90 TRANSACTIONS. 19OI-2 



Anglo-Saxon epoch. From that time forward Lincoln's 

 famous characterization of true popular sovereignty : "Gov- 

 ernment of the people, by the people, for the people," is 

 practically, although not theoretically, as applicable to the 

 body-politic of modern England as it is to that of the United 

 States of America. 



Now, with all deference to the contrary opinion of some 

 great political thinkers, I would submit with some confidence 

 that the Revolution of 1688 did not, as they maintain, 

 witness a delegation by the People to the House of Commons 

 "of the supreme power of the State" (i). It is true that, as a 

 result of the Revolution, the executive power of the Crown, 

 as I have before pointed out, has become vested in the 

 Cabinet, but that is not the supreme power. The present 

 position of the Cabinet was never better described than in 

 the querulous remark of George II : — "Ministers are the King 

 in this Country" (2). As the King lacked the ultimate 

 sovereignty of the realm so do the Ministers lack it now. It 

 is Parliament, in its three parts, that wields the supreme 

 power in the State, by the delegation and authorization of the 

 people, impliedly given or granted. Never has this great 

 constitutional truth been more correctly stated than by Sir 

 Thomas Smith in his Commomvealih of England [^^'^uhlishe.d 

 a century before the Revolution : 



The most high and absolute power of the reahn of Eugland coiisisteth in the Parlia- 

 ment. All that ever the people of Rome might do either Certfuriafis, Comitiisor Tributis, 

 the same may he done by the Parliament of England. For every Englishman is in- 

 tended to be there present either in person or by procuration and attorney, of what 

 pre-eminence, state, dignity or quality soever ho be, from the prince (be he Kinsc or 

 Queen) to the lowest person of England. And the consent of the Parliament is taken 

 to he every man's consent. 



And I may say, by the way, that in the theory that every 

 man is present in Parliament, either in person or by represent- 

 ative, lies the reason of that apparently hard maxim : 

 "Ignorance of the law excuses no one "; in other words, that 



(1) Cf. J. R. Green's Short Hist, of the Eng People, p. 680- 



(2) See Lord Mahon's Hist, of Eng. iii, 280. 



(3) Book ii, cap. 2. 



