diversity, unexampled in history; and, as it has not yet pleased
Providence to endow us with brain-force and animal strength in an
equally abnormal proportion, the consequence is that we perform the work
of government, as to many among its more important departments, in a
very superficial and slovenly manner. The affairs of the three
associated kingdoms, with their great diversities of law, interest, and
circumstance, make the government of them, even if they stood alone, a
business more voluminous, so to speak, than that of any other
thirty-three millions of civilized men. To lighten the cares of the
central legislature by judicious devolution, it is probable that much
might be done; but nothing is done, or even attempted to be done. The
greater colonies have happily attained to a virtual self-government; yet
the aggregate mass of business connected with our colonial possessions
continues to be very large. The Indian Empire is of itself a charge so
vast, and demanding so much thought and care, that if it were the sole
transmarine appendage to the crown, it would amply tax the best ordinary
stock of human energies. Notoriously it obtains from the Parliament only
a small fraction of the attention it deserves. Questions affecting
individuals, again, or small interests, or classes, excite here a
greater interest, and occupy a larger share of time, than, perhaps, in
any other community. In no country, I may add, are the interests of
persons or classes so favored when they compete with those of the
public; and in none are they more exacting, or more wakeful to turn this
advantage to the best account. With the vast extension of our enterprise
and our trade, comes a breadth of liability not less large, to consider
every thing that is critical in the affairs of foreign states; and the
real responsibilities thus existing for us, are unnaturally inflated for
us by fast-growing tendencies toward exaggeration of our concern in
these matters, and even toward setting up fictitious interests in cases
where none can discern them except ourselves, and such continental
friends as practice upon our credulity and our fears for purposes of
their own. Last of all, it is not to be denied that in what I have been
saying, I do not represent the public sentiment. The nation is not at
all conscious of being overdone. The people see that their House of
Commons is the hardest-working legislative assembly in the world: and,
this being so, they assume it is all right. Nothing pays better, in
point of popularity, than those gratuitous additions to obligations
already beyond human strength, which look like accessions or assertion
of power; such as the annexation of new territory, or the silly
transaction known as the purchase of shares in the Suez Canal.
All my life long I have seen this excess of work as compared with the
power to do it; but the evil has increased with the surfeit of wealth,
and there is no sign that the increase is near its end. The people of
this country are a very strong people; but there is no strength that can
permanently endure, without provoking inconvenient consequences, this
kind of political debauch. It may be hoped, but it cannot be predicted,
that the mischief will be encountered and subdued at the point where it
will have become sensibly troublesome, but will not have grown to be
quite irremediable.
The main and central point of interest, however, in the institutions of
a country is the manner in which it draws together and compounds the
public forces in the balanced action of the State. It seems plain that
the formal arrangements for this purpose in America are very different
from ours. It may even be a question whether they are not, in certain
respects, less popular; whether our institutions do not give more rapid
effect, than those of the Union, to any formed opinion, and resolved
intention, of the nation.
In the formation of the Federal Government we seem to perceive three
stages of distinct advancement. First, the formation of the
Confederation, under the pressure of the War of Independence. Secondly,
the Constitution, which placed the Federal Government in defined and
direct relation with the people inhabiting the several States. Thirdly,
the struggle with the South, which for the first time, and definitely,
decided that to the Union, through its Federal organization, and not to
the State governments, were reserved all the questions not decided and
disposed of by the express provisions of the Constitution itself.[11]
The great _arcanum imperii_, which with us belongs to the three branches
of the Legislature, and which is expressed by the current phrase,
"omnipotence of Parliament," thus became the acknowledged property of
the three branches of the Federal Legislature; and the old and
respectable doctrine of State independence is now no more than an
archæological relic, a piece of historical antiquarianism. Yet the
actual attributions of the State authorities cover by far the largest
part of the province of government; and by this division of labor and
authority, the problem of fixing for the nation a political centre of
gravity is divested of a large part of its difficulty and danger, in
some proportions to the limitations of the working precinct.
Within that precinct, the initiation as well as the final sanction in
the great business of finance is made over to the popular branch of the
Legislature, and a most interesting question arises upon the comparative
merits of this arrangement, and of our method, which theoretically
throws upon the Crown the responsibility of initiating public charge,
and under which, until a recent period, our practice was in actual and
even close correspondence with this theory.
