Undaunted
Facing defeat at the General Election of 1812, Henry Brougham stood before the voters of Liverpool and made a spirited defence of liberty’s record.
1812
King George III 1760-1820
Facing defeat at the General Election of 1812, Henry Brougham stood before the voters of Liverpool and made a spirited defence of liberty’s record.
1812
King George III 1760-1820
In the 1812 General Election, Henry Brougham (pronounced ‘broom’) was one of two Whig candidates hoping to represent Liverpool. On the night before they went to polls, he addressed supporters with a last-minute plea to redouble their efforts, reminding them that Parliamentary democracy, the abolition of slavery and even peace in Europe all depended on their determination to keep fighting for liberty.
DO not, Gentlemen, listen to those who tell you the cause of freedom is desperate; — they are the enemies of that cause and of you — but listen to me, for you know me — and I am one who has never yet deceived you; — I say then that it will be desperate if you make no exertions to retrieve it.* I tell you that your languor alone can betray it — that it can be made desperate only through your despair.
I am not a man to be cast down by temporary reverses, let them come upon me as thick and as swift and as sudden as they may. I am not he who is daunted by majorities in the outset of a struggle for worthy objects — else I should not now stand before you to boast of triumphs won in your cause.
* A sentiment similar to John Stuart Mill’s aphorism in his Inaugural Address to the University of St Andrews in 1867, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”