They had, as was natural, not been contented with opposing the
Conservative ministry in its general policy, but in both Houses they had
attacked it with great energy. They had begun the battle in both Houses
in the debate on the address, in which they selected three points in the
recent transactions for special condemnation, affirming that in every
one of them the royal prerogative had been unconstitutionally
exercised--the dismissal of the late ministry, the dissolution of
Parliament, and the appointment of the Duke of Wellington to a variety
of offices. In the House of Commons the attack was led by Lord Morpeth
and Lord John Russell; in the House of Lords by Lord Melbourne himself.
It was urged that, though the prerogative of the sovereign to dismiss
his ministers was undoubted and inalienable, yet the Houses had a clear
right to sit in judgment on any particular exercise of it; and that the
circumstances of the late ministry having been but recently formed, of
its possessing in a conspicuous degree the confidence of the great
majority of the House of Commons, and of its being occupied at the
moment of its dismissal with matters of high national concern, justified
the House in calling on the new ministers to show valid reasons for its
sudden dismissal. As to the dissolution, it was asked what misdemeanor
the late House of Commons had committed? No difference had occurred
between it and the other House of Parliament.
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