Parlement

“ Both senators and deputies receive 20 leǐ for each day of actual attendance, and travel free on the railways. The king may temporarily veto any measure passed by parliament. Executive power is vested in a council under the presidency of a prime minister, and representing the ministers of foreign affairs; justice; the interior; religion and education; war; finance; agriculture, trade, industry and public domains; and public works. Entire liberty of speech, assembly and the press is guaranteed by the constitution, by which also the titles and privileges of the boiars or nobles were abolished. ”

“ The House of Commons is the house of a few; the Sovereign is the sovereign of all. The proper leader of the people is the individual who sits upon the throne.’
‘Then you abjure the Representative principle?’
‘Why so? Representation is not necessarily, or even in a principal sense, Parliamentary. Parliament is not sitting at this moment, and yet the nation is represented in its highest as well as in its most minute interests. Not a grievance escapes notice and redress. ”

“ The man who is capable of writing, in cool blood, that our interest lies in an absolute subjection to parliament, is capable of writing or saying any thing for the sake of his pension. A legislature that has so often discovered a want of information concerning us and our country; a legislature interested to lay burdens upon us; a legislature, two branches of which, I mean the lords and commons, neither love nor fear us! ”

“ The received doctrine as to the relations of the two Houses of Parliament to one another, the whole theory of the position of the body known as the Cabinet and of its chief the Prime Minister, every detail in short of the practical working of government among us, is a matter belonging wholly to the unwritten Constitution and not at all to the written Law. ”

“ Consider how the three main functions of Parliament are performed—legislation, finance, and the control of administration. The discussion of legislation by the whole House has been made to seem futile by the crack of the party whip, by obstruction, and by the weapons designed to deal with obstruction—the closure, the guillotine, the kangaroo. A real amendment has been brought about in this sphere by the establishment of a system of committees to which legislative proposals of various kinds are referred, and this is one of the most hopeful features of recent development. ”

“ The power of parliament is so great and extensive, that it makes, amends, reduces, revives, and abrogates laws, statutes, 111and ordinances, concerning matters ecclesiastical, civil, and military. None can begin, continue, or dissolve this council, but by the King’s authority. ”

“ Thus has the nation been taught to expect, that the counsels of the cabinet should be dispersed in the publick papers; that their governours should declare the motives of their measures, and discover the demands of our allies, and the scheme of our policy; and that the people should be consulted upon every emergence, and enjoy the right of instructing not only their own representatives, but the ministers of the crown. ”

“ The legislative, executive, and judicial powers are organs of the national sovereignty, harmonious and independent among themselves. Article 16. The legislative power is vested in the national Congress, with the sanction of the President of the Republic. § 1. The national Congress is composed of two branches, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. § 2. The elections for senators and for deputies shall be held simultaneously throughout the country. § 3. No person shall be senator and deputy at the same time. ”

“ As a natural consequence of the position thus taken by the nation as the supreme power in the State, Parliament, its representative, became in its turn supreme, and although the change was not yet fully understood, the representatives of the people were gradually taking to themselves not only the duties of legislation, but also the executive. ”

“ Here are provisions determining the main features of the Government, the distribution of powers in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial departments, and the manner in which they shall be respectively constituted,—securing to the President, with the consent of the Senate, the appointment of Governor, Secretary, and Judges, and to the people only the election of the Legislature,—and even ordaining the qualifications of voters, the salaries of the public officers, and the daily compensation of the members of the Legislature. ”

“ In this Passage the Two Times a Year seem to be Stationary; the Calling a Parliament Oftner than Two Times a Year if need were, is plainly intended for Contingencies of State, and when the Ardua Regni, or Extraordinary Affairs of the Nation require an Extraordinary Parliament. I say, and will make out to all the World, by Laws and Declarations of Parliament, that the King has a Power of calling Parliaments within the Law; But I never did, nor never will say to the end of my Life, that the King can hinder Parliaments Appointed by Law. ”

“ Similarly, we may describe the office of a Parliament as that of averaging the interests of the various classes in a community; and a good Parliament is one in which the parties answering to these respective interests are so balanced, that their united legislation concedes to each class as much as consists with the claims of the rest. 425 Besides being comparable in their duties, these great directive centres, social and individual, are comparable in the processes by which their duties are discharged. ”

“ On the presentation of this report, it was resolved that annual Parliaments are the right of the people, and that "the present state of the representation is inadequate to the object, and a departure from the first principles of the Constitution." ”

“ This critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government The great scene of debate, the great engine of popular instruction and political controversy, is the legislative assembly. A speech there by an eminent statesman, a party movement by a great political combination, are the best means yet known for arousing, enlivening, and teaching a people. The cabinet system ensures such debates, for it makes them the means by which statesmen advertise themselves for future and confirm themselves in present governments. It brings forward men eager to speak, and gives them occasions to speak. ”

