The Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Constitution, by Walter Bagehot

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Title: The English Constitution

Author: Walter Bagehot

Posting Date: August 11, 2009 [EBook #4351]
Release Date: August, 2003
First Posted: January 14, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

By

Walter Bagehot

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.
II. THE CABINET.
III. THE MONARCHY.
IV. THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
V. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
VI. ON CHANGES OF MINISTRY.
VII. ITS SUPPOSED CHECKS AND BALANCES.
VIII. THE PREREQUISITES OF CABINET GOVERNMENT, AND THE PECULIAR
FORM WHICH THEY HAVE ASSUMED IN ENGLAND.
IX. ITS HISTORY, AND THE EFFECTS OF THAT HISTORY.--CONCLUSION.

NO. I.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.

There is a great difficulty in the way of a writer who attempts to
sketch a living Constitution--a Constitution that is in actual work and
power. The difficulty is that the object is in constant change. An
historical writer does not feel this difficulty: he deals only with the
past; he can say definitely, the Constitution worked in such and such a
manner in the year at which he begins, and in a manner in such and such
respects different in the year at which he ends; he begins with a
definite point of time and ends with one also. But a contemporary
writer who tries to paint what is before him is puzzled and a
perplexed: what he sees is changing daily. He must paint it as it stood
at some one time, or else he will be putting side by side in his
representations things which never were contemporaneous in reality. The
difficulty is the greater because a writer who deals with a living
Government naturally compares it with the most important other living
Governments, and these are changing too; what he illustrates are
altered in one way, and his sources of illustration are altered
probably in a different way. This difficulty has been cons