CHAPTER VIII.

I come now to treat of the brighter and more hopeful side of the picture, and of the means whereby redress of the wrong lately perpetrated is to be obtained. De Lolme, after dwelling on the privileges of a people who live under a just code of laws, speaks as follows: “But all these privileges of the people, considered in themselves, may be but feeble defences against the real strength of those who govern: all these provisions, all these reciprocal rights, necessarily suppose that things remain in their legal and settled course.” And he goes on to suppose a case in which rulers, suddenly throwing themselves, as it were, out of the Constitution, and no longer respecting the person of the subject, should force upon the nation the enactments of an arbitrary will. He asks, “What then would be the people’s resource?” He answers, “It would be resistance.”

He observes that the question of the right of the people to resistance, in certain cases, has been established by the laws of England, which look upon it as the “ultimate and lawful resource against the violences of power.”[94] He further adds: “It was resistance that gave birth to the Great Charter, that lasting foundation of English liberty; and the excesses of a power established by force were also restrained by force. It has been by this same resistance that at different times the people have procured the confirmation of the same charter.” Lastly, this resource of resistance, which for some time continued to be an act of force opposed to other acts of force was, at the era of our glorious Revolution, expressly recognised by the law itself.

Judge Blackstone, in his chapter on “the rights of persons,” after examining the absolute rights which pertain to every Englishman, says, “But in vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected by the dead letter of the law, if the Constitution had provided no other method to secure their actual enjoyment. It has therefore established certain other auxiliary rights of the subject, which serve principally as outworks or barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property....

“To vindicate these rights when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law.

“Next, to the right of petitioning the King and Parliament for redress of grievances.

“And lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence.

“And all these rights and liberties it is our birthright to enjoy entire.”[95]

Now this solemn right of resistance, carrying with it, as it does, great responsibilities, would be in itself but a vain shadow, did there not exist in the nation the means of effecting a general union, of bringing about great and widely-spread co-operation, and, to use a French word, that _solidarité_ which are the requisite conditions of success in any national enterprise for the redress of national wrongs. Private individuals—and most particularly is it the case in the instance of which we are treating in this Essay—are forced to bear in silence injuries in which they do not see other people take a concern. They tremble in their solitude and weakness at the formidable power of those who oppress them, and as the latter well know the advantages of their own position, they think they may venture upon anything. But when, with the suffering of one—even the meanest member—the sympathy of all the other members of the body politic comes to be expressed, and finds an organized utterance, then the throes of this agony begin at last to be felt as a simultaneous resistance to the power that inflicted it.

Lest there should be lurking in the minds of any of my readers the thought that Parliament is an authority which it is in vain to try to resist, and that we are to endure now from Parliament invasions of our rights more tyrannical than we should have endured formerly from a King, and therefore that we ought to sit still in inaction, or in a pusillanimous indifference and criminal submission to such invasions of our rights, I venture to urge the people of this country, by the noble examples of the past, to let no day pass over their head without some effort to effect the purification of our country from the great evil established in it by Parliament. And I cannot resist quoting here once more the words of that venerable peer, who has set us an example, worthy to be studied at this day, in resisting the encroachments of the Legislature. These words were spoken under the pressure of ill-health, and have in them a solemn pathos, to which the present crisis enables those of us who recognise its gravity to respond:—

“The constitution of this country has been openly invaded, in fact, and I have heard with horror and astonishment, that very invasion defended upon principle.... My Lords, I thought the slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long since been exploded.... No man respects the House of Commons more than I do, or would contend more strenuously than I would to preserve them their just and legal authority. Within the bounds prescribed by the constitution, that authority is necessary to the well-being of the people; beyond that line every exertion of power is arbitrary, is illegal, it threatens tyranny to the people and destruction to the State. Power without right is the most odious object that can be offered to the human imagination. It is not only pernicious to those who are subject to it, but tends to its own destruction.... Tyranny, my Lords, is detestable in every shape, but in none so formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants....

“My uncertain state of health must plead my excuse if I wander from my argument; yet I thank God, my Lords, for having thus long preserved so inconsiderable a being as I am to take a part upon this great occasion, and to contribute my endeavours, such as they are, to restore, to save the constitution. My Lords, I need not look abroad for grievances. The grand capital mischief is fixed at home. It is corrupting the very foundation of our political existence, and preying upon the vitals of the State. The constitution has been grossly violated. THE CONSTITUTION AT THIS MOMENT STANDS VIOLATED. Until that wound be healed, until the grievance be redressed, it is in vain to recommend union to Parliament, in vain to promote concord among the people. If we mean seriously to unite the nation within itself, we must convince them that their complaints are regarded, that their injuries shall be redressed. On _that_ foundation I would take the lead in recommending peace and harmony to the people. On any other I would never wish to see them united again. If the breach in the constitution be effectually repaired, the people will of themselves return to a state of tranquillity; if not, MAY DISCORD PREVAIL FOR EVER! If the king’s servants will not permit the constitutional question to be decided according to the forms and on the principles of the constitution, it must then be decided in some other manner; and rather than it should be given up, rather than the nation should surrender their birthright to a despotic minister, I hope, my Lords, old as I am, I shall see the question brought to issue, and fairly tried between the people and the Government.”[96]

