at the same time perfectly unconstitutional, outside of and adverse to the whole spirit of the constitution.  The royal speech had not ventured to describe the Association as illegal.  The Duke of Wellington expressly admitted that “in the original institution and formation of the society there was nothing strictly illegal."[204] And its founder and chief, Mr. O’Connell, had been at all times careful to inculcate on his followers the necessity of avoiding any violation of the law.  But the speech had also declared the association to be “inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution.”  And its acts, as the Duke proceeded to describe them, certainly bore out that declaration.  “Those acts consisted principally in levying a tax upon certain of his Majesty’s subjects called Catholic rent, and this by means and acts of extreme violence; by appointing persons to collect these rents; and farther by adopting measures to organize the Catholic population; by appointing persons to superintend that organization; and by assuming to themselves the government of the country; and, still more, affecting to assume it.  Besides, they expended this rent in a manner contrary to, and utterly inconsistent with, all law and order and the constitution of the country.”  No member of either House denied the accuracy of this description of the Association’s proceedings.  And if it were correct, it was incontrovertible that the denunciation of it as an utterly unconstitutional body was not too strong.  Indeed, the fact of its “levying a tax” upon a portion of the King’s subjects (to say nothing of the intimidation, amounting to compulsion, by which, as was notorious, it was in many instances exacted) was the assumption of one of the most important functions of the Imperial Parliament; it was the erection of an imperium in imperio, which no statesmen intrusted with the government of a country can be justified in tolerating.  And this was felt by the Opposition as well as by the ministers; by the Whigs as fully as by the Tories.  The most eloquent of the Whig party, Mr. Stanley, was as decided as Mr. Peel himself in affirming that the existence of the Association was “inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution,” and that it was “dangerous that the people of a country should look up to any public body distinct from the government, opposed to the government, and monopolizing their attachment and obedience."[205]

It was, therefore, with the almost unanimous approval of both parties that the bill framed for the suppression of the Association was received.  The framing of such a bill was not unattended by difficulties, as Peel acknowledged,[206] since “no one wished to declare that every political meeting was illegal;” while at the same time it was necessary to guard against “having its enactments evaded, since a more dangerous precedent than the successful evasion of acts of the Legislature could scarcely be conceived.”  But the measure, as it was proposed, skilfully steered