Liberals

"The Aristocratic Institutions of England [had] acted much like the Slavery Institutions of America...[in] demoralis[ing] large classes outside their own special boundaries...[in producing] a long habit of submission...[and in] enfeebl[ing] by corrupting those who should assail them."

"He...made observations with regard to the Queen, which, in my opinion, no meeting of people in this country, and certainly no meeting of Reformers, ought to have listened to with approbation. (Cheers.) Let it be remembered that there has been no occasion on which any Ministry has proposed an improved representation of the people when the Queen has not given her cordial, unhesitating, and, I believe, hearty assent. (Cheers.) ... But Mr. Ayrton referred further to a supposed absorption of the sympathies of the Queen with her late husband to the exclusion of sympathy for and with the people. (Hear, hear.) I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns. (Hear, hear.) But I could not sit here and hear that observation without a sensation of wonder and of pain. (Loud cheers.) I think there has been by many persons a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. (Cheers.) And I venture to say this, that a woman, be she the Queen of a great realm or be she the wife of one of your labouring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)"

"I do not think, as some persons seem to think, that the land is really only intended to be in the hands of the rich. I think that is a great mistake. I am not speaking of the poor—for the poor man, in the ordinary meaning of the term, cannot be the possessor of land; but it cannot be a crime or an evil that any man of moderate means, any farmer, should, if he could, become the possessor of land or of his farm."

"Since I have taken a part in public affairs, the fact of the vast weight of the poverty and ignorance that exists at the bottom of the social scale has been a burden on my mind, and is so now. I have always hoped that the policy which I have advocated, and has been accepted in principle, will tend gradually but greatly to relieve the pauperism and the suffering which we still see among the working classes of society."

"Ireland is never unanimous but on one thing – getting something from the Imperial Exchequer."

"To have two Legislative Assemblies in the United Kingdom would, in my opinion, be an intolerable mischief; and I think no sensible man can wish for two within the limits of the present United Kingdom who does not wish the United Kingdom to become two or more nations, entirely separate from each other."

"They [the Conservatives] say that we—that is, the Liberal party—have disturbed classes and interests unnecessarily, that we have harassed almost all sorts of people, and have made ourselves very unpopular thereby. Without doubt, if they had been in the Wilderness, they would have condemned the Ten Commandments as a harassing piece of legislation, though it does happen that we have the evidence of more than thirty centuries to the wisdom and usefulness of those Commandments."

"Tell the merchant that he must not rely for one moment on the Home Rulers for any one thing that is wise and good, nor indeed on any political combination of Irishmen. They have never yet done anything for themselves or their country and have never yet as a party shown what ought to be done. The absence of political and economical knowledge in Ireland is remarkable, and what there is of a sensible middle class is apparently crushed or smothered by the extreme men, who are always in pursuit of some phantom and who seem not to know the substance even when they see it."

"The public exactions and expenditure have much to do with poverty. To raise not less than eighty millions sterling per annum for purposes of government, to expend thirty millions of it in military preparations and means of offence and defence, the bulk of which is only rendered apparently necessary by a mistaken foreign policy, must act as a burden on the people, and must press multitudes of prudent and virtuous families to poverty."

"There is no nation on the Continent of Europe that is less able to do harm to England, and there is no nation on the Continent of Europe to whom we are less able to do harm than we are to Russia. We are so separated that it seems impossible that the two nations, by the use of reason or common sense at all, could possibly be brought into conflict with each other."

"It is not Bradlaugh's atheism which they hate, but his unconscious Christianity."

"Force is not a remedy."

"I think in reviewing the doctrines connected with our Foreign policy which I have preached and defended during 40 years of my public life, you will not be surprised at the decision I am now compelled to take. I cannot accept any share of the responsibility for the acts of war which have taken place at Alexandria. I cannot see to what they may lead, and I know not to what greater wrong and mischief they may force the Government. I feel therefore compelled to withdraw from the Administration, and to ask you to place my resignation of the office I hold in the hands of the Queen. I bitterly lament the disappointment of many hopes as I separate myself from your Government. My feelings towards yourself are those of profound esteem and regard, and an overpowering sense of duty has alone forced me to the only course which seems now open to me. To add to your difficulties and to give you trouble is a cause of much unhappiness to me. I can only hope you will be able to judge me rightly and to forgive me."

