 | A sketch of old England |  |
LETTER XIX.
In running the parallel between our government and that of
England, the House of Lords having been, most unaptly as I
think, compared to the Senate of the United States, it may be
neither uninstructive, nor without amusement, to inquire into
the respective points of their resemblance.
To begin with the first that naturally presents itself. The
Senate of the United States is an elective body, the members of
which are chosen for six years. The House of Lords is composed
of members who sit there for life, and their eldest sons
after them, by the right of hereditary succession. The members
of our Senate are all equal; there is neither distinction of
rank nor precedence, nor seniority, but what is freely awarded
to merit or talents. In the House of Lords there is, on the contrary,
an endless diversity of rank and pretension, which must
obviously tend to destroy, or at least diminish, the feeling of
equality, even where a man is said to be among his peers. In
fact, it is this nice and almost imperceptible gradation of ranks,
the strictness with which it is every where enforced, and the
submission every where paid to it, that constitutes, in my
opinion, the cement of every monarchical government.
This system of gradation in the ladder of life is here brought
to great perfection, and its parts adjusted with the nicest exactness.
Thus a duke precedes a marquis, in entering a room,
going to dinner, or marching in procession. Besides this, his
mantle has “four guards,” and his coronet has only leaves
without pearls! But even dukes have their degrees; and a
duke of yesterday is entitled to turn his back upon one of today,
on all occasions of etiquette.
A marquis, although “most noble,” carries the badge of inferiority
in his mantle of only “three doublings and a half,”
and his coronet of pearls and strawberry leaves, all of a height.
An earl is only right honourable; his mantle has only three
doublings, and his coronet has the pearls raised upon points,
with the leaves low between. A viscount, although right honourable
and his coronet is only “pearled with a row of pearls close to
the chaplet.” A baron is right honourable as well as the
viscount; but his inferiority is demonstrated by a mantle with
only two doublings, and a coronet with only six pearls.
You will perceive, by this detail, how the spirit of personal
independence and the noble self-consciousness, which alone
give dignity to man, must be repressed by these outward and
palpable insignia of inferiority, which derive an importance
from habit and custom. Servility to superiors, and supercilious
airs of superiority towards inferiors, together with a miserable
subserviency to those who can bestow on them the privilege of
a cloth of state, or of turning their backs upon those who before
turned their backs upon them, must naturally result from
such a system of nicely graduated importance. No one, that
ever mixes in titled society, can fail to perceive the relative importance
accorded to these different ranks, and, more especially,
the airs of superiority assumed by a lady of the old nobility
over an upstart titled dame of yesterday. In fact, the lord or
the lady who marches first of their grade at a coronation, has
all the superiority over those that march at the other end, that
the leader of a herd of buffaloes has over the rest of the rabble
in the rear.
But the privileges of carrying a cloth of state, marching first
in a procession, and having their trains borne by barons',
knights', or esquires' ladies, are not the only ones enjoyed by
the nobility. They possess certain rights and exemptions,
which, it will be perceived, give them a decided advantage
over other subjects of this realm. Their persons are at all
times privileged from arrests, except for contempt of the king,
felony, breach of the peace, or treason. No capias can be
sued out against them for trespass or debt; nor can essoign lie
against a peer of the realm. In civil causes they are not to be
impanneled upon juries; and in case a peer be returned upon a
jury, there is a special writ for his discharge. They cannot be
bound over to keep the peace, any further than pledging their
honour for that purpose. Contrary to the custom of the lower
house of parliament, they can constitute a proxy to vote for
them during their absence. A peer is not subject to outlawry
in any civil action, nor can any attachment lie against him. In
calling out the posse comitatus for the suppression of riots,
peers are exempted from obeying the commands of the sheriff.
The statute of Scandalum Magnatum makes it a crime to
raise injurious reports against them, such as in the case of a
commoner could not be punished by law. In many cases the
houses of peers cannot be entered by the officers of justice, except
and countersigned by six privy councillors, four of whom must
be peers of the realm. Every peer has what is called the privilege
of qualifying a certain number of chaplains, who, on
receiving a dispensation from their metropolitan, ratified under
the great seal, may hold a plurality of benefices. A duke
may qualify six chaplains; a marquis and earl five each; a
viscount four; and a baron three. It is by the exercise of this
privilege of “qualifying,” that the law with respect to a plurality
of benefices may be evaded by every priest who can
secure the patronage of a peer.
You will readily perceive by the foregoing, which is a mere
sketch of the privileges and exemptions of the members of the
House of Peers, that it is constituted upon principles essentially
different from our Senate, the members of which are appointed
for only six years, by the representatives of the several states,
and enjoy no other privilege but that which is held in common
with every other representative of the people, and is essential
to the discharge of their public duties, the privilege of exemption
from arrest during the session of congress, and in going
and returning therefrom. A peer being, it is true, an hereditary
legislator, the general freedom he enjoys from arrest naturally
arises from his being always held to be employed in that capacity.
But this, among other features, exhibits more distinctly
the wide dissimilarity of the two bodies.
That the Senate of the United States stands in a situation,
with regard to the executive and House of Representatives,
analogous to that of the House of Peers in relation to the
king and the House of Commons, is most undoubtedly true.
Its legislative powers, as well as its judicial functions, are, in
many important cases the same. But so long as they are constituted
upon principles so totally distinct and irreconcileable—
so long as the one is hereditary, the other elective—so long as
one is the creation of the king, the other the creature of the
people, it seems undeniable, that nothing but error and mischief
can result from drawing precedents, in matters of principle
or politics, from a British House of Peers, for the imitation
of the Senate of the United States.
There are a few other points which occur to me, as rendering
this separation of the two bodies still wider. When a senator
of the United States accepts an office from the executive,
he forfeits his seat, and remains ineligible so long as he retains
the office. Hence, although the patronage of the executive
may tempt him to a desertion of his principles before he
receives his reward, he remains ever afterwards incapable of
betraying the people in the capacity of their representative.
may hold a dozen places at the pleasure of the king, without
forfeiting his seat. In the present House of Peers, there are
somewhere (for I took the trouble to count them) about one
hundred and eighty placemen, who enjoy offices either of profit,
or honour, or both. In the United States, a senator, when
he receives the price of his sacrifice of principle, becomes of
no value to the purchaser.
| A sketch of old England | |