There was no provision for a state endowment of catholic priests, or for a veto of the crown on the appointment of catholic bishops. These omissions, whether justifiable or not, were pregnant with serious consequences. The debates in both houses on Peel's bill, as it was rightly considered, are chiefly interesting as throwing light on contemporary opinion. The arguments for and against it had been fairly exhausted in previous years, and would carry no great weight in a later age. The constitutional objections to it, which seemed vital to Eldon, and weighty to every statesman of his time, were at a later date put aside, when they were pleaded against the dissolution of the Irish church, directly guaranteed by the act of union. The criticisms on the personal consistency of Wellington and Peel belong to biography rather than to history. But no one can read the speeches of leading men on either side without recognising the superior foresight, at least, of those who opposed the bill, and distrusted the efficacy of the safeguards embodied in it. Two assumptions underlay the whole discussion, and were treated as axioms by nearly all the speakers. The one was that catholic emancipation must be judged by its effect on the future peace of Ireland; the other, that it could not be justified, unless it would strengthen, rather than weaken, protestant ascendency, then regarded as a bulwark of the constitution. Posterity may contemplate it from a different and perhaps higher point of view; but it is certain that, if its consequences had been foreseen by those who voted upon it, the bill would have been rejected. It is no less certain that its adoption was a victory of the educated classes, represented by nomination-boroughs, over the unrepresented masses of the people.