We next come to a difference still more marked. The Federal Executive is
born anew of the nation at the end of each four years, and dies at the
end. But, during the course of those years, it is independent, in the
person both of the President and of his Ministers, alike of the people,
of their representatives, and of that remarkable body, the most
remarkable of all the inventions of modern politics, the Senate of the
United States. In this important matter, whatever be the relative
excellencies and defects of the British and American systems, it is most
certain that nothing would induce the people of this country, or even
the Tory portion of them, to exchange our own for theirs. It may,
indeed, not be obvious to the foreign eye what is the exact difference
of the two. Both the representative chambers hold the power of the
purse. But in America its conditions are such that it does not operate
in any way on behalf of the Chamber or of the nation, as against the
Executive. In England, on the contrary, its efficiency has been such
that it has worked out for itself channels of effective operation, such
as to dispense with its direct use, and avoid the inconveniences which
might be attendant upon that use. A vote of the House of Commons,
declaring a withdrawal of its confidence, has always sufficed for the
purpose of displacing a Ministry; nay, persistent obstruction of its
measures, and even lighter causes, have conveyed the hint, which has
been obediently taken. But the people, how is it with them? Do not the
people in England part with their power, and make it over to the House
of Commons, as completely as the American people part with it to the
President? They give it over for four years: we for a period which on
the average is somewhat more: they, to resume it at a fixed time; we, on
an unfixed contingency, and at a time which will finally be determined,
not according to the popular will, but according to the views which a
Ministry may entertain of its duty or convenience.
All this is true; but it is not the whole truth. In the United Kingdom,
the people as such cannot commonly act upon the Ministry as such. But
mediately, though not immediately, they gain the end: for they can work
upon that which works upon the Ministry, namely, on the House of
Commons. Firstly, they have not renounced, like the American people, the
exercise of their power for a given time; and they are at all times free
by speech, petition, public meeting, to endeavor to get it back in full
by bringing about a dissolution. Secondly, in a Parliament with nearly
660 members, vacancies occur with tolerable frequency; and, as they are
commonly filled up forthwith, they continually modify the color of the
Parliament, conformably, not to the past, but to the present feeling of
the nation; or, at least, of the constituency, which for practical
purposes is different indeed, yet not very different. But, besides
exercising a limited positive influence on the present, they supply a
much less limited indication of the future. Of the members who at a
given time sit in the House of Commons, the vast majority, probably more
than nine-tenths, have the desire to sit there again, after a
dissolution which may come at any moment. They therefore study political
weather-wisdom, and in varying degrees adapt themselves to the
indications of the sky. It will now be readily perceived how the popular
sentiment in England, so far as it is awake, is not meanly provided with
the ways of making itself respected, whether for the purpose of
displacing and replacing a Ministry, or of constraining it (as sometimes
happens) to alter or reverse its policy sufficiently, at least, to
conjure down the gathering and muttering storm.
It is true, indeed, that every nation is of necessity, to a great
extent, in the condition of the sluggard with regard to public policy;
hard to rouse, harder to keep aroused, sure after a little while to sink
back into his slumber:--
"Pressitque jacentem
Dulcis et alta quies, placidæque simillima morti."
--Æn., vi., 522.
The people have a vast, but an encumbered power; and, in their struggles
with overweening authority, or with property, the excess of force, which
they undoubtedly possess, is more than counterbalanced by the constant
wakefulness of the adversary, by his knowledge of their weakness, and by
his command of opportunity. But this is a fault lying rather in the
conditions of human life than in political institutions. There is no
known mode of making attention and inattention equal in their results.
It is enough to say that in England, when the nation can attend, it can
prevail. So we may say, then, that in the American Union the Federal
Executive is independent for each four years both of the Congress and of
the people. But the British Ministry is largely dependent on the people
whenever the people firmly will it; and is always dependent on the House
of Commons, except of course when it can safely and effectually appeal
to the people.
So far, so good. But if we wish really to understand the manner in which
the Queen's Government over the British Empire is carried on, we must
now prepare to examine into some sharper contrasts than any which our
path has yet brought into view. The power of the American Executive
resides in the person of the actual President, and passes from him to
his successor. His Ministers, grouped around him, are the servants, not
only of his office, but of his mind. The intelligence, which carries on
the Government, has its main seat in him. The responsibility of failures
is understood to fall on him; and it is round his head that success
sheds its halo. The American Government is described truly as a
Government composed of three members, of three powers distinct from one
another. The English Government is likewise so described, not truly, but
conventionally. For in the English Government there has gradually formed
itself a fourth power, entering into and sharing the vitality of each of
the other three, and charged with the business of holding them in
harmony as they march.
