commands can never be accepted as a defence either in law or in policy. If Lord North be justly blamed for his execution, in submission to the King, of a policy which he knew to be wrong, the censure which attaches to him would not be diminished if the author of that policy had been not the King but the House of Commons. The best mode of checking improper commands is to prevent their execution; and this object is effected in our system by the difficulty of finding a ministry which will incur the responsibility of obedience. We thus arrive at a further check. Since the Queen's Government must be carried on, those persons who have overthrown one Administration must be prepared to provide a substitute. From the nature of the case they must in doing so be subject to unsparing criticism. Thus, if the ministry be responsible, an equal responsibility rests with the Opposition. They oppose, knowing that they are liable to be required to substantiate their statements. They cannot merely harass or displace their opponents. They must take those opponents' places, and give practical effect to their doctrines. Thus, as the hope of acquiring office reduces the bitterness of opposition, so the fear of a compulsory acceptance limits its extravagance. "Those," says Earl Grey,* "who have watched the proceedings of Parliament, cannot be ignorant how many unwise votes have been prevented by a dread of the resignation of ministers, and that the most effective check on factious conduct on the part of the Opposition is the fear entertained by its leaders of driving the Government to resign on a question upon which, if they themselves should succeed to power, they would find insuperable difficulties in acting differently from their predecessors." *Parl. Govt., 93. § 3. The bicameral system, it has been observed,* accompanies the Anglican race like the Common Law. Not only do the Peers of the present day The bicameral securely fill the places of the Mowbrays and the system. Bohuns, the Mortimers and the De Veres; but in every community to which our mighty mother of men has given birth the institution of the two chambers is religiously preserved. When the backwoodsmen of Oregon met to repair the continued neglect of Congress, and to establish some form of Government for themselves, they at once adopted the principle of the two Houses. Even the freed Africans brought the same principles to Liberia. In the Congress of the United States, in the Congress, while it lasted, of the Confederate States, in every state Legislature North or South, on the Atlantic, or in the far West, in every British colony which has attained to the dignity of local self-government from the St. Lawrence to the Murray, the same political organs are reproduced. The true cause of this remarkable uniformity lies deep in the original character of Anglican liberty. That liberty is essentially different from that "unity of power" to which Rome and the nations derived from Rome aspire. It implies safe guarantees of undisturbed legitimate action and efficient checks against undue interference. where the whole power of the state rests undivided and unmodified, whether in an individual, or in a body of men, or in the whole community, there is not liberty but absolutism. The true merit, then, of the bicameral system is that by dividing a power that would otherwise have been beyond control it secures an essential guarantee for freedom. § § See Guizot, Hist. of Rep. Govt., 443; Mill, Rep. Govt., 233. But Where there are two assemblies differently constituted, each naturally serves as a restraint upon the other. The same passions, the same interests, and the same personal influences will often possess a very different degree of weight in the respective Houses. There arises, too, an emulation of character and of talents.* Even the jealousy of one body is a safeguard against the usurpations of the other. There are other incidental advantages in this division, such as the greater opportunity for ample and deliberate discussion and the greater security against surprise or any similar stratagem. But these objects can be attained, if not so fully at least sufficiently, in a single House by the aid of proper rules of procedure. It is very doubtful whether the advantage in this respect of the two Houses would outweigh its disadvantages. For this system, like all other things, has its characteristic inconveniences. It enables a minority to defeat a majority. It often delays and sometimes altogether prevents useful reforms. It leads to conflicting claims and jealous rivalries. At best it involves double trouble and loss of time. These inconveniences are the price we pay for the security of our freedom. It is better that we should submit to a slower and less energetic political action than that we should establish absolute and irresistible authority. In this view we can understand both why there is a duality, and why there is not a plurality, of chambers. Two chambers are found to be sufficient to attain the desired purpose. A greater number would only increase the cost without improving the result. The division of power must be secured even at some cost of efficiency; but the amount of this cost should be reduced to its least possible limits. The main cause of the success of this system in England *See Bentham's Works, ii. 308. is doubtless its historical development. The House of Peers was not made, but it grew. It waxed as the nation waxed; and people were from time immemorial accustomed to see the territorial grandees in what seemed their natural position. In this way not a few of the associations and sympathies which once attached to the great Feudal Lords still linger around their less romantic representatives. Thus both the force of custom, and the traditions of ancient greatness, and a general though perhaps vague sense of present utility, combine to secure the position of the House of Lords. But this House is of purely English growth. It has no analogue in the political system of continental Europe. It has been, indeed, transplanted thither; but it refuses to thrive out of its native soil. Even in the colonies the second chamber has never attained the dignity of its great original. There is, perhaps, no more difficult question in practical politics, or one towards the solution of which the political thinker can give less help, than that of forming in a new country an Upper House. The reason probably is that its constitution must be in a great degree determined by the circumstances of each community. Lex et Parliamenti. § 4. The utility of Parliament depends upon the freedom of its action and the genuine expression of its will. But that freedom and that expression depend upon the mode of proceeding by which its will is Consuetudo ascertained and its action determined. The law and custom of Parliament therefore form an essential part of our political system. Unattractive and even trifling as it may at first sight appear, the code of rules which, under this title, has been spontaneously evolved is, both in its origin and its immediate and remote results, one of the most striking phenomena in our polity. It is peculiar to Every member is opinion on every the Anglican race. It has silently been developed to a degree of almost absolute perfection. It has become in other countries the model for the practice of legislative assemblies. It has proved at home an efficient instrument of public instruction for the transaction of the business of public meetings. There is no slight advantage in securing that the public business shall be transacted decently and in due order. But this is the least of the services of Parliamentary law. The minority is protected, and the violence or the improvidence of the majority is restrained. Every individual member and the public at large alike find in this system their appropriate security. enabled to express fully and freely his subject with which the House has to deal. There is no room for stratagem; there is no stifling of debate. The utmost latitude of discussion is ensured; but, after free deliberation, the action of the majority is unimpeded. At the same time that the rights of the minority are thus protected, full consideration is secured for each measure. No important step can be taken heedlessly or upon a sudden impulse. No House of Commons could, in a fit of enthusiasm, sacrifice upon the altar of their country in a single evening their own rights and those of their constituents. It could not, like the Constituent Assembly on the famous night of the Fourth of August, abolish by acclamation the whole social structure of the country. Those rigid rules have often a very sobering effect. They give time for the fits of excitement that are incident to large assemblies to subside or to pass away. They cannot, indeed, exclude errors, but they fix the limit of error. Our deliberate judgment may be wrong, but we can hardly be guilty of rashness or improvidence. We are now so familiar with the exercise of the Lex et Consuetudo Parliamenti that we fail to recognize its real |