"What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times."

"[W]hat more a blessing, than in these years of feebleness—may be sometimes of suffering—it must be often of solitude—if there be the power to derive instruction and amusement and refreshment from books which your great library will offer to every one? (Applause.) To the young especially this is of great importance, for if there be no seed-time there will certainly be no harvest, and the youth of life is the seed-time of life."

"The task of the wise government of so vast an empire may be an impossible one—I often fear it is so—we may fail in our efforts, but, whether we fail or succeed, let us do our best to compensate for the wrong of the past and the present by conferring on the Indian people whatever good it is in our power to give them."

"The fact is that the abolition of the corn laws which allowed the importation of wheat from every part of the world whence it can be grown cheaper and sent here and the unhappy pressure of the last few years' bad harvests have broken down the landed system of England and no power on earth can set it up again. (Hear, hear). What I want with regard to the land system is not many or any new fangled propositions. What I want is that we should at first remove all the obstructions which the present law puts in the way of the easy transfer and the division of land."

"[Gladstone] gave me a long memorandum, historical in character, on the past Irish story, which seemed to be somewhat one-sided, leaving out of view the important minority and the views and feelings of the Protestant and loyal portion of the people. He explained much of his policy as to a Dublin Parliament, and as to Land purchase. I objected to the Land policy as unnecessary—the Act of 1881 had done all that was reasonable for the tenants—why adopt the policy of the rebel party, and get rid of landholders, and thus evict the English garrison as the rebels call them? I denied the value of the security for repayment. Mr G. argued that his finance arrangements would be better than present system of purchase, and that we were bound in honour to succour the landlords, which I contested. Why not go to the help of other interests in Belfast and Dublin? As to Dublin Parliament, I argued that he was making a surrender all along the line—a Dublin Parliament would work with constant friction, and would press against any barrier he might create to keep up the unity of the three Kingdoms. What of a volunteer force, and what of import duties and protection as against British goods? … I thought he placed far too much confidence in the leaders of the rebel party. I could place none in them, and the general feeling was and is that any terms made with them would not be kept, and that through them I could not hope for reconciliation with discontented and disloyal Ireland."

"I feel outside all the contending sections of the liberal party — for I am not in favour of home rule, or the creation of a Dublin parliament...I cannot consent to a measure which is so offensive to the whole protestant population of Ireland, and to the whole sentiment of the province of Ulster so far as its loyal and protestant people are concerned. I cannot agree to exclude them from the protection of the imperial parliament. ...In any case of a division, it is I suppose certain that a considerable majority of British members will oppose the bill. Thus, whilst it will have the support of the rebel members, it will be opposed by a majority from Great Britain and by a most hostile vote from all that is loyal in Ireland. The result will be, if a majority supports you it will be one composed in effect of the men who for six years past have insulted the Queen, have torn down the national flag, have declared your lord lieutenant guilty of deliberate murder, and have made the imperial parliament an assembly totally unable to manage the legislative business for which it annually assembles at Westminster."

"Clarendon met the eminent demagogue in the street about this time, and described wonderingly to Kathy “his insolent and swaggering way of saying that he and Lords like himself [Clarendon] had no idea of the extent of Reform which they would be obliged to swallow, and other radical speeches which Clarendon seems to have answered with contempt and spirit, and felt an almost unconquerable desire to give him a good thrashing, which he felt he could do, and would have liked intensely.”"

