Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
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Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
The resolution was carried by 329 votes to 198. The following speech was
made early in the debate.
I doubt, Sir, whether any person who had merely heard the speech of the
right honourable Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr Goulburn.)
would have been able to conjecture what the question is on which we are
discussing, and what the occasion on which we are assembled. For myself,
I can with perfect certainty declare that never in the whole course of
my life did I feel my mind oppressed by so deep and solemn a sense
of responsibility as at the present moment. I firmly believe that the
country is now in danger of calamities greater than ever threatened it,
from domestic misgovernment or from foreign hostility. The danger is no
less than this, that there may be a complete alienation of the people
from their rulers. To soothe the public mind, to reconcile the people to
the delay, the short delay, which must intervene before their wishes can
be legitimately gratified, and in the meantime to avert civil discord,
and to uphold the authority of law, these are, I conceive, the objects
of my noble friend, the Member for Devonshire: these ought, at the
present crisis, to be the objects of every honest Englishman. They
are objects which will assuredly be attained, if we rise to this great
occasion, if we take our stand in the place which the Constitution has
assigned to us, if we employ, with becoming firmness and dignity, the
powers which belong to us as trustees of the nation, and as advisers of
the Throne.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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