“ The principle that the ministry shall constitute the working executive, and that it shall be continually responsible to the lower chamber of Parliament, has been so long observed in practice that it is now regarded as an inflexible law of the constitution. Under these limitations, however, the king approves and promulgates the laws, grants pardons and commutes sentences, declares war, commands all military and naval forces, concludes treaties, issues ordinances, creates senators, and makes appointments to all offices of state. ”

“ When such mistake is evident and palpable, as in the instances in the Appendix, the judges of the executive courts have declared the act "of a whole Parliament void." See here the grandeur of the British constitution! See the wisdom of our ancestors! The supreme legislative and the supreme executive are a perpetual check and balance to each other. If the supreme executive errs it is informed by the supreme legislative in Parliament. If the supreme legislative errs it is informed by the supreme executive in the King's courts of law. ”

“ Like many young men without experience, he believed that Parliament was a great power. If anyone had told him that the art of gerrymandering is greater than the art of governing, he would not have known what his informant meant. ”

“ Parliament has comprised uninterruptedly, aside from the king, the two branches which exist at the present time, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, or, strictly, the Lords of Parliament and the Representatives of the Commons.
The range of jurisdiction which, step by step, these chambers, both separately and conjointly, have acquired has been broadened until, so far as the dominions of the British crown extend, it covers all but the whole of the domain of human government. ”

“ Each of these differences marks a stage in the return to the doctrine of common sense, that, convenient as it is in all ordinary times that Parliament should be summoned by the writ of the Sovereign, yet it is not from that summons, but from the choice of the people, that Parliament derives its real being and its inherent powers. ”

“ Your Legislature is not only supreme in the usual sense of the word, but they have literally, all the powers of society. Can you—can you possibly grant anything new? Have you any power which is not already granted to your General Assembly? ”

“ Let the nation see that all the King’s measures are directed by a Cabinet composed of representatives of every order in the State, by a Cabinet which contains, not placemen alone, but independent 76and popular noblemen and gentlemen who have large estates and no salaries, and who are not likely to sacrifice the public welfare in which they have a deep stake, and the credit which they have obtained with the country, to the pleasure of a Court from which they receive nothing. ”

“ I am fully convinced that the country possesses at the present moment a legislature which answers all the good purpose of legislation, and this to a greater degree than any legislature ever has answered in any country whatever. I will go further, and say, that the legislature and the system of representation possess the full and entire confidence of the country—deservedly possess that confidence—and the discussions in the legislature have a very great influence over the opinions of the country. ”

“ The Parliaments are so altered from their original Constitution, that between the Court and the Country, the House, instead of being united, is like Troops of a contrary Party facing one another, and watching their Advantage.
Even the well-meaning Men who have good Sense too, have their Difficulties in an Assembly; what they offer honestly for a good End, will be skilfully improved for an ill one. ”

“ Absorbed in the daily contests of their Chamber, they over-estimate the importance of those contests. They come to think that Parliament is in fact what it is in theory, a microcosm of the nation, and that opinion inside is sure to reflect the opinion outside. ”

“ Acts of parliament, indeed, on all kinds of subjects were as yet accustomed to be regarded by all degrees of people as little more than a sort of moral declarations or preachments on the part of the legislature—expressions of its sentiments—but scarcely as laws which were compulsory like the older laws of the kingdom. ”

“ The limitless competence of Parliament involves the power to set aside or to modify at any time any Common Law principle or practice, while, on the other hand, no development of the Common Law can repeal an act of Parliament. ”

“ At present, if the Commons decidedly oppose that policy, the Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, either resigns, and a new Cabinet is chosen, or the Minister appeals to the people for support, and the sovereign dissolves Parliament and orders a new parliamentary election, by which the nation decides the question. ”

“ Take any parliamentary country, from America to Switzerland, from France to England, Norway and so forth; the actual work of the State is done behind the scenes and is carried out by the departments, the chancellories and the staffs. Parliament itself is given up to talk for the special purpose of fooling the "common people." ”

“ If there is a constitution in that kingdom, which settles the mode of election, and that constitution is an act of the people, paramount to the power of the Parliament, and unchangeable by them, a convention of the people must be called to make an alteration which would be as well made in Parliament. ”

“ Though the former Description of the General and not the Provincial Folkmote is our present Business. And at the first fight it looks like a Full Parliament, for it consists of the Princes, as well Bishops, as Magistrates, and the Freemen; that is to say, the Chiefs of the whole Nation. And they are employed in Parliament-work, for they Consult of the Common Safety, of Peace, of War, and promoting the Publick Profit. ”

“ The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election: these are wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided. ”

“ The Parliaments, in spite of their inefficiency, have been the necessary champions to move. You will see by the publications—because I have sent you all which have appeared—that the king has raised pretensions, and that the courts of justice are established upon principles so contradictory, that one can scarcely believe that these assertions have been declared in the same country and in the same age. ”

“ The Parliament has its own duty, and if it outrages that duty, the sovereign must do his. He can permit no interference with his judgment and conscience as to the way in which he will discharge the office of Ruler and Protector of his own kingdom. ”