In both the American and the Swiss Constitutions the Upper House has as much authority as the second: it could produce the maximum of impediment--the dead-lock, if it liked; if it does not do so, it is owing not to the goodness of the legal constitution, but to the discreetness of the members of the Chamber.
Bagehot critiques the equal authority of upper chambers in federal systems, emphasizing the potential for deadlock.
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It is absurd to choose by contested party election an impartial chooser of Ministers.
Now it is not conceivable that a race of beings with valuable instincts supporting their existence and supplying their wants would need these simple tools.
He could have found the truth as a statesman just as he found it when a judge; but he never did find it.
But as soon as the House met, Lord Thurlow became the greatest.
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