Excerpt from Speeches Upon the Roman Catholic Claims: Delivered in Parliament, by Charles Lord Colchester, in the House of Commons When Speaker, and Subsequently in the House of Peers; With Preliminary Observations Upon the Present State of the Roman Catholic Question According to the British Constitution, as esta blished upon the double basis of the Reformation and the Revolution, it appears to me, that the Go vernment and Parliament must ever be wholly Pro testant, - That no Political Power can with safety to the State be conceded to his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects g - That against the misuse of Political Power by Roman Catholics in our Pro testant Representative Constitution, there is no effectual security but their Exclusion - and That the elective franchise, prematurely granted to the forty-shilling freeholders of Ireland, must be withdrawn and withholden, until they can be rescued from their present slavish subjection to the Roman Catholic Clergy; and until by im proved habits of life, resulting from a sounder education and regular employment in profitable labour, (for which the means are not wanting, ) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.