House of Commons of Great Britain

“ The Queen would have been quite prepared to give the proposition of the Speaker "that the leadership of the House of Commons was so laborious, that an Office without other duties ought to be assigned to it," her fullest and fairest consideration, upon its merits and its constitutional bearings, which ought to have been distinctly set forth before her by her constitutional advisers for her final and unfettered decision. ”

“ When the Lords do anything inconsistent with the asserted privileges of the House of Commons, as, for instance, inserting a taxing Clause in a Bill sent up to them, or making an alteration in a Money Bill sent up to them, the House of Commons is necessarily invited to do something afterwards in the matter, by assenting to what has been done by the Lords ”

“ He ownedTHE LEADERSHIP that his Party was the most compact—mustering about two hundred and eighty men—but he had no men capable of governing the House of Commons, and he should not be able to present an Administration that would be accepted by the country unless it was strengthened by other combinations ”

“ With a great number of Americans, that have not visited England, there is in some way or another an abiding impression that the House of Commons is the most stately and dignified legislative body in the world. ”

“ The feeling of the House of Commons, probably in this representing faithfully that of the country, is against both the violent parties in the Church, and in favour of a firm, though temperate, course on the part of the Crown, which may conciliate a vast majority, and tend to terminate dissension. ”

“ To me the House of Commons is always a delightful place. I offer it the uncompromising admiration that young poets lay at the feet of their mistresses; I feel for it the affection that a friend feels for a friend. But I do not wish it to be supposed, because I say all this, that I am convinced that I have in me the makings of a great statesman, or, indeed, that my presence at Westminster is in any serious degree indispensable to the safety of the commonweal. ”

“ The old principle of the English constitution, which had worked itself into existence, or grown up from the necessities of men, during a long course of years, was, that the whole interests of the state should be represented, and that the House of Commons was the assembly in which the representatives of all those varied interests were to be found. ”

“ One hundred fifty commissioners were to compose the court—peers, members of the Commons, aldermen of London. The ordinance was sent to the Upper House and was rejected. On the 6th a fresh ordinance, declaring that the people being, after God, the source of all just power, the representatives of the people are the supreme power in the nation; and that whatsoever is enacted or declared for law by the Commons in Parliament hath the force of a law, and the people are concluded thereby, though the consent of king or peers be not had thereto. ”

“ The House of Lords was dissolved, and all the best members excluded from the House of Commons. By "pretended ordinances" of parliament, all those worthy citizens who, according to their allegiance and covenant, had engaged to procure and secure a personal treaty with the king, were rendered incapable to be elected into the Common Council or any other office of trust in the city. ”

“ In France, the parliament soon became a mere engine in the hands of a few high-born and ambitious men, who had nothing in common with its interests, which were those of the people. In England, the House of Commons was a powerful body, sufficing to itself, and whose members had common cause in the privileges for which they contended. ”