Such words as these, however, indicate the struggles of a people whose representative government is so defective as not to offer a real representation, and who therefore are under the necessity, when their rulers do not represent them, of contemplating a violent resistance to their authority. We, on the contrary, now more happily situated, can contemplate a change by the ordinary course of elections of the individuals who represent us. The due action of this system under which we now live is well expressed in the words of De Lolme:—“When the rulers see that all their actions are exposed to public view, that in consequence of the celerity with which all things become communicated the whole nation forms, as it were, one continued _irritable body_, no part of which can be touched without exciting an universal _tremor_, they become sensible that the cause of each individual is really the cause of all, and that to attack the lowest among the people is to attack the whole people.”[97]

Now it becomes of the greatest importance, seeing that the people are possessed of the power of awing the Legislature, that they should use it in the wisest and best manner; and in order to that end we must bear in mind what has been so often proved to the glory of the people of England, that power is often most effectually expressed by an attitude of suspended determination. “Forming thus,[98] as it were, one body, the people at every instant have it in their power to strike the decisive blow which is to level everything. Like those mechanical powers the greatest efficiency of which exists at the instant which precedes their entering into action, it has an immense force just because it does not yet exert any, and in this state of stillness, but of suspense, consists its true momentum.”

Now it is this instant which precedes any direct forcible action on the part of the people, which is the instant most favourable for the conversion and enlightenment of those rulers who trespass upon the Constitution. It is precisely at this instant that those who by virtue of their commission from the people are intrusted with the solemn responsibility of the more active part of government, behold themselves, as it were, exposed to public view, and attentively observed by men, not fiercely, but solemnly and religiously bent on the recovery of their sacred rights; by men free from all party spirit, and combined as men combine in a crisis of common danger, and who place in their rulers only a conditional trust. These rulers, feeling themselves thus observed, are afraid of exciting commotion, revolution, or rebellion, which, whatever else it effected, would surely and certainly effect the destruction of their own power, and be the close of their own tenure of office. Under these circumstances, if they should have sacrificed public liberties or been false to their trust, “they would no sooner lift up their eyes towards that vast assembly which views them with this watchful attention, than they would find their public virtue return upon them, and would make haste to resume that plan of conduct out of the limits of which they can expect nothing but ruin and perdition.”[99]

Therefore I trust you will pardon me, O patient and resolute people of England, who have in former national dangers so nobly borne, so long forborne, and so firmly acted, if I adjure you in the present crisis to remember the spirit in which your ancestors fought the battles of freedom, and to hold yourselves thoroughly prepared to _resist this legislation to the uttermost_, while cherishing the spirit of dependence on Divine aid, enjoined on the Hebrews of old in the words, “Stand still, and see the salvation of God.” Remember that the great success attending your former acts of resistance, success which has been dwelt upon in wonder and admiration by our continental neighbours, is mainly owing to the fact that you influence rather than interfere, that you are able and prepared to strike, but refrain from striking.

“The power of the people is not when they strike, but when they keep their rulers in awe. It is when they can overthrow everything that they never need to move.”

I have said that we live under a system of just laws, and I have praised our representative government. But we owe the existence of the Acts of Parliament which we condemn, in a great measure to a grave fault in these laws, and a grave inadequacy in that representative government. I have already spoken of that fault in our laws. It cannot be expected that due attention will ever be paid to the interests of any class which is not duly represented in the government of the country. If women had possessed the franchise, the Contagious Diseases Acts could not have been passed. I have preferred in this Essay to treat these Acts as a matter affecting the whole community rather than as one which concerns women particularly, inasmuch as the claims which women and men have to jury trial and to all constitutional rights are equal, and rest on the same foundation, which cannot be destroyed for one sex only. I can never view this question as fundamentally any more a woman’s question than it is a man’s. These Acts secure the enslavement of women and the increased immorality of men; and history and experience alike teach us that these two results are never separated. Slavery and immorality lead to degradation, political ruin, and intellectual decay, and therefore it is that these Acts are a question for the whole nation at large. Yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that these Acts of Parliament in the first instance affect women only; it is by their necessary consequences, not by their immediate action, that men also are affected.

