wide experience of human government and its evils suggested. The last thing which would have recommended itself to their approval would have been tho establishment of an omnipotent Parliament such as cxisted in England, and under which they had been goaded to rebellion. So far from confiding absolute power to a majority, or to any one institution or combination of institutions, they recognised it as existing only in the aggregate of individuals who composed the nation. They put it out of sight, as it were, by surrounding its exercise with every impediment. They framed a national Government, resting on the written consent of the thirteen colonies and any others which might join them, and which in time amounted to thirty-cight. That written consent or constitution has remained from that day to this the source of all the authority possessed by the national Government. The power to change the constitution is outstanding in the hands of the people, and can only be exercised by a majority of two-thirds in Congress; ratified by three-fourths of the States which at any given time compose the Union. Here at once is a permanent guarantee against the tyranny of a chance majority. Such a majority cannot change at any moment the fundamental relations of Covernment to the people. It can do nothing outside the limited scope of the powers allowed to it by the written constitution. The power to alter the constitution, and to increase or lessen the powers which it confides to the Federal or national Government, belongs to the people; but it cannot be exercised, as with us, by a chance majority. Only by an intelligent and strenuous effort, prolonged for years, can the requisite authority be called into existence which

alone has power to effect a fundamental change.

The principle, therefore, of the American arrangements is to eschew omnipotent Parliaments and all their works, to put absolute power out of sight, and to bring into play only so much of actual power as is required for the purposes of government. Even this residue of authority they did not intrust to any one institution or man, but they subdivided it in such a way that its parts can never be collected together at the will of any one man or set of men. They divided it between their executive, their Legislature, and their judiciary, making each one independent of and a check upon the other two, and taking care that in each case it should be strictly limited and in temporary hands. They have no corresponding institution to our Cabinet, composed of the leaders of the majority at the last general election, and wielding the whole executive power of the Crown and the whole legislative authority of Parliament. Concentration of power is the order of the day with us. Subdivision of power is the practice with them. Concentration of power has been in times past the sourco of our strength and the foundation of our empire. But, for the purpose of the prezent comparison, we are drawing attention, not to its advantages or to the necessity for its continuance, but to its risks and insecurities under the present circumstances.

The plan of the American Government is shortly this: the President is the first creation of the constitution. The long war which the colonies had waged served to convince them that they must have a supreme man to represent authority, but they were equally determined that his powers should be limited. He holds office

for four years; a Senate is appointed to control his action in making treaties and appointments; his activity is confined to Federal affairs; he has a small salary, and no power to grant titles of distinction. He, however, represents the nation; he is independent of Congress; he is chosen by a set of presidential electors, specially selected for that purpose by the different States. He is removable only by impeachment. His powers are chiefly that he commands the Federal army and navy; convenes the Houses; remits to Congress any bill which they have passed for reconsideration, in which case Congress cannot pass the bill without a two-thirds majority in both Houses. In making treaties, he must have the consent of twothirds of the senators. He can only appoint ambassadors, consuls, Supreme Court judges, and other high Federal officers, acting concurrently with the Senate. The range of his domestic authority is very small, for the ground is mostly covered by the States Governments. In war his authority expands, for he can assume the authority which the emergency requires. As regards legislation, he is not a member of the Legislature at all. He cannot introduce bills, either through himself or his ministers, for they are not members of either House. He can send messages recommending measures; but members go their own way, and propose such bills as they think fit. His legislative authority is simply that he has a limited veto-a veto subject to be overruled by a two-thirds majority. It is a curious circumstance, totally dissimilar from anything we have in England, that a President gains popularity by a liberal use of his veto. The two Houses are the creatures of election, and so is the

President. The latter is approved for checking the hasty and heedless proceedings of the former. No jealousy arises, for both processes are authorised by the people. An English sovereign is not allowed to exercise the veto which all agree that he possesses; some hasty politicians are in favour of abolishing the limited and temporary check imposed by a second chamber. In America, when both Houses have passed a bill, the President is expected to exercise his own judgment, and commands public confidence by an independent and even liberal use of his veto. On the other hand, Congress can always checkmate the President's executive authority by stopping the supplies. President and Congress must therefore more or less act in harmony, but their duties are nevertheless to watch and control each other. The President, however, is not responsible to Congress, nor the Congress to him; both are responsible to the people. If they differ in policy, they may be reduced to inactivity for the short term of their joint existence, but they cannot terminate the connection between them. The Congress cannot affect the President by votes of censure or otherwise, or by any means short of stopping the supplies. The President's ministers are responsible to him, and own no allegiance whatever to Congress.

It is obvious, at a glance, how such a system as this weakens or nullifies the power of a chance majority. The essence of it is the subdivision, limitation, and short duration of power. The essence of the English system is the concentration of power. aim of the Americans is to conserve their constitution. The aim of English politicians is to wield the concentrated power which

The

ernment. The President and Congress, accordingly, are two distinct powers acting as a check upon the other. A short account of their relations to each other will show how little private rights and lib. erty have to fear from their domination.

