Whig Party (England)

“ But for the resolute stand which they made against the Whig oligarchy—but for their wisdom in throwing themselves on the property of the nation to withstand its debasement, a domineering party would have become omnipotent, the people would have been irrecoverably plunged in the slough of corruption, and the liberties of England lost for ever, according to all former experience, in the firmly established despotism consequent on a successful revolution. ”

“ What is called in American politics a new departure has taken place in England since that time; the Radical party has come into existence with political principles and watchwords quite different even from those of the early Whigs. Some of the Whig houses, not many, have gone with the forward movement; some have remained behind, and so lapsed almost insensibly into the Tory quarter. But at the close of Queen Anne's reign all the great leading Whigs stood well together. They understood better than the Tories did the necessity of obtaining superior influence in the House of Commons. ”

“ In 1698 prosperity and security had made men querulous, fastidious and unmanageable. The government was assailed with equal violence from widely different quarters. The opposition, made up of Tories many of whom carried Toryism to the length of Jacobitism, and of discontented Whigs some of whom carried Whiggism to the length of republicanism, called itself the Country party, a name which had been popular before the words Whig and Tory were known in England. The majority of the late House of Commons, a majority which had saved the State, was nicknamed the Court party. ”

“ But Shelburne was viewed with bitter dislike by many of the Whig chiefs; his sharp tongue and his love of intrigue made him many foes, and when he took office they refused to serve under him. On the mere ground of personal jealousy and resentment, the larger half of the party went into opposition and joined the Tories. Not only the old family cliques that represented the corrupt and selfish Whigs of an earlier day, but many of the younger men, who called themselves the friends of liberty and reform, took this suicidal step. ”

“ However much "Whig" and "Tory" have seemed to change since we first hear of them in the time of James I., they have in fact remained essentially the same; the Whigs always tending to limit the power of the crown, and the Tories to limit that of the people. At the time of Walpole the Tories had been the supporters of the Pretender and of the High Church party, the Whigs of the policy of William and Protestantism. ”

“ The King had a keen dislike of party, and his ideal of government was a cabinet comprising of the best men of every faction to advise a ruler free to decide the final issue of every question. He had tried this scheme in England, equally honouring Whig and Tory, and taking his ministers from the rival ranks.
The plan had been an utter failure; each faction wanted the supreme control. The Whigs wanted the King to become their champion, and avenge them indiscriminately on every Tory; the Tories, who had always been opposed to William, refused to work with the Whigs ”

“ England has become Whig; and the death of the Whig party is the best proof of its victory. It has ceased to exist, because it has done its work; because its principles are accepted by its ancient enemies; because the political economy and the physical science, which grew up under its patronage, are leavening the thoughts and acts of Anglican and of Evangelical alike, and supplying them with methods for carrying out their own schemes. ”

“ Nothing is more remarkable than the dying out of political talent among the landed classes during the last twenty years; and it is perhaps not altogether fanciful to connect it with the decline of the Whigs, who, in their palmy days, not only maintained themselves in full efficiency, but acted as a sort of pace-maker for their opponents. The Whig nobility was never numerically in a majority, but it commanded the greater part of aristocratic talent, and it created a certain spirit of emulation among young Tories. But when the Whigs went over to the Tory Party this stimulus was wanting. ”

“ On the other hand, there is a party, which I can call for the present by no other name than Whig, which is both numerous and very powerful, and which does, in fact, govern England, and to my mind will always do so as long as the present constitutional Parliament lasts. Of course, like all parties it includes men of various shades of opinion, from the Tory-tinted Whiggery of Lord Salisbury to the Radical-tinted Whiggery of Mr. ”

“ The fact is—and the Whigs know it—that there is no such a thing as a united Liberal party, and that the soldering up of their differences is impossible. When a Whig appeals to a constituency as a Liberal, he is taking the worst and weakest, because the most untenable, ground. ”

“ The Whig theory was the government of the people, for the people by existing privileged classes, that was practically, by the aristocracy. We now have evidence of the more definite formation, within the bounds of what we call Liberalism, of a party the individual members of which would have called themselves Whigs, and are some of them still regarded as characteristic leaders of that body, but who aimed at objects and would have adopted means which were distinctly beyond the Whig programme. ”

“ The leading principle of the Whigs is the dread of royal encroachment. It may thence, perhaps, be deduced that good and wise men would attach themselves either to the Whig or to the Tory party, according as there seemed to be the greater danger at that particular period from despotism or from democracy. The same person who would have been a Whig in 1712 would have been a Tory in 1830. For, on examination, it will be found that, in nearly all particulars, a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne’s reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne’s reign a modern Whig. ”

“ The Whig party thus became again a powerful element in English politics, while in face of the reunited Whigs stood the Tories, relieved like themselves from the burthen of an alliance which grew hourly more distasteful. The bulk of the old Ministry returned in a few days to office with Mr. Addington at their head, and his administration received the support of the whole Tory party in Parliament.
Without the walls of Parliament however the nation looked on such a change with dismay. Addington was regarded as a weak and narrow-minded man ”

“ The Whigs of the eighteenth century would have rendered the House of Lords unchangeable; the Whigs of the nineteenth remodel the House of Commons.
I conclude here the first chapter of the ‘Spirit of Whiggism’-a little book which I hope may be easily read and easily remembered. The Whig party have always adopted popular cries. In one age it is Liberty, in another reform; at one period they sound the tocsin against popery, in another they ally themselves with papists. They have many cries, and various modes of conduct ”

