COUNTY
LOUTH
1793
During the debate,
in the Irish House of Commons on 27 February 1793, on the
passage of a Bill to extend the franchise to Roman Catholics
the Speaker John Foster gave a lengthy reply opposing the
measure. The Bill however passed into law. John Foster lived in Collon in County Louth.
In his reply he stated:-
"In ever thing
which had hitherto been granted to them [Roman Catholics],
he had concurred. He would allow them property, with equal
security for that property; civil liberty, with equal
security for that civil liberty, and every thing which could
tend to their ease, their happiness, and personal welfare;
but he would draw a line round the constitution, within
which he would not admit them, while their principles were,
he would not say hostile, but certainly not as friendly to
the constitution as those of Protestants. It was impossible
while church and state were so intimately connected, that
Roman Catholics avowedly averse to the one, could be as
friendly to the other, or attached to a constitution founded
on both, and one principle whereof was the inseparable union
of both. He would say that the plain, natural and inevitable
consequence of admiting them within the pale of the
constitution, would be the destruction of the church
establishment; ....
'.... Admited
then to every trust and power in the state, legislative and
executive, do you think they would not feel their clergy
degraded, while they remained subordinate?. Would they rest
content, when there was no inequality between the Protestant
and Catholic laity, that there should be a degrading and
mortifying inequality between the Protestant and Catholic
clergy?. He was not arguing on wild methaphysical
speculations; he argued from human nature, from the common
workings of the feelings and passions of men; from what
Protestants would do and had done, and what he himself would
do, were he a Catholic, in the same situation. Catholics
would never bear to see the clergy of the minority, while
the Protestant would then be, exalted by dignities and
supported in affluence and splendour, while theirs had
neither honours nor maintenance; they could not be content
to see the clergy, who administered to them the duties of
their religion, sunk in poverty, while the clergy of a
church, to whom they had long been obliged to contribute,
without profiting by their labours, were enjoying all the
benefits of a wealthy establishment; subordination to
Protestant power, had alone hitherto induced men to pay
tithe for the support of a clergy, whose spiritual
assistance they rejected .
....
Having .... argued on the unfitness of the inferior
Catholics to exercise the elective franchise at present,
without injuring the purity of election, he stated another
danger to the constitution from this admission, that they
must be advocates for the worst species of reform, that of
individual voting, which every gentleman on every side of
the House reprobated. The Protestant was superior in
property, inferior in number; the Catholic the reverse; and
the latter must be blind indeed to his own interest, if he
did not endeavour to procure the reform which would give the
influence to numbers and take it from property. But there is
one consideration not yet adverted to; you are trustees for
your constituents, they are Protestants, have you the power
to destroy their rights, by overwhelming them without their
consent: for his part he received his seat in this House,
and the trust which he brought with it, from Protestants,
under a Protestant king, a Protestant constitution, and a
Protestant ascendancy, and, by the blessing of God, he never
would give up their rights till they should desire him.
Consult your constituents before you venture on such an act;
will you give to the petitioners, for their three millions
of men, a full participation of all that the one million
enjoys, and not see that you are overpowering the rights of
the one million?
....
I have shewn you that you are not bound to give franchise
as a right, that you cannot grant it as a favour, without
hazarding the overthrow of the Protestant church; the
Hanover succession, and our connection with Great Britain;
that even if you could do it without such hazard, the mass
of the Catholic body is unfit to exercise it with safety or
advantage; that such a grant will make every Catholic an
advocate for the worst species of reform, where numbers, and
not property are to influence; that if these arguments have
no weight, still you are but trustees for you constituents,
and cannot surrender their right without their especial
leave, which you have not obtained.
...."
(Source: The Parliamentary Register or
History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of
Commons of Ireland, The Fourth Session of the Fifth
Parliament in the Reign of his present Majesty; Which met at
Dublin on the 10th of January, and ended the 16th of August,
1793., vol.XIII, online at www.books.google.com)
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