TORY. This name has now, for about two hundred years, served to designate one of two principal political parties in this country. The name Tory, as well as the name Whig, and the existence of two parties in the state corresponding to those which have now been known for a long time as Whig and Tory parties, date from the reign of Charles II. and from the year 1679.
The first Tories opposed the Exclusion Bill and supported Charles II. in his en deavour to prevent a renewal of the at tack upon his brother, by successive pro rogations of the parliament. The origin of the name is referred b7 Roger North, a very hot Tory, in a curious passage, to the connexion of the party with the Duke of York and his popish allies. (Examen. p. 821.) The origin of the word Whig, which is a little younger than Tory, is explained under Wino.
Dr. Johnson gives an explanation of the word Tory, which is perhaps as good a short general description of the prin ciples of Toryism as is to be given:— " One who adheres to the antient consti tution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England." Things as they have been, or, when some great change has taken place against the will of this party, things as they are,—the king before the aristocracy, and the aris tocracy before the popular element in the constitution, which led the first Tories to argue from the divine right of kings for their exemption from parliamentary con trol, and for passive obedience, and which has afterwards directed their endeavours to contracting the suffrage so as to make the popular element as little popular as possible,—the freedom of the church from state control,—and the fullest possible amount of political privilege and honour for the church, as distinguished from every other religious denomination, these have been the cardinal characteris tics of Toryism, from the beginning to the present time.
During the reigns of Charles II. and
James II. the support of the king brought the Tories into a connexion with the Ro man Catholics, which was inconsistent with their High Church views; and they were involved in a continual difficulty of reconciling their persecution of Protes tant dissenters, with the favour they desired to show the Roman Catholics, as political partisans. Lord Bolingbroke has given the following description of Toryism at this period :—" Divine, here ditary, indefeasible right, lineal succes sion, passive obedience, prerogative, non resistance, slavery, nay, and sometimes popery too, were associated in many minds to the idea of a Tory, and deemed incommunicable and inconsistent in the same manner with the idea of a Whig." Dissertation on Parties,' Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 38, Edinburgh, 1773.) But popery was an accident to the creed of the party. The lengths to which James went for the Roman Catholic reli gion opened the eyes of the Tories ; and the bulk of the party united with the Whigs in bringing about the revolution of 1688. The doctrines of divine right and passive obedience were then aban doned by the Tories in practice. During the reign of Anne they again raised their heads in argument, and the impolitic pro secution of Sacheverel gave force to their re-appearance. But from the Revolution down to the present time the struggle between the two parties, so far as it has been one of principle, has been a struggle by the Tories in behalf of the church, to invest it with political power and privi leges, and against the increase of the power of the people in the state, through the House of Commons; and a struggle by the Whigs for the toleration of dissent ers from the established religion, and for the strengthening of the popular element of the constitution.