It enables the popular will--the will of which the executive is the exponent, the will of which it is the appointee--to carry out within the Constitution desires and conceptions which one branch of the Constitution dislikes and resists.
Walter Bagehot: “It enables the popular will--the will of which the executive is the exponent, the will of which it is the appointee--to…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot highlights the role of the executive in representing the popular will within the Constitution.
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At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
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.
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.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.





