ALABAMA CLAIMS. AD5 
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 mythical 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 which 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 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 hundred country gentlemen, which are 
