On the record
A Cabinet is a combining committee--a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the State to the executive part of the State.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “A Cabinet is a combining committee--a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the State to…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot metaphorically describes the Cabinet as a mechanism that connects the legislative and executive branches of government.
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More from Walter Bagehot
Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.
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.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.
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