"[T]he real clue to his power lay in the personality and moral attributes of the man, and in the nature of the causes for which he pleaded. Though it is no part of the business of an orator to mount a pulpit, John Bright preached to his countrymen with the fervour of a Savonarola and the simplicity of a Wesley. Many of his illustrations (e.g. the Shunammite woman and the cave of Adullam) were drawn from the Bible, which he was said to know better than any other book. In general literature he was not deeply versed, nor did he give any evidence of a wide knowledge or profound reasoning. There can never have been any speaker who more successfully practised the maxim Ars est celare artem. Though he was known to shut himself up for days before he delivered a great speech, when he was inaccessible even to his family, though his purple passages, as they would now be called, were committed to memory and his perorations written down, neither his manner nor his diction suggested artifice, while his high character and patent sincerity opened the door of every heart."

"I ought to name a deputation of a demonstrative character on account of one who formed part of it. It was received not by me but by Lord Ripon, in the large room at the Board of Trade, I being present. A long line of fifteen or twenty gentlemen from the Lancashire district occupied benches running down and at the end of the room, and presented a formidable appearance. All however that I remember is the figure of a person in (I think) black or dark Quaker costume, seemingly the youngest of the band. Eagerly he sat a little forward on the bench, and intervened in the discussion... I was greatly struck with him. He seemed to me rather fierce, but very strong and very earnest. I need hardly say this was John Bright. A year or two after he made his appearance in parliament."

"No one was equal to Bright when he had time to prepare a subject. But he was not strong as a debater, though I once remember his being very successful in debate."

"I will say that there were certain passages in Bright's speeches which I never heard equalled."

"John Bright, to whom Mr. Gladstone used in familiar terms occasionally to refer as "honest John." The "grand moral tone" which characterised Bright's sayings and doings, his high principle, the consistency of his public career and solidarity of his character, appealed with special force to Mr. Gladstone; and acutely as he felt breaches of political friendship, there was no one with whom he parted company with a heavier heart than John Bright when he left the government in 1882, and again when he felt unable to support the policy which was enunciated for Ireland in 1886."

"As a man Mr. Bright put Christianity in the first place as a personal influence—as a politician he regarded it chiefly as a public force to be appealed to on behalf of social welfare. What he hated was injustice; what he abhorred was cruelty, whether of war or slavery; what he cared for was the comfort and prosperity of common people. Whatever stood in the way of these things he would withstand, whether the opposing forces were spiritual principalities, or peers, or thrones."

"He embodied some of the best qualities of the race. His eloquence moved men to the depths of their nature because it was instinct with the loftiest purpose, with that moral seriousness which is conspicuous in the English character even to excess. But no trace of cant marked the words and thoughts of John Bright. Everything he said came from the very heart of the man. His Liberalism was a creed that appealed to everything that was noble in humanity: it was animated by great ideals; it had no hint of opportunism, of materialism... He stood for justice in all things, and his whole political life was a long struggle against the inequalities around him. Almost alone of English statesmen, he sided with the American Federals from the very first."

"I was at the Hyde Park Franchise demonstration, when a large meeting of Socialists was held after the political one was over, at which John Burns referred to Bright as a silver-tongued hypocrite. This was enough for the radicals of that day; our banners and platform were torn and broken up, and some of us were being run to the Serpentine for a ducking."

"A political leader does well to strive to keep our democracy historic. John Bright would have been a worthy comrade of John Hampden, John Selden and John Pym. He had the very spirit of the Puritan leaders. He had their brave and honest heart, their sound and steady judgment, their manly hatred of oppression, of bad laws and bad government; and besides that, it was true of Bright as was said of John Pym that "he had the civic temper and the habit of looking for wisdom as the result of common debate." It was that which made him glory in the House of Commons. No man so profoundly honoured the great possibilities of the Mother of Parliaments."

"Now, Sir, I happen to be of opinion that there are things for which peace may be advantageously sacrificed, and that there are calamities which a nation may endure which are far worse than war... The hon. Member, however, reduces everything to the question of pounds, shillings, and pence, and I verily believe that if this country were threatened with an immediate invasion likely to end in its conquest, the hon. Member would sit down, take a piece of paper, and would put on one side of the account the contributions which his Government would require from him for the defence of the liberty and independence of the country, and he would put on the other the probable contributions which the general of the invading army might levy upon Manchester, and if he found that, on balancing the account, it would be cheaper to be conquered than to be laid under contribution for defence, he would give his vote against going to war for the liberties and independence of the country, rather than bear his share in the expenditure which it would entail."

