Friday, March 1, 2013

On filibustering...

... Robert Peel, having blocked several efforts to adjourn, states that he intends to block all public business until he gets what he wants.
all public business should be deferred until this question should be decided. This was the proposition he had to make to hon. Gentlemen opposite, and he assured them he made it in the most perfect good humour. And he would put it to them, was it not better that they should separate good humouredly upon this understanding, than they should continue a useless system of hostility and contention, such as they had that night witnessed.
T. Duncombe responds
[Duncombe wishes] the House and the country to understand what was the nature of the proposition which the right hon. Baronet had submitted. It was this-that because the House would not agree to encourage treating and bribery, the right hon. Baronet [Peel] would obstruct the progress of all public business. If hon. Gentlemen opposite should ever come into office again, he thought they could not  complain if those who might be in opposition to them, took a leaf out of their book. He thought the proposition of the right hon. Baronet would prove a most dangerous precedent in future cases.
And that's how you get the snowball rolling. 

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