ALABAMA CLAIMS. 45 



If any simple-minded person in the United States 

 happens to cherish those romantic illusions respect- 

 ing the constitution of England which he may have 

 acquired from perusal of the Commentaries of Sir 

 William Blackstone, he has but to turn over the 

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

 liament, or peruse authoritative disquisitions on the 

 subject, like those of May and of Bagehot, to discover 

 that, in knowledge and reading at least, he has not 

 yet emerged from the mytliical epoch of the political 

 history of England. 



Now, the submergence of the power of the Crown 

 in Parliament, and of that of Parliament in the House 

 of Commons, and the commitment of all these powers 

 to transitory nominees of the House of Commons, are 

 facts which, combined, have produced the result that 

 government 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 Avhich exists in the 

 United States. 



Mr. Gladstone is Prime Minister of Great Britain, 

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

 gregated into various States of Europe, Africa, Amer- 

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

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

 mons. He must consult their wishes and their j^rej- 

 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 hundred country gentlemen, which are 



