, the Crown, the Peers, and the Commons acting together--is absolutely
supreme, has never been doubted. Here constitutional theory and
constitutional practice are for once at one. Hence, it has been well
said by the acutest of foreign critics that the merit of the English
constitution is that it is no constitution at all. The distinction
between fundamental articles of the constitution and laws, between
statutes which can only be touched (if at all) by a constituent
assembly, and statutes which can be repealed by an ordinary
Parliament--the whole apparatus, in short, of artificial
constitutionalism--is utterly unknown to Englishmen. Thus freedom has in
England been found compatible at crises of danger with an energy of
action generally supposed to be peculiar to despotism. The source of
strength is, in fact, in each case the same. The sovereignty of
Parliament is like the sovereignty of the Czar. It is like all
sovereignty at bottom, nothing else but unlimited power; and, unlike
some other forms of sovereignty, can be at once put in force by the
ordinary means of law. This is the one great advantage of our
constitution over that of the United States. In America, every ordinary
authority throughout the Union is hampered by constitutional
restrictions; legislation must be slow, because the change of any
constitutional rule is impeded by endless difficulties. The vigour which
is wanting to Congress, is indeed to a certain extent to be found in the
extensive executive power left in the hands of the President; but it
takes little acuteness to perceive that in point of pliability, power of
development, freedom of action, English constitutionalism far excels
the Federalism of the United States. Nor is it less obvious that the
very qualities in which the English constitution excels that of the
United States are essential to the maintenance by England of the British
Empire. Home Rulers, whether they know it or not, touch the mainspring
of the British constitution. For from the moment that Great Britain
becomes part of a federation, the omnipotence of Parliament is gone. The
Federal Congress might be called by the name of the Imperial Parliament.
It might possibly be made up of the same elements, be elected by the
same electors, and even in the main consist of the very same persons as
the existing Parliament of the United Kingdom; but its nature would be
changed, and its power would be limited on all sides. It might deal with
Impe