The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 87
The Right Hon. John Bright, M.P
The Right Hon. John Bright, M.P.
"He had never heard yet, and he felt satisfied that he never should hear, an argument such as an honest and learned lawyer could offer to a learned judge against the proposition of his honourable and learned friend the member for Marylebone" (Mr. Thomas Chambers). "An accumulated sense of the inconveniences arising from the present state of the law, and a knowledge of the grievous and fearful cases of injury and suffering arising from that law, made him feel he could not give a silent vote on that occasion, and that he ought to use any argument that occurred to him, with the hope of influencing some of those who heard him to give their votes for a final and satisfactory settlement of the question." "He had heard this question discussed many times in the society of women—women of cultivation, and admirable in their lives—and yet he must say that he never heard in that society any of those fearful vaticinations which he had heard from the opposition side of the House." "He held that personal freedom should be the great rule in these cases. Men and women were themselves the best judges, on the whole, of the matrimonial contracts they should make." "He asked the House to support the bill on grounds of common justice, as between the rich class and the poor." "He asked the House by an emphatic vote to affirm the principle—for this was all he asked—of personal liberty for the men and women of this country in the chief concern of their lives, as against a law in respect of which there was no pretence that it had a foundation in nature, or received a sanction from revelation."—Speech on Marriages Bill, April 21st, 1869.