“ But those Unions had been massed behind the official Whig Opposition. The League had very few Members of Parliament at its head, and not one of those was within the circle of Whig favour. The Unions had forced their policy upon the Tory party. The League forced its policy upon Parliament. So far as active assistance was concerned the Opposition was no more to the Free Traders than the Government. ”

“ They have in that time pulled down thrones and churches, changed dynasties, abrogated and remodelled parliaments; they have disfranchised Scotland and confiscated Ireland. One may admire the vigour and consistency of the Whig party, and recognise in their career that unity of purpose that can only spring from a great principle; but the Whigs introduced sectarian religion, sectarian religion led to political exclusion, and political exclusion was soon accompanied by commercial restraint. ”

“ He refused to admit that the Whigs were an exclusive party, and he thought that such an idea was refuted by the fact that they had consented to serve in a Coalition Government. ‘I believe that opinion to have been unjust, and I think that the Whig party during the last two years have fully justified the opinion I entertained. I will venture to say that no set of men ever behaved with greater honour or with more disinterested patriotism than those who have supported the [257] Government of the Earl of Aberdeen. ”

“ He was eminently true to the character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their needs, and he had a sufficient ascendency in English politics to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained, though with diminished energy, its old love of civil and of religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The landed gentry, and in a great degree the Church, were reconciled to the new dynasty. ”

“ What was most strange, however, was that the Conservative party, so strong in politics, had no literary organ of their own—and this at a time when the line of demarcation between the rival sides in politics was so fixed that no virtue could be recognised in an opponent or in an opponent's views, even though they were held regarding matters quite remote from politics. The Whig party, though in a minority politically and socially, represented a minority of tremendous power, and possessed latent capabilities which soon broke forth into action. ”

“ Although anxious to avoid anything like illiberality in estimating our opponents, we cannot conscientiously state it as our opinion that the bulk of the Radical party are actuated by pure patriotism. Even if it were otherwise, it is evident that they had ground for complaint; and we all know how soon action follows upon a sense of injury or neglect. Therefore, in the House of Commons, there was little enthusiasm displayed in favour of the Whig Cabinet by the ultra-liberal faction. ”

“ Why is it that certain parties are now, more than heretofore, engaged in getting up a cry for reform and extension of suffrage? Why is it that some men, ostensibly belonging to the Whig party, who, a year or two ago, held such views in utter detestation, have declared themselves favourable to the movement? Has anything been done to curtail the popular privileges—to take away from the people any portion of the power which they previously possessed—to curtail the liberty of the press—or in any way to trench upon the rights which are common to every subject? ”

“ The Whig Alliance has melted, like ice before the sun, and the strong souls of our people will never again serve the purposes of a faction.
The Conservative party, without union and without principle, is breaking up. Its English section is dividing into the tools of expediency and the pioneers of a New Generation—its Irish section into Castle Hacks and National Conservatives. ”

“ In those days the House of Commons was chosen by a very small body of electors; now it is chosen by almost all the grown-up men in Great Britain. But the principle was the same then as now; a king who, perhaps, wanted to make a ‘Whig’ war or carry a ‘Whig’ law might suddenly find himself, after the election of a new Parliament, face to face with a ‘Tory’ House of Commons, and so he would have to dismiss his Whig ministers, take Tory ministers, and drop his ‘Whig’ war or his ‘Whig’ law. ”

“ There is no firmness in a Whig ruler—there cannot be, if he would reconcile and command the confidence of all the various sects of his followers. Who was it that held with a firm and steady hand the helm of England, when all other Continental nations were submerged in ruin? A Conservative statesman. No Whig Minister could have succeeded then. The utmost firmness and steadiness in conducting the public business of this country were then required. No Whig Cabinet could have guided the fortunes of England then. ”

“ Whether they are called Independents, or Whigs, or men of the Left Centre, or Anti-revolutionaries, does not greatly matter. I prefer the Whig variety when the Whigs were at their best, that is, in the days of the Revolution of 1688, the days of Halifax and Somers. No doubt the Whigs, like every other party, became corrupted by too easy and too prolonged possession of power, for power, when it is too easily attained and too securely held, is a great corrupter. ”

“ A great majority of the elections had gone in favour of the Whigs, to which the want of concert among the tories had contributed as much as the vigor of that party, and the influence of the new government. The whigs came to the opening of this parliament full of as much violence as could possess men who expected to make their court, to confirm themselves in power, and to gratify their resentments by the same measures. ”

“ From the earliest period of his entrance into political life he had always had the strongest sense of the duty incumbent on every public man of supporting, even in opposition, the authority of Government. The bitterest reproach which he cast upon the Whigs, in his first Tory 'Letter to the Electors of Great Britain' in 1835, was that when they found they could not carry on the government themselves, they tried to make it impossible for any other party to do so. ”

“ This section of the aristocracy were the origin of the English Whigs, though that title was not invented until the next reign. The primitive Whigs-’Parliament-men,’ as they liked to call themselves, ‘Roundheads,’ as they were in time dubbed—aspired to an oligarchy. For a moment they obtained one; but unable to maintain themselves in power against the returning sense and rising spirit of a generous and indignant people, they called to their aid that domestic revolutionary party which exists in all countries, and an anti-national enemy in addition. ”