Select British Eloquence/Septennial Act introduction
The Septennial Act was passed in 1716, extending the duration of Parliaments from three to seven years. By an extraordinary stretch of power, the Act was made applicable to the Parliament that passed it, whose members, by their own vote, thus added four years to their tenure of office. This they did on the ground that the nation had just emerged from a dangerous rebellion, and that the public mind was still in so agitated a state, as to render the exciting scenes of a general election hazardous to the public safety. Whatever may be thought of this plea (and perhaps most men at the present day would unite with Mr. Hallam in justifying the measure), no one can doubt that the provisions of the Septennial Act, in respect to subsequent Parliaments, were strictly legal.
This Act has now been in operation eighteen years; and Bolingbroke, who planned the leading measures of the Opposition, saw that a motion to repeal it would embarrass the ministry, and gratify at once the landholders and the mob. The landholders, who were almost to a man Jacobites or Tories, would be zealous for the repeal, since they were not only indignant at the Act, as originally directed against themselves, hut had found by experience, that it was greatly for their interest to have frequent elections. The influence they possessed over their tenantry, could be exerted at any moment, and cost them little or nothing. This influence the Whigs in power could overcome only at an enormous expense. Every general election was, therefore, a scene of general licentiousness and bribery, to which the common people looked forward as their harvest season; and so vast was the pecuniary sacrifice to which the Whigs were thus subjected, that they could never endure it if the elections were of frequent occurrence. Thus, according to Bolingbroke's calculations, if the Act was repealed, the Whigs would be driven from power; if it was not repealed, they would be loaded with the resentment of all classes, from the highest to the lowest.
There was a part of the Opposition, however, who were delicately situated in respect to this Act. It was a measure of their own. They had argued and voted for it as essential to the public security. Such was the case with Pulteney and most of the disaffected Whigs ; and it was a long time before Bolingbroke succeeded in wheedling or driving them into his plan. At last, however, party discipline and the desire of office prevailed. The motion was made on the 13th of March, 1734, and gave rise to one of the most celebrated debates in English history.
It was on this occasion that Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the Tories in the House, delivered what was undoubtedly his master-piece of eloquence. This speech, however, is remembered with interest at the present day, only on account of the altercation to which it gave rise between him and Walpole. He closed with a bitter personal attack on the minister, and thus drew forth a reply of equal bitterness, which concluded the debate. In this reply, however, Walpole, instead of retaliating upon Wyndham, turned adroitly upon Bolingbroke as the real author of all the maneuvers against him; and while he thus threw contempt on Wyndham, by treating him as the mere month-piece of another, he inflicted a castigation upon Bolingbroke which, for stinging effect and perfect adherence to truth, has rarely been surpassed in the British Parliament. This, in connection with the attack of Wyndham, will now be given; and the reader will observe how dexterously Walpole, in going on, as he does, briefly to defend the Septennial Act, argues with the Tories on their own ground; showing that frequent Parliaments serve to extend and perpetuate the democratic principle in the English Constitution—a thing against which every true Tory must feel himself bound to contend.