On 26 February 1828 Palmerston delivered a speech in favour of Catholic Emancipation. He felt that it was unseemly to relieve the "imaginary grievances" of the Dissenters from the established church while at the same time "real afflictions pressed upon the Catholics" of Great Britain. Palmerston also supported the campaign to pass the Reform Bill to extend the franchise to more men in Britain. One of his biographers has stated that: "Like many Pittites, now labelled tories, he was a good whig at heart". The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 finally passed Parliament in 1829 when Palmerston was in the opposition. The Great Reform Act passed Parliament in 1832.