The American Senator

out in their own minds, they would have seen that the Senator’s metaphor was appropriate. His purpose in being there was to give advice, and theirs in coming to listen to it. But it was unfortunate. “When I ventured to come before you here, I made all this my business,” continued the Senator. Then he paused and glanced round the hall with a defiant look. “And now about your House of Lords,” he went on. “I have not much to say about the House of Lords, because if I understand rightly the feeling of this country it is already condemned.” “No such thing.” “Who told you that?” “You know nothing about it.” These and other words of curt denial came from the distant corners, and a slight murmur of disapprobation was heard even from the seats on the platform. Then Lord Drummond got up and begged that there might be silence. Mr. Gotobed had come there to tell them his views⁠—and as they had come there expressly to listen to him, they could not without impropriety interrupt him. “That such will be the feeling of the country before long,” continued the Senator, “I think no one can doubt who has learned how to look to the signs of the times in such matters. Is it possible that the theory of an hereditary legislature can be defended with reason? For a legislature you want the best and wisest of your people.” “You don’t get them in America,” said a voice which was beginning to be recognised. “We try at any rate,” said the Senator. “Now is it possible that an accident of birth should give you excellence and wisdom? What is the result? Not a tenth of your hereditary legislators assemble in the beautiful hall that you have built for them. And of that tenth the greater half consists of counsellors of state who have been placed there in order that the business of the country may not be brought to a standstill. Your hereditary chamber is a fiction supplemented by the element of election⁠—the election resting generally in the very bosom of the House of Commons.” On this subject, although he had promised to be short, he said much more, which was received for the most part in silence. But when he ended by telling them that they could have no right to call themselves a free people till every legislator in the country was elected by the votes of the people, another murmur was heard through the hall.

“I told you,” said he waxing more and more energetic, as he felt the opposition which he was bound to overcome, “that what I had to say to you would not be pleasant. If you cannot endure to hear me, let us break up and go away. In that case I must tell my friends at home that the tender ears of a British audience cannot bear rough words from American lips. And yet if you think of it we have borne rough words from you and have borne them with good-humour.” Again he paused, but as none rose from their seats he went on, “Proceeding from hereditary legislature I come to hereditary property. It is natural that a man should wish to give to his children after his death the property which he has enjoyed during their life. But let me ask any man here who has not been born an eldest son himself, whether it is natural that he should wish to give it all to one son. Would any man think of doing so, by the light of his own reason⁠—out of his own head as we say? Would any man be so unjust to those who are equal in his love, were he not constrained by law, and by custom more iron-handed even than the law?” The Senator had here made a mistake very common with Americans, and a great many voices were on him at once. “What law?” “There is no law.” “You know nothing about it.” “Go back and learn.”

“What!” cried the Senator coming forward to the extreme verge of the platform and putting down his foot as though there were strength enough in his leg to crush them all; “Will anyone have the hardihood to tell me that property in this country is not affected by primogeniture?” “Go back and learn the law.” “I know the law perhaps better than most of you. Do you mean to assert that my Lord Lambswool can leave his land to whom he pleases? I tell you that he has no more than a life-interest in it, and that his son will only have the same.” Then an eager Briton on the platform got up and whispered to the Senator for a few minutes, during which the murmuring was continued. “My friend reminds me,” said the Senator, “that the matter is one of custom rather than law; and I am obliged to him. But the custom which is damnable and cruel, is backed by law which is equally so. If I have land I can not only give it all to my eldest son, but I can assure the right of primogeniture to his son, though he be not yet born. No one I think will deny that there must be a special law to enable me to commit an injustice so unnatural as that.

“Hence it comes that you still suffer under an aristocracy almost as dominant, and in its essence as irrational, as that which created feudalism.” The gentlemen collected on the platform looked at each other and smiled, perhaps failing to catch the exact meaning of the Senator’s words. “A lord here has a power, as a lord, which he cannot himself fathom and of which he daily makes an unconscious but most deleterious use. He is brought up to think it natural that he should be a tyrant. The proclivities of his order are generous, and as a rule he gives more than he takes. But