Walter Bagehot: “The whole issue is based on a single election--on the choice of President; by that internecine conflict all else is won…”

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.

But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.

The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.