Commons in the eighteenth century was composed of members elected (p. 037)
in the counties and boroughs upon a severely restricted franchise or
appointed outright by closed corporations or by individual magnates,
and it remained for Parliament during the nineteenth century, by a
series of memorable statutes, to extend the franchise successively to
groups of people hitherto politically powerless, to reapportion
parliamentary seats so that political influence might be distributed
with some fairness among the voters, and to regulate the conditions
under which campaigns should be carried on, elections conducted, and
other operations of popular government undertaken. Of principal
importance among the enactments by which these things were
accomplished are the Reform Act of 1832, the Representation of the
People Act of 1867, the Ballot Act of 1872, the Corrupt and Illegal
Practices Act of 1883, the Representation of the People Act of 1884,
and the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885. The nature of these
measures will be explained subsequently.[39]

[Footnote 39: See pp. 80-86.]

II. RISE OF THE CABINET AND OF POLITICAL PARTIES

*36. Cabinet Origins.*--In the third place, the period under review is
important by reason of the development within it of the most
remarkable feature of the English constitutional system to-day,
namely, the cabinet. The creation of the cabinet was a gradual
process, and both the process and the product are utterly unknown to
the letter of English law. It is customary to regard as the immediate
antecedent of the cabinet the so-called "cabal" of Charles II., i.e.,
the irregular group of persons whom that sovereign selected from the
Privy Council and took advice from informally in lieu of the Council
itself. In point of fact, by reason principally of the growing
unwieldiness of the Privy Council, the practice of deferring for
advice to a specially constituted committee, or inner circle, of the
body far antedated Charles II. By some it has been traced to a period
as remote as the reign of Henry III., and it is known that not only
the thing itself, but also the name "cabinet council," existed under
Charles I. The essential justification of the creation of the cabinet
was stated by Charles II. in 1679 in the declaration that "the great
number of the Council has made it unfit for the secrecy and despatch
that are necessary in many great affairs." The growing authority of
the select