Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Speeches of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox, in the House of Commons, Vol. 4 of 6
Those who attempted to justify the disabilities imposed on the dissenters, must contend, if they argued fairly on their own ground, not that their religious opinions were inimical to the established church, but that their political epinions were inimical to the constitution. If they failed to prove this, to deprive the dissenters of any civil or political ad vantage, was a manifest injustice; for, it was not sufficient to say to any set of men, We apprehend certain dangers from your opinions, we have wisely provided a remedy against them, and you who feel yourselves aggrieved, ca lumniated, and proscribed by this remedy, must prove that our apprehensions are ill founded. The onus probandi lay on the other side; for whoever demanded that any other person should be laid under a restriction, it was incumbent on him first to prove that the restriction was necessary to his safety by some overt act, and that the danger which he ap prehended was not imaginary but real. To such a ground as this the noble lord in the blue ribband had not endea voured to advance; but, on the contrary, had expressed him self concerning the dissenters in terms the most liberal and handsome. For what reason? Because he felt that enco miums of this nature must be considered as a candid ad herence to true propriety, and to the principles of common justice. He knew that, they had been steady in their attach ment to government; that their religious opinions were fa vourable to civil liberty, and that the true principles of the constitution had been remembered and asserted by them, at times when they were forgotten, perhaps betrayed, by the church.
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