The quaking bystanders in a superstitious age would soon have slain an isolated bold man in the beginning of his innovations, What Macaulay so relied on as the incessant source of progress--the desire of man to better his condition--was not then permitted to work; man was required to live as his ancestors had lived.
Bagehot describes the challenges faced by innovators in superstitious societies where tradition stifled progress.
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Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.
Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
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