ABSTRACT
Sir Robert Peel and his immediate coadjutors had accepted and assimilated most of these liberal principles; and in them, therefore, lay the main strength of the party. When they emerged as Liberals from the Conservative host, the rest had but little force, and scarcely any principle of cohesion. When peace was concluded, and when afterwards Canning was devoting himself to preserve it, preparation was in fact made for that dissolution of parties which was now to be attributed solely to the action of Canning’s political heir. It is because war is retardation, that parties live as long as it lasts. It is because peace is progress, that peace is the death-warrant of parties. Party violence is bad; but it is nothing to the violence which succeeds a dissolution of parties. Grave as are these evils, there is yet a graver.
