Walter Bagehot

It has so many poor men inside it, and so many rich men outside it, that its electioneering value is impaired.

Besides, it is in the nature of the curious influence of rank to work much more on men singly than on men collectively; it is an influence which most men--at least most Englishmen--feel very much, but of which most Englishmen are somewhat…

Accordingly, when any number of men are collected together, each of whom worships rank in his heart, the whole body will patiently hear--in many cases will cheer and approve--some rather strong speeches against rank.

And thus Englishmen easily find themselves committed to anti-aristocratic sentiments which are the direct opposite of their real feeling, and their collective action may be bitterly hostile to rank while the secret sentiment of each…

English statesmen and English parties have really a great patriotism; they can rarely be persuaded even by their passions or their interest to do anything contrary to the real interest of England, or anything which would lower England in…

If we require that in some form the assent of Parliament shall be given to such treaties, we should have a real discussion prior to the making of such treaties.

The House of Lords, as it cannot turn out the Ministry for making treaties, has in no case a decisive weight in foreign policy, though its debates on them are often excellent; and there is a real danger at present in giving it such weight.

Our present practice, as has been explained, only works because of the good sense of those by whom it is worked, and the new practice would have to rely on a similar good sense and practicality too.

The House of Lords must deal with the assent to treaties as they do with the assent to laws; they must defer to the voice of the country and the authority of the Commons even in cases where their own judgment might guide them otherwise.

Probably, if it were considered to be desirable to give to Parliament a more direct control over questions of foreign policy than it possesses now, the better way would be not to require a formal vote to the treaty clause by clause.

Since 1789 France has always been trying political experiments, from which others may profit much, though as yet she herself has profited little.

When the first edition of this book was published I had great difficulty in persuading many people that it was possible in a non-monarchical State, for the real chief of the practical executive--the Premier as we should call him--to be…

No one can any longer doubt the possibility of a republic in which the executive and the legislative authorities were united and fixed; no one can assert such union to be the incommunicable attribute of a Constitutional Monarchy.

But, unfortunately, we can as yet only infer from this experiment that such a Constitution is possible; we cannot as yet say whether it will be bad or good.

With an Assembly in this temper, real discussion is impossible, and Parliamentary government is impossible too, because the Parliament can neither choose men nor measures.

The Assembly now sitting at Versailles is undoubtedly also, at times, most tumultuous, and a Parliamentary government in which it governs must be under a peculiar difficulty, because as a sovereign it is unstable, capricious, and unruly.

The French, as a nation, do not care for or appreciate Parliamentary government.

I have endeavoured to explain how difficult it is for inexperienced mankind to take to such a government; how much more natural, that is, how much more easy to uneducated men is loyalty to a monarch.

A nation which does not expect good from a Parliament, cannot check or punish a Parliament.

France expects, I fear, too little from her Parliaments ever to get what she ought.

The experiment of a strictly Parliamentary Republic--of a Republic where the Parliament appoints the executive--is being tried in France at an extreme disadvantage, because in France a Parliament is unusually likely to be bad, and…

The result would be, as I have tried to explain, that the Assembly would be always changing its Ministry, that having no reason to fear the penalty which that change so often brings in England, they would be ready to make it once a month.

Caprice is the characteristic vice of miscellaneous assemblies, and without some check their selection would be unceasingly mutable.

For twenty years no great political reputation could arise in France.

Thiers is not only the best choice, but the only choice.