"In the first place, he was the greatest master of English oratory that this generation has produced, or I may perhaps say several generations back. I have met men who have heard Pitt and Fox, and in whose judgment their eloquence at its best was inferior to the finest efforts of John Bright. At a time when much speaking has depressed and almost exterminated eloquence, he maintained robust and intact that powerful and vigorous style of English which gave fitting expression to the burning and noble thoughts he desired to express. Another characteristic for which I think he will be famous is the singular rectitude of his motives, the singular straightness of his career. He was a keen disputant, a keen combatant; like many eager men, he had little tolerance of opposition. But his action was never guided for a single moment by any consideration of personal or party selfishness. He was inspired by nothing but the purest patriotism and benevolence from the first beginning of his public career to the hour of its close."

"Lord Lansdowne once told Charles Austin that he thought Bright, as an orator, fully equal to Charles Fox."

"One great speech of his on the Reform question I heard... The House was entranced, almost breathless: and I recollect that, when I overtook him the same night walking home, I could hardly believe that the little, draggled, ordinary-looking man plodding by himself up the Strand was the same creature whom I had seen holding the House of Commons absorbed as the Opera house is by a first-rate singer."

"A new India was born in 1835. The very foundations of her ancient civilization began to rock and sway. Pillar after pillar in the edifice came crashing down."

"His worst fault was imputing motives, which is always a dangerous game played in the dark. For instance, though he gives the facts of Churchill's part in the Revolution correctly he seems to blame him for turning against James, while everyone else is applauded for doing so. Macaulay was, I think, very much affected by Swift's Tory attacks on Marlborough. Indeed it is not true, as is often said, that he always think the Whigs right and the Tories wrong. He detested the Shaftesbury Whigs at the time of the Popish Plot and the adoption of Monmouth as candidate for the crown. He thinks the Tories were right about the Indemnity Bill of 1689, about the attainder of Fenwick and about making peace "without Spain" at the end of the Marlborough wars. He is perfectly fair to Tory leaders like Danby and Nottingham and gets his prejudice against Marlborough from Tory sources. The path Macaulay trod was no doubt narrow, but it was well in the middle. Although he was a Whig of the Nineteenth Century, for the period in the past about which he wrote he was not a Whig but a Williamite."

"Economic and social history are now so large a part of historical study and writing that it is difficult to remember how new a thing it was in 1848 for Macaulay to introduce social history woven in with the political narrative that could not really be understood without it. His famous Third Chapter on the State of England in 1685 has faults... Nevertheless the Third Chapter was a great new thing in English historiography... After the Third Chapter the narrative gets fairly into swing, and the wonderful story is told how James II in three years turned even Tories into rebels, and the series of events and chances which enabled the Revolution to take place without a civil war. I think this is the greatest piece of historical narrative in our literature."

"Macaulay's permanent reputation rests chiefly on his History of England in the reigns of James II and William III, the causes and the course of the English Revolution and the Revolution Settlement as worked out under William. Lord Acton once told me that he considered Macaulay, with all his faults, as the greatest historian."

"He did for our history what Livy did for the history of Rome; and he did it better."

"[T]ake at hazard any three pages of the Essays or History; and, glimmering below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader, see one, two, three, a half score of allusions to other historic facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Why is this epithet used? Whence is that simile drawn? How does he manage, in two or three words, to paint an individual, or to indicate a landscape? Your neighbour, who has his reading, and his little stock of literature stowed away in his mind, shall detect more points, allusions, happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory and vast learning of this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous toil of this great scholar. He reads twenty books to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description."

"Macaulay's views did not make him a great historian. His unrivalled gift was his power of narration. No one ever told a story better."