This Fourth Power is the Ministry, or more properly the Cabinet. For the
rest of the Ministry is subordinate and ancillary; and, though it
largely shares in many departments the labors of the Cabinet, yet it has
only a secondary and derivative share in the higher responsibilities. No
account of the present British Constitution is worth having which does
not take this Fourth Power largely and carefully into view. And yet it
is not a distinct power, made up of elements unknown to the other three;
any more than a sphere contains elements other than those referable to
the three co-ordinates, which determine the position of every point in
space. The Fourth Power is parasitical to the three others; and lives
upon their life, without any separate existence. One portion of it forms
a part, which may be termed an integral part, of the House of Lords,
another of the House of Commons; and the two conjointly, nestling within
the precinct of Royalty, form the inner Council of the Crown, assuming
the whole of its responsibilities, and in consequence wielding, as a
rule, its powers. The Cabinet is the threefold hinge that connects
together for action the British Constitution of King or Queen, Lords and
Commons. Upon it is concentrated the whole strain of the Government, and
it constitutes from day to day the true centre of gravity for the
working system of the State, although the ultimate superiority of force
resides in the representative chamber.
There is no statute or legal usage of this country which requires that
the Ministers of the Crown should hold seats in the one or the other
House of Parliament. It is perhaps upon this account that, while most of
my countrymen would, as I suppose, declare it to be a becoming and
convenient custom, yet comparatively few are aware how near the seat of
life the observance lies, how closely it is connected with the equipoise
and unity of the social forces. It is rarely departed from, even in an
individual case; never, as far as my knowledge goes, on a wider scale.
From accidental circumstances it happened that I was Secretary of State
between December 1845 and July 1846, without a seat in the House of
Commons. This (which did not pass wholly without challenge) is, I
believe, by much the most notable instance for the last fifty years; and
it is only within the last fifty years that our Constitutional system
has completely settled down. Before the reform of Parliament it was
always easy to find a place for a Minister excluded from his seat; as
Sir Robert Peel for example, ejected from Oxford University, at once
found refuge and repose at Tamworth. I desire to fix attention on the
identification, in this country, of the Minister with the member of a
House of Parliament.
It is, as to the House of Commons, especially, an inseparable and vital
part of our system. The association of the Ministers with the
Parliament, and through the House of Commons with the people, is the
counterpart of their association as Ministers with the Crown and the
prerogative. The decisions that they take are taken under the competing
pressure of a bias this way and a bias that way, and strictly represent
what is termed in mechanics the composition of forces. Upon them, thus
placed, it devolves to provide that the House of Parliament shall
loyally counsel and serve the Crown, and that the Crown shall act
strictly in accordance with its obligations to the nation. I will not
presume to say whether the adoption of the rule in America would or
would not lay the foundation of a great change in the Federal
Constitution; but I am quite sure that the abrogation of it in England
would either alter the form of government, or bring about a crisis.
That it conduces to the personal comfort of Ministers, I will not
undertake to say. The various currents of political and social
influences meet edgeways in their persons, much like the conflicting
tides in St. George's Channel or the Straits of Dover; for, while they
are the ultimate regulators of the relations between the Crown on the
one side, and the people through the Houses of Parliament on the other,
they have no authority vested in them to coerce or censure either way.
Their attitude toward the Houses must always be that of deference; their
language that of respect, if not submission. Still more must their
attitude and language toward the Sovereign be the same in principle, and
yet more marked in form; and this, though upon them lies the ultimate
responsibility of deciding what shall be done in the Crown's name in
every branch of administration, and every department of policy, coupled
only with the alternative of ceasing to be Ministers, if what they may
advisedly deem the requisite power of action be denied them.
In the ordinary administration of the government, the Sovereign
personally is, so to speak, behind the scenes; performing, indeed, many
personal acts by the Sign-manual, or otherwise, but, in each and all of
them, covered by the counter-signature or advice of Ministers, who stand
between the august Personage and the people. There is, accordingly, no
more power, under the form of our Constitution, to assail the Monarch in
his personal capacity, or to assail through him, the line of succession
to the Crown, than there is at chess to put the king in check. In truth,
a good deal, though by no means the whole, of the philosophy of the
British Constitution is represented in this central point of the
wonderful game, against which the only reproach--the reproach of Lord
Bacon--is that it is hardly a relaxation, but rather a serious tax upon
the brain.
The Sovereign in England is the symbol of the nation's unity, and the
apex of the social structure; the maker (with advice) of the laws; the
supreme governor of the Church; the fountain of justice; the sole source
of honor; the person to whom all military, all naval, all civil service
is rendered. The Sovereign owns very large properties; receives and
holds, in law, the entire revenue of the State; appoints and dismisses
Ministers; makes treaties; pardons crime, or abates its punishment;
wages war, or concludes peace; summons and dissolves the Parliament;
exercises these vast powers for the most part without any specified
restraint of law; and yet enjoys, in regard to these and every other
function, an absolute immunity from consequences. There is no provision
in the law of the United Empire, or in the machinery of the
Constitution, for calling the Sovereign to account; and only in one
solitary and improbable, but perfectly defined, case--that of his
submitting to the jurisdiction of the Pope--is he deprived by Statute of
the Throne. Setting aside that peculiar exception, the offspring of a
necessity still freshly felt when it was made, the Constitution might
seem to be founded on the belief of a real infallibility in its head.
