Parliamentarian

“ A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Entering Parliament an elegant young man, scrupulous in his attire, bringing the prestige of his father's popularity and his own repute, standing about five feet ten inches in height, broad-chested, finely moulded, a handsome face, eagle eye, magnificent voice and commanding presence, he could early assume a superiority that all conceded. ”

“ Those, indeed, who are bred up to, and distinguish themselves in particular professions, as the army, the navy, and the law, may, by their own merit, raise themselves to a certain degree; but you may observe too, that they never get to the top, without the assistance of parliamentary talents and influence. The means of distinguishing yourself in parliament are, as I told you in my last, much more easily attained than I believe you imagine. ”

“ For which purpose the invention of Parliaments is an excellent policie of Government, to keep a sweet concord between a King and his Subjects, by restraining the Insolency of the Nobility, and redressing the Injuries of the Commons, without engaging a Prince to adhere to either party, but indifferently to favour both. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The extraordinary spectacle was witnessed, on the meeting of parliament, of a man with no political connection, who had never been in the cabinet, and who had never served in any ministerial office, being practically prime minister. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Parliament is not a congress of embassadors from different and hostile interests...but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole, where not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good resulting from the general reason of the whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A great and incalculable advantage is bestowed on that constituency which returns to parliament a distinguished man. His distinction ennobles the place he represents, it sustains public spirit, it augments the manly interest in all that affects the nation. Every time his voice hushes the assembled parliament, it reminds us of our common country; and even the discussion amongst his constituents which his voice provokes, clears their perceptions of the public interest, and enlightens themselves, from the intellect which commands their interests, and compels their attention. ”

“ In manners, in public spirit, in devotion to parliamentary duty, and in the range of their knowledge and experience, the members of the present Parliament compare most favourably with their predecessors in any Parliament in our history. ”

“ But Parliament seems to me to be the very place which a man of action should avoid. A Parliamentary career, that old superstition of the eighteenth century, was important when there were no other sources of power and fame. An aristocracy at the head of a people whom they had plundered of their means of education, required some cultivated tribunal whose sympathy might stimulate their intelligence and satisfy their vanity. Parliament was never so great as when they debated with closed doors. ”

“ Those to whom it is audible ejaculate a mirthless “Ha, ha,” to encourage a maiden speaker, and vanish in the wake of those members who have already left. You wonder to yourself, in dismay, whatever induced you to embark upon a Parliamentary career; and at the same moment, stumbling, quite by accident, upon some happy phrase, you are greeted, to your astonishment, with modified cheering. This is what you were waiting for. You feel that Parliament is not so insensible to your merits, as you had at first supposed. ”

“ Parliament, too, had not so much power as in the days of the Plantagenets, and the right to vote for members was now taken away from many people. Unseemly quarrels often broke out in Parliament; so much so that the members of one Parliament brought cudgels up their sleeves. ”

“ Cabinet ministers are responsible to a majority of the people's representatives in Parliament, and hold office only as long as they retain their confidence. That is how the harmony between the Legislature and the Executive has been secured. ”

“ English Parliament is the most decorous and dignified assemblage under the sun; and wherein we cannot refrain from paying our tribute of respectful admiration to the Right Honourable the Speaker, whose tact, good sense, and gentleman-like spirit, coupled with the firmness, resolution, and knowledge of the procedure of the House becoming to his high position, invariably enable him to still the storm and to repress the angry passions of our heated legislators before any great harm has been done. ”

“ In Parliament and out of Parliament, and everywhere in this Universe, your one salvation is, That you can discern with just insight, and follow with noble valor, what the law of the case before you is, what the appointment of the Maker in regard to it has been. Get this out of one man, you are saved; fail to get this out of the most August Parliament wrapt in the sheepskins of a thousand years, you are lost,—your Parliament, and you, and all your sheepskins are lost. Beautiful talk is by no means the most pressing want in Parliament! ”