"I am not sure that Macaulay and the Whig view of history were all that mistaken. He thought that the British constitution was a unique display of political genius. But wasn't it? The revolution of 1688 was truly a Glorious Revolution. George Orwell once pointed out that in this country we do not kill each other for political reasons. Is there any other great community where this has ever been true? Those who criticize Macaulay either do not care about liberty or they think it can take care of itself. Macaulay was a good deal more sensible. Not only did he regard liberty as supremely important; he knew that it needs ceaseless defending."

"It was an immense advantage to have at the head of our literature a man who thought calmly, who spoke moderately, who wrote fastidiously, whose enthusiasm was never intemperate, whose judgment was never excited. This great potentate in letters opposed to the license of speculation and the riot of the imagination, a simple theory of morals, a simple system of politics, and a simple code of criticism."

"I liked him, and, in many respects, admired him. Personally I mean, for his abilities and acquirements commanded more than ordinary admiration. His sentiments and expressions were always generous, his feelings noble; he hated duplicity, meanness, violence; he never thought that brilliant exploits compensated for the want of moral worth; and he would call a man a villain, a rogue, or an oppressor, whether he were arrayed like Solomon, or in tatters like Lazarus. These super-eminent and mighty talents, though never openly and directly employed for God's service, were, at least, never perverted to evil uses. Is there a sentence in any of his writings to offend decency, morality, the Christian faith?—not one. I did not know till now how much I was attached to him. May I never forget his true and noble speech made, at my request, in the House of Commons on behalf of the factory children! Their prayers, I trust, ascended for him to the Throne of Grace."

"The pity is that Macaulay had such power, such unique vividness, that when he was wrong, as he often was, he has impressed his own version upon the English mind more firmly than the truth. His treatment of Warren Hastings and Marlborough are outstanding cases in point. One might almost say that his misrepresentation of Hastings was responsible for the Indian attitude towards the history of our rule in India. What people other than the English would have been so careless of their own case, so unjust to themselves, as to prescribe the reading of Macaulay's essay on Warren Hastings in their schools and universities? The English have a singular faculty for depreciating their great men."

"Browning the philosopher is read by countless thousands to whom otherwise philosophy would be a sealed book, for exactly the same reason that Macaulay the historian is read by countless thousands to whom otherwise history would be a sealed book; because both Browning's works and Macaulay's works are material additions to the great sum of English literature. Philosophy is a science just as history is a science. There is need in one case as in the other for vivid and powerful presentation of scientific matter in literary form."

"No doubt Lord Macaulay was strongly attached to his political friends, and deeply imbued with those immortal principles which have assigned to the Whig party so glorious a share in the annals and government of this country. But he raised those principles to a higher power. He gave them a broader and more universal character. He traced them along the mighty streams of history, and he expanded them till they embraced the noblest destinies of man. Enshrined in the memorable Essays which first appeared in the pages of this journal, and embodied in the great History, which though still incomplete, includes the most remarkable epoch and the most formidable crisis of British constitutional freedom, these truths will be remembered in the language he gave them, when parliamentary orators and the contentions of statesmen are forgotten. Above all things his public career was singularly high-minded and pure; he was actuated by no selfish motives; he disdained every vulgar reward; and bound by principle to the Whig party, he never made the slightest sacrifice of his own judgment and independence to the demands of popular prejudice or to the dictation of authority."

"[I]n the long roll of English historical writing from Clarendon to Trevelyan only Gibbon has surpassed him in security of reputation and certainty of immortality."

"Portions of the speech were as beautiful as anything I have ever heard or read. It reminded one of the old times."

"Macaulay's life as a writer and as a politician was consecrated to the service of freedom. His style is far from perfect. It has often a hard sound and a metallic look. To say with Matthew Arnold that it has the perpetual semblance of hitting the right nail on the head without the reality is in my judgment absurd. Macaulay habitually hit the right nail on the head, and he did not, as Mr. Arnold sometimes did, knock out two tacks in the process. But there is always the semblance as well as the reality, and it is the reality without the semblance which charms us in the greatest writers of all."

"He never wrote an obscure sentence in his life, and this may seem a small merit, until we remember of how few writers we could say the same."