Less, at any rate, cannot be said than this. Regal right has, since the
Revolution of 1688, been expressly founded upon contract; and the breach
of that contract destroys the title to the allegiance of the subject.
But no provision, other than the general rule of hereditary succession,
is made to meet either this case, or any other form of political
miscarriage or misdeed. It seems as though the Genius of the Nation
would not stain its lips by so much as the mere utterance of such a
word; nor can we put this state of facts into language more justly than
by saying that the Constitution would regard the default of the Monarch,
with his heirs, as the chaos of the State, and would simply trust to the
inherent energies of the several orders of society for its legal
reconstruction.
The original authorship of the representative system is commonly
accorded to the English race. More clear and indisputable is its title
to the great political discovery of Constitutional Kingship. And a very
great discovery it is. Whether it is destined, in any future day, to
minister in its integrity to the needs of the New World, it may be hard
to say. In that important branch of its utility which is negative, it
completely serves the purposes of the many strong and rising Colonies of
Great Britain, and saves them all the perplexities and perils attendant
upon successions to the headship of the Executive. It presents to them,
as it does to us, the symbol of unity, and the object of all our
political veneration, which we love to find rather in a person, than in
an abstract entity, like the State. But the Old World, at any rate,
still is, and may long continue, to constitute the living centre of
civilization, and to hold the primacy of the race; and of this great
society the several members approximate, in a rapidly extending series,
to the practice and idea of Constitutional Kingship. The chief States of
Christendom, with only two exceptions, have, with more or less
distinctness, adopted it. Many of them, both great and small, have
thoroughly assimilated it to their system. The autocracy of Russia, and
the Republic of France, each of them congenial to the present wants of
the respective countries, may yet, hereafter, gravitate toward the
principle, which elsewhere has developed so large an attractive power.
Should the current, that has prevailed through the last half-century,
maintain its direction and its strength, another fifty years may see all
Europe adhering to the theory and practice of this beneficent
institution, and peaceably sailing in the wake of England.
No doubt, if tried by an ideal standard, it is open to criticism.
Aristotle and Plato, nay, Bacon, and perhaps Leibnitz, would have
scouted it as a scientific abortion. Some men would draw disparaging
comparisons between the mediæval and the modern King. In the person of
the first was normally embodied the force paramount over all others in
the country, and on him was laid a weight of responsibility and toil so
tremendous, that his function seems always to border upon the
superhuman; that his life commonly wore out before the natural term; and
that an indescribable majesty, dignity, and interest surround him in his
misfortunes, nay, almost in his degradation; as, for instance, amidst
"The shrieks of death, through Berkeley's roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing King."[12]
For this concentration of power, toil, and liability, milder realities
have now been substituted; and Ministerial responsibility comes between
the Monarch and every public trial and necessity, like armor between the
flesh and the spear that would seek to pierce it; only this is an armor
itself also fleshy, at once living and impregnable. It may be said, by
an adverse critic, that the Constitutional Monarch is only a depository
of power, as an armory is a depository of arms; but that those who wield
the arms, and those alone, constitute the true governing authority. And
no doubt this is so far true, that the scheme aims at associating in the
work of government with the head of the State the persons best adapted
to meet the wants and wishes of the people, under the conditions that
the several aspects of supreme power shall be severally allotted;
dignity and visible authority shall lie wholly with the wearer of the
crown, but labor mainly, and responsibility wholly, with its servants.
From hence, without doubt, it follows that should differences arise, it
is the will of those in whose minds the work of government is
elaborated, that in the last resort must prevail. From mere labor, power
may be severed; but not from labor joined with responsibility. This
capital and vital consequence flows out of the principle that the
political action of the Monarch shall everywhere be mediate and
conditional upon the concurrence of confidential advisers. It is
impossible to reconcile any, even the smallest, abatement of this
doctrine, with the perfect, absolute immunity of the Sovereign from
consequences. There can be in England no disloyalty more gross, as to
its effects, than the superstition which affects to assign to the
Sovereign a separate, and so far as separate, transcendental sphere of
political action. Anonymous servility has, indeed, in these last days,
hinted such a doctrine[13]; but it is no more practicable to make it
thrive in England, than to rear the jungles of Bengal on Salisbury
Plain.