§ The following Protest was entered on the Journals, against to the first enacting clause:
§ DISSENTIENT:—Because it appears to me, that the withdrawing the effect of nullity from the marriages of minors, had without the consent of parents, is likely to produce more and greater mischiefs than such as can fairly be considered as resulting from the general operation of the subsisting Marriage Act.
§ "STOWELL."
§ The following Protest was entered against passing the said bill:
§ "DISSENTIENT:—1st. Because the bill proposes to repeal retrospectively a law which has endured and been enacted upon nearly seventy years, governing the rights of persons and of property; and such repeal is, therefore, a dangerous precedent, destroying all confidence in rights founded on existing law, and threatening, by its consequences, the destruction of all law.
§ "2nd. Because the injustice and impolicy of repealing the law retrospectively, is acknowledged by the several qualifications introduced into the bill to limit the effects of such retrospective repeal; and yet clauses offered further to limit such effects were rejected, and many incon- 1456 venicences foreseen therefore remain unprovided for, and there may probably be many unforeseen, and to which human foresight cannot extend.
§ "3rd. Because, whatever evils may have arisen from the effects, in some instances, of the law proposed to be repealed, the evil of retrospective repeal of a law which has so long endured is much greater, considered as a precedent, which may be used to justify the grossest injustice.
§ "ELDON, C. REDESDALE,
§ "SHAFTESBURY, COLCHESTER."
§ "DISSENTIENT:—1st. For the above reasons, and also because the bill is not, either with respect to marriages heretofore had without the consent of putative fathers, or heretofore had without the consent of natural and lawful fathers, founded upon misapprehension of the law creating any such general practice, as in my judgment can authorize the House to legislate, as in this bill, retrospectively with respect to such marriages.
§ "2nd. Because the House, having refused to insert clauses in the bill saving vested rights, and rights acquired by purchasers of estates for good or valuable considerations, from persons by the law of the land entitled to sell or settle such estates, appears to me, by this measure, to have acted contrary to the principles which have hitherto secured to the subjects of this country their property, and to have rendered the bill, if otherwise fit to pass into a law, such as no reasoning can sanction, and no precedents can justify.
§ "ELDON, C.
§ "SHAFTESBURY.
§ "COLCHESTER."
§ "For the second reason:—
§ "VERULAM, STOWELL.
§ "SIDNEY, CAMDEN."