n unchallenged for all time.

_I.---The Cabinet_

No one can approach to an understanding of English institutions unless
he divides them into two classes. In such constitutions there are two
parts. First, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the
population, the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and, next, the
efficient parts, those by which it, in fact, works and rules. Every
constitution must first win the loyalty and confidence of mankind, and
then employ that homage in the work of government.

The dignified parts of government are those which bring it force, which
attracts its motive power. The efficient parts only employ that power.
If all subjects of the same government only thought of what was useful
to them, the efficient members of the constitution would suffice, and no
impressive adjuncts would be needed. But it is not true that even the
lower classes will be absorbed in the useful. The ruder sort of men will
sacrifice all they hope for, all they have, themselves, for what is
called an idea. The elements which excite the most easy reverence will
be not the most useful, but the theatrical. It is the characteristic
merit of the English constitution that its dignified parts are imposing
and venerable, while its efficient part is simple and rather modern.

The efficient secret of the English constitution is the nearly complete
fusion of the executive and legislative powers. The connecting link is
the cabinet. This is a committee of the legislative body, in choosing
which indirectly but not directly the legislature is nearly omnipotent.
The prime minister is chosen by the House of Commons, and is the head of
the efficient part of the constitution. The queen is only at the head of
its dignified part. The Prime Minister himself has to choose his
associates, but can only do so out of a charmed circle.

The cabinet is an absolutely secret committee, which can dissolve the
assembly which appointed it. It is an executive which is at once the
nominee of the legislature, and can annihilate the legislature. The
system stands in precise contrast to the presidential system, in which
the legislative and executive powers are entirely independent.

A good parliament is a capital choosing body; it is an electoral college
of the picked men of the nation. But in the American system the
president is chosen by a complicated machinery of caucuses; he is not
the choice of the nation, but of the wirepullers. Th