If Lord North had been able to throw the undivided energy and the undistracted authority of the executive Government into the excellent work of making a peace and carrying a peace, years of bloodshed might have been spared, and an entail of enmity cut off that has not yet run out.
Bagehot discusses the potential for peace during the American Revolutionary War had the British government acted decisively.
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That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.
The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.
They are above corruption because they are the corruptors.
Perhaps such powers as these are what a wise man would most seek to exercise and least fear to possess.
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