“ But a Parliament is composed of a great number of men by no means at the top of the world. When you establish a predominant Parliament, you give over the rule of the country to a despot who has unlimited time,—who has unlimited vanity,—who has, or believes he has, unlimited comprehension, whose pleasure is in action, whose life is work. There is no limit to the curiosity of Parliament. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Parliament was new. Many of its members had fought a hard battle for their seats, and trusted they were safe in the haven for half a dozen good years to come. Those who were moved by professional ambition, those whose object was social advancement, those who thought only of upright public service, the keen party of men, the men who aspire to office, the men with a past and the men who looked for a future, all alike found themselves adrift on dark and troubled waters. ”

“ The king, who is head of the army and navy, has the supreme executive power and can appoint and dismiss ministers, can prorogue Parliament but not for longer than two months, and can dissolve Parliament. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Communication between voters and representatives has thus become more direct than ever before, and the Member of Parliament is now completely subject to the authority of those whom he is supposed to govern. ”

“ What then, is our Constitution loft, when Bundles of Writs are lost? No, I will go no farther than this last Letter to shew that there is a great Appearance that while there were Two Parliaments in a Year, the Second must be new Called. Though I hate the word New applied to a Parliament; for a Parliament is a Parliament, and our Ancestors would no more have dream’d of a Stale or Old Parliament, than of an Old Moon cut out into Stars. ”

“ The prime minister selects, for membership in the cabinet, whomsoever he pleases, the only restrictions being that they shall have seats in parliament and that the cabinet as a whole shall have the support of a majority in the House of Commons. ”

“ When two ministers are found so humane, so virtuous, so excellent, as to study nothing but the welfare and deliverance of the people; when a king listens to such excellent men; and when a parliament, from the basest, most interested motives, interposes to intercept the blessing, must I not change my opinions, and admire arbitrary power? ”

“ But here the subjects retain their proportion in the Legislature; the very meanest commoner of England is represented in Parliament, and is a party to those laws by which the Prince is sworn to govern himself and his people. ”

“ The notion that either or both houses of parliament, who possess no portion of executive authority, could take on themselves one of its most peculiar and important functions, was so preposterous that we can scarcely give credit to the sincerity of any reasonable person who advanced it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though the former description of the general and not the provincial Folkmote is our present business. And at first sight 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 public profit. ”

“ There were many signs which gave promise of the formation of a party in Parliament, answering to one actually existing in the country, which should have for its objects the promotion of the interests of the mass of the people rather than those of privileged persons and classes ”

“ Parliament, which was, at the end of the thirteenth century, in an embryonic state, is found at the end of the fourteenth completely constituted, endowed with all its actual elements, with power, prerogatives, and an influence in the State that it has rarely surpassed at any time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every day, indeed, leaves us fewer of those who remember the clearly-chiselled countenance which the slouched hat only slightly concealed,—the lip satirically curled,—the penetrating eye, peering along the Opposition benches,—of the old parliamentary leader in the House of Commons. ”

“ While we are on the subject of misnomers, what say you to the wisdom of Parliament?
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Why, sir, I do not call that a misnomer. The term wisdom is used in a parliamentary sense. The wisdom of Parliament is a wisdom sui generis. It is not like any other wisdom. It is not the wisdom of Socrates, nor the wisdom of Solomon. It is the wisdom of Parliament. It is not easily analysed or defined; but it is very easily understood. It has achieved wonderful things by itself, and still more when Science has come to its aid. ”

“ Sometimes, by a more thoughtful brow, a still brisker pace, you recognize a busy member of the Imperial Parliament, who, advised by physicians to be as much on horseback as possible, snatches an hour or so in the interval between the close of his Committee and the interest of the Debate, and shirks the opening speech of a well known bore. ”

“ By no means the least arduous of the many labours of Parliament are those which are undertaken by legislators serving upon the various Committees, of which the public knows so little, but whose work is very necessary to the carrying on of public business. ”

“ 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." ”

“ You will both come into parliament at the same time; and if you have an equal share of abilities and application, you and he, with other young people, with whom you will naturally associate, may form a band which will be respected by any administration, and make a figure in the public. ”

“ 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. ”