Benjamin Disraeli: a eulogy (April 18, 1883)
On April 18, 1883, The Times published an article on the legacy of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield). The only prime minister of Jewish birth, Disraeli was central in building the modern Conservative Party. Much to the bitter opposition of other Tories, he successfully sold a conservative vision to the working class. As you will see by reading this article, the parallels between Disraeli and Trump are striking.
Tomorrow, the second anniversary of Lord Beaconsfield’s death, will witness the unveiling of a statue to mark his party’s sense of the greatness of his services and of their loss. The ceremony is one at which the whole nation may in some degree assist. Death ought to soften many animosities and rectify many judgments, and we do not know that any man need to be accounted a worse Liberal for extending some measure of generous sympathy to the work which Sir Stafford Northcots will tomorrow complete. Whatever view may be taken of Lord Beaconsfield’s character and policy, all must at least admit that both were constructed upon large lines, and that in thinking kindly of his career and opponent can but emulate his own magnanimity. He fought a long losing battle, and fought it with a weapon fashioned and tempered by himself. He constructed the party which he ultimately led to victory, and greatly as it has deteriorated since his death, it can never altogether lose the character impressed upon it by his powerful personality. He imported a new idea into Toryism, an idea which was bitterly resented and opposed by all the Tory leaders of the time, and which has not been fully grasped even by those who had the advantage of being trained under his immediate influence. Being a man of genius and of imagination, he perceived that the mere resistance of the privileged or fortunate classes to change is not only essentially sterile, but is doomed to perpetual defeat. That in itself was not much, and had he seen no more he would certainly have joined the Liberals. But he saw further that there is in England a Conservativsm of which the official heads of the Conservative party knew nothing, and that the English people, on one side practical, utilitarian, and therefore Liberal, is on the other side of its character reverent of the past, distrustful of violent innovation, and actually capable of enthusiasm for an idea. What distinguished Lord Beaconsfield from the ordinary Tory leaders was his readiness to trust the English people whom they did not trust, and his total indifference to the barriers of caste, which for them were the be-all and end-all of politics. In the inarticulate mass of the English populace which they held at arm’s length he discerned the Conservative working man, as the sculptor perceives the angel prisoned in a block of marble. He understood that the common Englishman, even when he has personally nothing to guard beyond a narrow income and a frugal home, has yet Conservative instincts as strong as those of the wealthiest peer. He saw that the support of the average man could be won for a Conservatism which should conserve what he prizes instead of calling upon him to rally to the support only of what the English gentry prize. It was on this account that he was hated and opposed by the party he served until his transcendent abilities made it his humble servant. It is because Conservatives lack his faith in an idea, and his power of bringing it home to others, that they have sunk since his death into a condition which they profess to think hopeful, but which others regard as one of continuing impotence. It is because they have missed the chief lesson of his life that they now think to reanimate the party by the issue of half-crown magazines or by trying to compass the election of a new leader.
Lord Beaconsfield was never chosen leader, and never would have been chosen. He led by a law of nature, and because the thing simply could not be otherwise. The party was not accustomed to that kind of thing, and it followed grudgingly for a long time. That in such circumstances it was compelled to follow at all, and that it was led into ways so far removed from its old paths, is sufficient to prove the remarkable power of its leader. But we perhaps cannot guess the whole extent of his faculty unless we try to imagine what he might have done with a party at his back giving him willing and intelligent obedience from the first. This, however, is a speculation that might lead us a long way. It is more practical to note that Sir Stafford Northcots will appear tomorrow with all the prestige that a recent vote of confidence can give to a leader. Many men who grumbled at the tameness of the campaign have been bound over to submission at least for a decent period by their signing of the address to Sir Stafford Northcots. There is a good deal to be said for the view that a quiet, watchful policy is really the best that the Opposition can follow just now. The mildness of the political season may be inferred from the fact that neither of the quarterlies published this month contains a party political article. The Edinburgh Review is deeply interested in the condition of France, and appends to its views upon French politics a few words upon home affairs which only deepen the impression of tranquility. It declares that “no passionate desire manifests itself to ‘carry or to defeat the measures that wait the slow acceptance of Parliament.’” So much at ease does it feel that it takes the opportunity to castigate the extreme members of its own party. It seems that there are Radicals who play the game of the Opposition by trying to persuade the country that Mr Gladstone and his colleagues are hurrying us towards an abyss. But the momentary alarm with which these terrifying predictions fill the sober mind of the Edinburgh Reviewer gives way before the reflection that the authors of them “are the most worthless and profligate of their class, the very scum of society; and we can only attribute their publications to the keen contention for notoriety which distinguishes several of our monthly contemporaries.” This ebullition of indignation is perhaps hardly in keeping with the dignified coolness recommended to others, and may suggest reflections to the student of human nature. It is, however, gratifying to learn that the Liberal party is divided into Constructives and Destructives, the former being strong enough in good sense and patriotism to drive the others out of the field.
The Quarterly Review, seeing nothing in current politics calling for notice, consoles itself with a general dissertation upon the prospects of popular government. It surveys a wide field, comprising Switzerland and America, Great Britain and the Bolivian Republic. It confesses that its conclusion “will appear to some a commonplace of extreme triviality.” We should have been disposed to agree with this view, were it not that the Quarterly Review is very far from thoroughly believing its own commonplace. Its conclusion is that “the British Constitution, if not a holy thing, is a thing unique and remarkable.” It points out that other nations have made frequent attempts to copy our Constitution, but that except in the case of America, which has modified it with great success amid favourable material conditions, the attempts have been failures. But since other nations have been unable either to produce or to imitate our form of government, surely it is illogical to distress ourselves about the dangers to popular government in this country which their failures disclose. When all history and development are different, why assume identity of future changes? But the whole inquiry into the stability of popular government is rather futile. No form of government is stable except in the East, where everything changes so slowly that it seems to us permanent. The British Constitution is a name; the thing signified changes from generation to generation. Moreover, governments are so far from corresponding to their nomenclature that it is useless to found an argument of any kind upon their classification. There are despotisms in which the will of the people is obeyed; and there are democracies in which the governing power practically resides with an aristocracy, of wealth and ability if not of birth. It will not be found in the long run of very great importance whether a nation has universal suffrage or not. The really important thing to know is what manner of men compose the nation, and how they use their suffrage. The reviewer is sarcastic upon the tendency of men to take sides, and is indignant at the power this tendency gives the wire-puller. But if men take sides and wear badges, and fight blindly for a name, it is simply because they are not the mere animals governed by a desire to fill their stomachs which they are too often pictured by Conservatives on one hand and Radicals on the other. They have souls, they demand ideas, they do not live by bread alone. It is perhaps very absurd that men should march to death because a bit of bunting flutters overhead or certain bars of music sound in their ears. But men are so made, the bunting or the music is the symbol of an idea, and for an idea so symbolized men in all ages, in all climes, of all races have according to their nobility cheerfully faced death. The government that knows not only how to feed the bodies, but also to satisfy the aspirations of its subjects will be as stable as anything human can be, whether it be a despotism or a democracy.