then justice has done it; and he who thinks it his duty to labour that this happy condition of existence may remain, must guard the piety of these times, and he must watch over the spirit of justice which exists in these times. First, he must take care that the altars of God are not polluted, that the Christian faith is retained in purity and in perfection; and then turning to human affairs, let him strive for spotless, incorruptible justice; praising, honouring, and loving the just judge, and abhorring, as the worst enemy of mankind, him who is placed there to "judge after the law, and who smites contrary to the law." - A LETTER TO THE ELECTORS, UPON THE CATHOLIC QUESTION. WHY is not a Catholic to be believed on his oath? What says the law of the land to this extravagant piece of injustice? It is no challenge against a juryman to say he is a Catholic; he sits in judgment upon your life and your property. Did any man ever hear it said that such or such a person was put to death, or that he lost his property, because a Catholic was among the jurymen? Is the question ever put? Does it ever enter into the mind of the attorney or the counsellor to inquire of the faith of the jury? If a man sell a horse, or a house, or a field, does he ask if the purchaser is a Catholic? Appeal to your own experience, and try by that fairest of all tests, the justice of this enormous charge. We are in treaty with many of the powers of Europe, because we believe in the good faith of Catholics. Two-thirds of Europe are, in fact, Catholics; are they all perjured? For the first fourteen centuries all the Christian world were Catholics; did they live in a constant state of perjury? I am sure these objections against the Catholics are often made by very serious and honest men, but I much doubt if Voltaire has advanced any thing against the Christian religion so horrible, as to say that two-thirds of those who profess it are unfit for all the purposes of civil life; for who is fit to live in society who does not respect oaths? But if this imputation be true, what folly to agitate such questions as the civil emancipation of the Catholics. If they are always ready to support falsehood by an appeal to God, why are they suffered to breathe the air of England, or to drink of the waters of England? Why are they not driven into the howling wilderness? But now they possess, and bequeath, and witness, and decide civil rights; and save life as physicians, and defend property as lawyers, and judge property as jurymen; and you pass laws, enabling them to command all your fleets and armies,* and then you turn round upon the very man whom you have made the master of the European seas, and the arbiter of nations, and tell him he is not to be believed on his oath. I have lived a little in the world, but I never happened to hear a single Catholic even suspected of getting into office by violating his oath; the oath which they are accused of violating is an insuperable barrier to them all. Is there a more disgraceful spectacle in the world than that of the Duke of Norfolk hovering round the House of Lords in the execution of his office, which he cannot enter as a peer of the realm ? disgraceful to the bigotry and injustice of his country, to his own sense of duty, honourable in the extreme; he is the leader of a band of ancient and high-principled gentlemen, who submit patiently to obscurity and privation, rather than do violence to their conscience. In all the fury of party, I never heard the name of a single Catholic mentioned, who was suspected of having gained, or aimed at, any political advantage, by violating his oath. I have never heard so bitter a slander supported by the slightest proof. Every man in the circle of his acquaintance has met with Catholics, and lived with them probably as companions. If this immoral lubricity were their characteristic, it would surely be perceived in common life. Every man's experience would corroborate the imputation; but I can honestly say that some of the best and most excellent men I have ever met with have been Catholics; perfectly alive to the evil and inconvenience of their situation, but thinking themselves bound by the law of God and the law of honour, not to avoid persecution by falsehood and apostasy. But why (as has been asked ten thousand times before) do you lay such a stress upon these oaths of exclusion, if the Catholics do not respect oaths? You compel me, a Catholic, to make a declaration against transubstantiation, for what purpose but to keep me out of Parliament? Why, then, I respect oaths and declarations, or else I should perjure myself, and get into Parliament; and if I do not respect There is no law to prevent a Catholic from having the command of a British fleet or a British army. |
