tion of July 4, 1776, think it to be a
self-evident truth that all men are born equal. They hold rather the
reverse of that proposition. At any rate, in practice, they are what I
may call determined inequalitarians; nay, in some cases, even without
knowing it. Their natural tendency, from the very base of British
society, and through all its strongly built gradations, is to look
upward: they are not apt to "untune degree." The Sovereign is the
highest height of the system, is, in that system, like Jupiter among the
Roman gods, first without a second.

"Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum."[14]

Not, like Mont Blanc, with rivals in his neighborhood; but like Ararat
or Etna, towering alone and unapproachable. The step downward from the
King to the second person in the realm is not like that from the second
to the third: it is more even than a stride, for it traverses a gulf. It
is the wisdom of the British Constitution to lodge the personality of
its chief so high, that none shall under any circumstances be tempted to
vie, no, nor dream of vieing, with it. The office, however, is not
confused, though it is associated, with the person; and the elevation of
official dignity in the Monarch of these realms has now for a testing
period worked well, in conjunction with the limitation of merely
personal power.

In the face of the country, the Sovereign and the Ministers are an
absolute unity. The one may concede to the other; but the limit of
concessions by the Sovereign is at the point where he becomes willing to
try the experiment of changing his Government, and the limit of
concessions by the Minister is at the point where they become unwilling
to bear, what in all circumstances they must bear while they remain
Ministers, the undivided responsibility of all that is done in the
Crown's name. But it is not with the Sovereign only that the Ministry
must be welded into identity. It has a relation to sustain to the House
of Lords; which need not, however, be one of entire unity, for the House
of Lords, though a great power in the State, and able to cause great
embarrassment to an Administration, is not able by a vote to doom it to
capital punishment. Only for fifteen years, out of the last fifty, has
the Ministry of the day possessed the confidence of the House of Lords.
On the confidence of the House of Commons it is immediately and vitally
dependent. This confidence it must always possess, either absolutely
from identity