"
No one would willingly censure too severely an act dictated by a sense
of honor, even if somewhat overstrained and too scrupulously delicate;
but when Mr. Peel speaks of "defending" or not defending his deed, he
clearly admits it to be one open to impeachment. And when he forbears to
"contend that his example ought to be followed," he seems practically to
confess a consciousness that any defence against such impeachment must
fail; while the last sentence quoted above involves an assertion that a
constituency (in this instance one of the two most important
constituencies in the kingdom) could be justified in regarding a measure
required by the safety, or at least by the welfare, of the state, as
injurious to its own interests; and so far admits a possible severance
between the interests of a particular class or body and those of the
whole community, which can have no real existence. That, however, is not
the point to be investigated here. The charge, as it seems, to which Mr.
Peel's deed lays him open is, that by it he lowered the position and
character of a member of Parliament from those of a representative to
those of a delegate. It was an adoption of the principle laid down for
his own guidance by a colleague of Mr. Burke above fifty years before,
and indignantly repudiated by that great political philosopher, as
proceeding from an entire misapprehension of the rights of a
constituency and of a member[214] of Parliament.
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