A man of the iron integrity of Cobden found himself necessarily in opposition to a man of popularity and self-aggrandizement, like Palmerston. Therefore, when the prime-minister announced his determination to reserve certain seats in his cabinet and ministry "for the leaders of advanced Liberalism," Richard Cobden declined the position appointed to himself, saying to Lord Palmerston, "that he had always regarded him as a most dangerous minister for England, and his views still remained the same."
One of Mr. Cobden's last efforts in the House of Commons was for the repeal of the Paper Duty. He said,--"If I were a young man just fresh from college, with nothing in the world but a good education, there is nothing I should work for with so much interest as making perfectly free the press of this country, by removing all the taxes which tend to render scarce and dear literary productions." The last time Mr. Cobden addressed a public audience, he said,--"If I were a rich man, I would endow a professor's chair at Oxford and Cambridge to instruct the undergraduates of those universities in American history. I would undertake to say, and I speak advisedly, that I will take any undergraduate now at Oxford or Cambridge and ask him to put his finger on Chicago, and I will undertake to say that he does not go within a thousand miles of it.... To bring up young men from college with no knowledge of the country in which the great drama of modern politics and national life is now being worked out,--who are ignorant of a country like America, but who, whether it be for good or for evil, must exercise more influence in this country than any other class,--to bring up the young destitute of such knowledge, and to place them in responsible positions in the government is, I say, imperilling its best interests; and earnest remonstrances ought to be made against such a state of education by every public man who values in the slightest degree the future welfare of his country." He concluded his speech by saying,--"Do you suppose it possible, when the knowledge of the principles of political economy has elevated the working classes, and when that elevation is continually progressing, that you can permanently exclude the whole mass of them from the franchise? It is their interest to set about solving the problem, and, to prevent any danger, they ought to do so without further delay."