Congress consists of two Houses: the Senate, consisting of two persons from every State, selected for six years by the State Legislature; and the House of Representatives, representing the nation on the basis of population-one member, say, to every 150,000 inhabitants. The Senate passes bills in conjunction with the Lower House, and those bills become law on the assent of the President, or in spite of him if passed by two-thirds majorities. It has executive functions concurrently with the President 'in matters of appointments and treaties. Judicially it sits for the trial of impeachments preferred by the other House. It constitutes a link between the State. Governments and the national Government. It is not changed all at once, to be replaced by an entirely new Senate, but undergoes a process of gradual change and renewal. The object or result has been to preserve its continuity and experience, and enable it to check, by the superiority thence resulting, the ambition or inexperience of a President or the recklessness of the House. The Senate generally contains the ablest and foremost men in the country, who acquire during their six years of office considerable knowledge of affairs and experience in conducting them. It is the steadying and moderating power in the American constitutional system.

The House of Representatives is elected by the populations of each State, in the exercise of the

same electoral franchise which qualifies them to vote for the lower branch of this State Legislature, and which is regulated in each State by State legislation. In neither House are there any Government bills. They are all brought in by private members, for there are no official members. Their excellence depends chiefly on the wisdom of their introducers. When introduced they are referred to committees. About five per

cent of an enormous total of 12,000 bills gets passed, and of this small percentage the President's veto kills off a good many. Collisions between the two Houses are pretty frequent, and their merits are usually referred to committees of conference.

The working of this elaborate system of checks, limitations, and reserves will have to be studied from the point of view of English Conservative feeling. America is the country of equality and liberty, England is the country of classes and empire. The former country has taken every conceivable precaution against the tyranny of a majority. The latter has placed itself in a position in which it is exposed to serious risk in case of a general election at an unguarded moment, when power might be suddenly vested in hands which are not trustworthy, but which would find every facility for exerting it as it pleased.

Mr Bryce sums up his description in the following terms (vol. i. p. 407):

"All the main features of American government may be deduced from two principles. One is the sovereignty of the people, which expresses itself in the fact that the supreme law-the constitution-is the direct utterance of their will; that they alone can amend it; that it prevails against every other law; that whatever powers it does not

delegate are deemed to be reserved to it; that every power in the State draws its authority, whether directly like the House of Representatives, or in the second degree like the President and Senate, or in the third degree like the Federal judiciary, from the people, and is legally responsible to the people and not to any one of the other powers. The second principle, itself a consequence of this first one, is the distrust of the various organs

and agents of Government. States are

The

carefully safeguarded against aggression by the central Government. So are the individual citizens. Each organ of Government-the executive, the legislative, the judiciary -is made a jealous observer and restrainer of the others."

The agents of the people are trusted as little as possible; each agent is subjected to the oversight of other agents, who will harass and check him if he attempts to overstèp his instructions.

The way to understand, in contrast to the American system, the enormous power which can now be wielded in England by a chance majority of electors, or will hereafter be wielded as soon as the perfection of the caucus system has destroyed the last vestiges of the independence of members, is to fix the attention upon the one dominant characteristic of the British constitution-the absolute omnipotence of Parliament. There are no limitations whatever to its power. No authority exists which can impose limitations. There is no process by which any one Parliament can, in the smallest particular, limit the absolute freedom and power of action of any succeeding Parliament. Even Acts which, like the Acts of Union with Scotland and Ireland, were founded on what were practically treaties between two nations, and were evidently intended to be perpetual, cannot be guarded from change, and have not, in fact, escaped it.

The Irish Act of Union was palpably violated in 1869 by the Act disestablishing the Irish Church, but no one has ever dreamed of questioning the validity of the legislation of 1869 on that ground: The Long Parliament of 1641 declared itself perpetual in disregard of the electors;-in 1716 a Parliament elected under a Triennial Act prolonged its own existence and that of all its successors to seven years, regardless of the electors; and it is impossible, in the face of those instances, to say that the constitutional or legal authority of any single Parliament is limited by its being either a trustee for, or agent or delegate of, the constituent body. Then what cannot Parliament do with private rights? It is just as omnipotent in regard to them as it is with regard to the distribution of power.

Men have been sent to the scaffold by Acts of Attainder. It may confiscate private property, as every Irish landlord knows to his cost in quite recent times. It can grant privileges, impose duties, confer rights, relieve from legal liabilities, alter rights under private contract, alter personal status by divorce or declaration of illegiti macy, and abolish or restrict rights of property. Whatever it enacts must at once be carried into effect by decrees of courts of law; whatever courts of law decree must at once be carried into effect by the executive power. Over this despotic engine of government there is no control at all except that of public opinion; that which arises from the fear of resistance; and that which arises from the internal difficulty of setting it in motion

that is, getting an Act passed. Practically, the knowledge of every member of the most powerful House that he will have sooner or later to account to his constituents, has acted as a restraining force.