It is the beneficent arrangement of God that the interests of men and of women are identical; to this we owe it that women have not been more the sufferers from the partial representative system of this country than they have yet been. But let us not forget that the same great ordinance of God holds equally of the interests of all mankind, in all lands, and of all ranks; the interests of all are identical; yet there are oppressions manifold among mankind. It is to the recognition which necessarily follows sooner or later of that great law of God, that we may, under Providence, attribute the fact that the world is not worse than it is. For when men act in neglect of this great law, evils ensue more or less immediately; if they continue so to act, their neglect of this law brings eventually disturbance or decay, and an overturning of the fabric of society.

The object of a complete representation of the people is to establish a government which, by its own natural action, shall follow out and not violate this great principle. Hence it is that a just representative government—that is, one in which there is no class unrepresented—is the only form of government which bears in itself the elements and means of its own continuance or revival. All other governments bear in them the necessary seeds of revolution; they must all be corrected from without; it alone is able to correct itself from within. The possession of the franchise by women is not only the pledge of security for women—the only satisfactory pledge that the interests of women shall be duly respected,—but it is also the pledge of security for the nation that it shall not be in danger of violating the great principle, that the interests of all are identical, and shall not therefore incur the evil consequences of such a violation.

The object of representative government is to make the recognition of the principle that the interests of all are identical, preventive rather than remedial. What I mean by this will be best illustrated by the very case with which we are dealing. The Contagious Diseases Acts are based on the fundamental assumption that the interests of women, as a class, can be neglected, while those of men can be cherished. It is an erroneous basis on which to make any law, for it is a contradiction of the law of God. Evil fruits must always follow for the whole nation which permits its rulers to act on such an assumption. In the case in point these evil fruits are easily detected, and the fatal operation of the bad principle is easily traced; hence those who already possess the franchise may be trusted to repeal these Acts. But though in this instance the path of return from error may be short, still it is a path of _return_. It is a retracing of our steps, the necessity of which has been brought about by abnormal conditions; and there exists in our representative government no guarantee against the repetition of such errors in the future. The nation has to be recalled from error to rectitude; it has to purge itself; to recover a great principle; and if God grant that it returns to that principle from the expectation rather than from the experience of the miseries of violating it, that result will be one which does not flow naturally from our present partial representative system, but which has been induced upon it from without. The aim of representative government is to make the recognition of the identity of the interests of all a continual and natural process; and until women have votes, that which stands between this nation and the evil consequences of violating this principle is only the precarious barrier of “agitation.” Until women possess the franchise the system of our government will be unstable and not self-corrective. And this is much more evident in the present day than in former times, and is daily becoming more evident. There are great social questions pressing for consideration and for settlement; and so long as one sex undertakes to consider these questions alone, we shall be hurried into errors similar to the Contagious Diseases Acts, and into legislation based upon the neglect of the interests of women—a neglect which in all instances will prove, as in this it most emphatically proves, fatal to those imagined interests on behalf of which these are neglected. Legislation can never in these days, and at the stage of civilisation which we have reached, be just and pure until women are represented. Do not let the reader here for a moment suppose that I am attributing to men any intentional injustice, or that I am supposing that they will be actuated in general by anything but benevolent intentions towards women. But the safety and stability of all that is done in the nation depends, not upon the benevolent intentions of the enfranchised towards the unenfranchised, but upon the just representation of all. Self-government is life, and life cannot be lived at second hand.

“Unfinished questions have no pity for the repose of nations.” It is only by means of the joint action of men and women that the great social questions of the present day can ever be satisfactorily settled, and when the iniquitous Contagious Diseases Acts—that huge retrograde step in legislation—are done away with, the country will only fall into new errors unless the voice of the women of the country, now raised from without, receive that permanent means of expressing itself shortly, easily, and effectually, which is given by the possession of the franchise, and by that alone. Let it not be forgotten that the women of England have had to come forth from the retirement of their own loved homes, to do and to suffer what they never would have been required to do and to suffer if they had possessed the franchise, and to wear their lives out in protesting against an iniquity which—if their unenfranchised voices be not powerful enough—will prove the ruin of their country. Those fastidious gentlemen who querulously cry out against the attitude lately assumed by patriotic and Christian women, and who shudder lest the faintest echoes of this agitation should reach the refined ears of their own wives and daughters, should remember that agitations involving questions of deep domestic interest will again and again be necessary, unless women are granted the power to influence Parliament without such agitation. It would be well that such persons should be fully alive to the fact also, that English women will be found ready again and again to agitate, to give men no repose, to turn the world upside down if need be, until impurity and injustice are expelled from our laws. The interests of women are palpably identical with morality; that the interests of men are equally so is not yet clearly perceived by all men. While contending for justice to their sex, women will therefore contend for morality. Let those who consider it an evil that feminine voices should be heard, even in the cause of morality, in such an agitation as the present, endeavour to prevent a recurrence of the evil by putting it in the power of women to act for the good of the country without raising their voice aloud.