ALABAMA CLAIMS. 45 



If any siniple-niindcd person in the United States 

 happens to oherish those romantic illusions res])ect- 

 inir tlie constitution of Enirland wliich lie may have 

 ac([ulred from i)erusal of the Commentaries of Sir 

 William lilackstone, he has but to turn over the 

 leaves of some volume of Hansard's Debates in Par- 

 liament, or i>eruse authoritative (liscpiisitions on the 

 subject, like those of i\Iay an<l of JJagehot, to discover 

 'that, in knowledge and reading at hast, he has not 

 yet emerged from the mytliical epoch of the political 

 Instory of England. 



Now, the submei'gence of the ])ower of the Crown 

 in Parliament, and of that of Parliament in the House 

 of Commons, and the commitment of all these j)Owcrs 

 to transitory nominees of the House of Commons, are 

 facts which, combined, have produced the result that 

 fjoveniinoU in England is at the mercy of every gust 

 of popular passion, every storm of misdirected public 

 opinion, every devious impulse of demagogic agita- 

 tion, — nothing correspondent to which exists iii. the 

 United States. 



Mr. Gladstone is Prime Minister of Great Britain, 

 — that is to say, of three hundred mdlions of men, ag- 

 gregated into various States of Europe, Africa, Amer- 

 ica, Asia, and Australasia. But he holds all this pow- 

 er at the mce will of a majority of the House of Com- 

 mons. He must consult their wishes and their prej- 

 udices in every act of his political life. If he con- 

 ceives a great idea, he can not make any thing of it 

 until after he shall have driven it into the heads of 

 three or four liundred country gentlemen, which are 



