On the record
There are but four important forms of government in the present state of the world--the Parliamentary, the Presidential, the Hereditary, and the Dictatorial, or Revolutionary.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “There are but four important forms of government in the present state of the world--the Parliamentary, the Presidential…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot categorizes the four main forms of government in the world, highlighting their significance.
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More from Walter Bagehot
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
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