The first meeting of the Parliament of Great Britain was 304 years ago today on the 23rd October 1707. The eighteenth century clearly believed in the concept of Union. I have culled the following background to that first Parliament of Great Britain
“Under the Treaty of Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland it was provided:
III. THAT the United Kingdom of Great Britain be Represented by one and the same Parliament to be stiled the Parliament of Great Britain.
...XXII. THAT ... A Writ do issue ... Directed to the Privy Council of Scotland, Commanding them to Cause ... forty five Members to be elected to sit in the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain ... in such manner as by a subsequent Act of the present session of the Parliament of Scotland shall be settled ... And that if her Majesty, on or before the first day of May next, on which day the Union is to take place shall Declare ... That it is expedient that the ... Commons of the present Parliament of England, shall be members ... of the first Parliament of Great Britain, for and on the part of England ... and the members of the House of Commons of the said Parliament of England and the forty five Members for Scotland ... shall be ... the first Parliament of Great Britain ..
Queen Anne did declare it to be expedient that the existing House of Commons of England sit in the first Parliament of Great Britain.
The Parliament of Scotland duly passed an Act settling the manner of electing the sixteen peers and forty-five commoners to represent Scotland in the Parliament of Great Britain. A special provision for the 1st Parliament of Great Britain was, "that the Sixteen Peers and Forty five Commissioners for Shires and Burghs shall be chosen by the Peers, Barons and Burghs respectively in this present session of Parliament and out of the members thereof in the same manner that Committees of Parliament are usually now chosen shall be the members of the respective Houses of the said first Parliament of Great Britain for and on the part of Scotland ..."
The United Kingdom of Great Britain came into existence on 1 May 1707.
Dates of the Parliament
Election: On 29 April 1707, the Parliament of Great Britain was proclaimed. The members of the last English House of Commons had been elected between 7 May 1705 and 6 June 1705. The last general election in pre-Union Scotland was in the Autumn of 1702. The Parliament of Scotland met between 6 May 1703 and 25 March 1707.
First meeting and maximum legal term: Parliament first met on 23 October 1707. The Parliament was due to expire, if not sooner dissolved, at the end of the term of three years from the first meeting of the last Parliament of England; which would have been on 14 June 1708.
Dissolution: The 1st Parliament of Great Britain was dissolved on 3 April 1708.”
We now have the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales. Clearly Union is a much loser term, which can incorporate devolved states within a more dominant administration.
In this light of this history, one wonders how the current Libyan leadership will cope with producing a working democracy, let alone a constitution, given the number of different groups, which exist within its borders, e.g. the Arabs, Berbers, Tebo etc… Of the Arab tribes, there are some seven in Western Libya, seven in Central Libya and some fifteen in Eastern and Southern Libya. One is reminded of the wonderfully constructed scene in Robert Bolt’s screenplay of Lawrence of Arabia, where Lawrence is presiding over a newly formed government of Arab tribes after they had taken Damascus. There are a number of interests to be taken into account. One hopes they have a strong sense of union to enable them to establish a Republic of Libya. Where will the Parliament be?Speaking of democracy and the right to vote, there is a little ditty I found relating to the first National Women’s Rights Convention which opened in Worcester, Massachusetts on the 23 October 1850. This article, relating to the second day of the convention appeared in the New York Herald on the 26th October 1850:
The New York Herald, Saturday, October 26, 1850 [P.1]
Woman's Rights Convention.
Conclusion of the Incantation of the Old Women--The Infidels, Abolitionists and Fugitive Slaves--Postponement of the Petticoat Revolution.
Worcester, October 24, 1850.
When the Convention adjourned last night, the following resolution, submitted by Mr. [Wm. H.] Channing, was pending:
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| Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis |
Whereas, the very contracted sphere of action prescribed for woman, arising from an unjust view of her natural capacities and powers, and from the infringements of her just rights as an equal with man, is highly injurious to her physical, mental, and moral development:
Therefore resolved That we will not cease our endeavours to secure for her political, legal, and social equality with man; until her proper sphere is determined, by what alone should determine it--her powers and capacities strengthened and refined by an education in accordance with her nature.
And a series, by Wendell Phillips, declaratory of woman's rights to representation, and all other political and social rights of the masculine gender.
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| Lucy Stone |
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| Lucretia Mott |
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| Ernestine Rose |
The Convention met, pursuant to adjournment, at half-past nine this morning. Present--Generalissimo [sic] Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelly, [William Lloyd] Garrison, [Wendell] Phillips and company, looking as solemn and important as a court martial.
The leading orator to-day, was Mrs. [Harriet K.] Hunt, of Boston--a regular brick. She spoke chiefly upon the superior capacity of woman for the study and practice of medicine; probably from the fact that every old woman in the country is a quack doctor, and always ready, with her all healing nostrums of sage tea, yarbs, salves, and lotions. And she was also of the opinion, (from the tenor of her argument) that woman was adapted in a superior degree to wrangle with lawyers--to delve into matters of science--and to conduct the affairs of legislation in the most splendid style. In regard to science, she sustained the argument of sister [Ernestine] Rose, yesterday, in which the scientific capacity of woman was proved from the fact, that a young lady had discovered a comet, with the aid of a telescope.
