Walter Bagehot: “When history begins to record, she finds most of the races incapable of history, arrested, unprogressive, and pretty…”

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.

I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.

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.

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.