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to have been able sometimes to stretch his power so far, as to 

 refuse some amendments altogether. The resolutions to be 

 carried were often made up of a variety of matters, nor was it 

 an unknown trick at Rome to tack on unpleasant resolutions 

 to others of a more aggreeable character. In such cases there 

 sometimes was a cry of '^ divide" from one or more senators, 

 urging the president to divide the question into its component 

 parts and put them separately to the vote. The president, 

 however, was not compelled to comply with this request unless 

 he thought proper. His position differed very much from that 

 of the speaker in the House of Commons. He was not so 

 much tied by fixed rules, he was a party in the debate, and 

 generally the mover of the resolution, for no individual senator 

 had the right of motion ; — any senator it is true might sug- 

 gest, and ask the president to propose a certain motion, but 

 nobody except the president, or such other magistrates as had 

 the right to call the Senate together, could put a question to 

 the vote. The House of Commons ignores in its constitution 

 the presence of the executive. Members of the Government, 

 it is true, are always present, but not in their official capacity. 

 They are only there as representatives of the people ; they have 

 no control over the debates, no influence on the divisions, 

 adjournments and the regular course of proceedings which 

 they do not share with all the other members. The speaker of 

 the House of Commons is entirely independent of the Govern- 

 ment, bound only by certain well-defined regulations, and in 

 case of doubt, by the decision of the House. The Roman 

 Senate had no independent existence apart from the executive; 

 without stated, regular days of meeting, without a president 

 and officers of its own choice to conduct the debates, without 

 the right of passing resolutions except such as were proposed 

 by the Government, the Senate seemed a passive instrument in 

 the hands of the executive ; and such it would have been, had 

 it not been identified with the executive to such an extent 

 that its support was indispensable; and had the latter not 