After which, various letters were read from sympathizers who had wisely resolved to stay at home, and throw the burden of the expenses of this convocation upon those enthusiastic disciples, possessed of more money than brains.
Mrs. Ball, of Worcester, next rose in vindication of a proper compensation for the labours and employments of women, and in the course of her argument, she pounced upon Mr. Charles C. Burleigh, for some distinctions which he made yesterday in reference to the pay and the employment of the two sexes. In discussing this subject Mrs. Ball applied the broomstick with great vigour against the despotism of man, in his extortions upon the labour of woman. Master Burleigh attempted a defence; but, to the infinite satisfaction of Mrs. Mott, he was compelled to surrender, amid the applause and laughter of the assemblage.
Mrs. Johnson [M.A.W. Johnson?], of [Salem?] Ohio--Notwithstanding the prevailing odour of infidelity in the Convention, a sentiment of scepticism so strong, that, with several reverend gentlemen present, and a host of venerable ladies ambitious of elevating their sex to the cabinet and the camp, the usual form of opening their proceedings with prayer was dispensed with--notwithstanding this prevailing odour of infidelity, the lady from Ohio argued from Scripture the equality of woman with man, in all the rights and privileges which he socially enjoys[1]
The meeting then took a recess till two o'clock, when
Dr. [William Andrus] Alcott, of Mass., proceeded to bring in the aid of medical science to the vindication of the sex. Her physical training, under the present state of society, enfeebled all her energies. With the same unrestricted privileges of exercise, and with the same enjoyments of mental education as man, her mind and body would be brought to its proper vigorous, beautiful, and healthy organization. The doctor's argument, altogether, was the most rational of the whole concern, and was only irrational and ridiculous in being mixed up with the rant, cant, and rubbish of socialism and infidelity of this lunatic asylum.
Mrs. Mott, the great Ajax of the sisterhood, with her wiry, nervous organization, and a head as hard as iron and as true as steel, followed on the same theme, exhibiting a wonderful power of philosophy in respect to the causes of the feebleness of woman, physically and mentally. Of course, this feebleness was only attributable to the despotism of man, which debases woman beyond all endurance.
Mrs. Sojourner Truth, (a lady of colour, doubtless of New England origin, from the Puritanical title she has the honour to bear) next came forward. And why not? In a convention where sex and colour are mingled together in the common rights of humanity, Dinah, and [Charles C.] Burleigh, and Lucretia [Mott], and Frederick Douglas, are all spiritually of one colour and one sex, and all on a perfect footing of reciprocity. Most assuredly, Dinah was well posted up on the rights of woman, and with something of the ardour and the odour of her native Africa, she contended for her right to vote, to hold office, to practice medicine and the law, and to wear the breeches with the best white man that walks upon God's earth.
After this windfall, the Convention took another recess, (the women must have their tea) and met again in the evening, and wound up the affairs of the Convention by adopting the resolution of Mr. Channing, that they would not cease their efforts to secure for woman her political, legal and social equality with man. The organization of the society continues in full force, and the agitation is to be prosecuted till it succeeds or fizzles out.
This motley organization is one of the rank excesses of our redundant and abounding happiness. Our country and our institutions are like an overteeming fertile soil--base weeds and noxious garbage grow up with its delicious fruits, and poison the otherwise healthy and vigorous atmosphere. It is for public opinion to root them out before they run to seed.
In defining the character of this Convention, it would be invidious to discriminate between knavery and sincere fanaticism. We are satisfied that there were amiable women among the delegates under the absurd delusion that the millennium can only be brought about by their assuming the breeches, and the control of the political caucuses, the polls, the militia musters, the fire companies, and Congress and the White House. But there was a remarkable omission in all their proceedings. Not a baby, among all the three or four hundred women present, was seen--not a whisper, or an insinuation, that babies are necessary to the preservation of society, did we hear. That important branch of the subject was dodged entirely. And till some practical substitutes for the laws of the Creator are proposed, the Woman's Rights Convention is destined to stumble over the cradle.
It is due to the Convention to say, that its proceedings were conducted with order; and that horrible, fanatical, absurd, and infidel as were their doctrines, they were open to all the world, and that outsiders, if so disposed, were at perfect liberty to answer them on the spot. On the other hand, such monstrous sentiments, not an individual present, apart from the Convention, seemed to consider entitled to any other considerations than those of pity and disgust.
NOTES
[1]The Herald reporter apparently confused M.A.W. Johnson of Salem, Ohio with Antoinette Brown, a recent graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. According to both the proceedings and the New York Daily Tribune account, it was Antoinette Brown who offered the theological argument that women's rights were compatible with the Bible rightly understood.
You may think this is a piece of performance writing. Make of the performance what you will, including pity and disgust.
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