He endeavoured to deprive his son of his constitutional right to act as lieutenant-general of Aragon during his father's absence.
Thus, in regard to the Jay treaty, he defended the constitutional right of the house to consider the treaty, but he did not urge rejection in this specific case.
At the same time he practically told the Senate that the South would secede in the event of the election of a radical Republican to the presidency; and on the 10th of January 1861, not long after the election of Lincoln, he argued before that body the constitutional right of secession and declared that the treatment of the South had become such that it could no longer remain in the Union without being degraded.
Such an act she must regard as failing in sincerity to the crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that minister.
Eventually, on 31st January 1854, Lord John Russell took occasion to deny most emphatically that Prince Albert interfered unduly with foreign affairs, and in both houses the statesmen of the two parties delivered feeling panegyrics of the prince, asserting at the same time his entire constitutional right to give private advice to the sovereign on matters of state.
