And what was more effectual still, they used their influence in the House of Commons instead of the House of Lords.

The House of Lords was a second-rate force, even when the peers were a first-rate force, because the greatest peers, those who had the greatest social importance, did not care for their own House, or like it, but gained great part of their…

When we cease to look at the House of Lords under its dignified aspect, and come to regard it under its strictly useful aspect, we find the literary theory of the English Constitution wholly wrong, as usual.

So utterly false is this doctrine that it is a remarkable peculiarity, a capital excellence of the British Constitution, that it contains a sort of Upper House, which is not of equal authority to the Lower House, yet still has some…

Each House can stop all legislation, and yet some legislation may be necessary.

In both the American and the Swiss Constitutions the Upper House has as much authority as the second: it could produce the maximum of impediment--the dead-lock, if it liked; if it does not do so, it is owing not to the goodness of the…

I confess this doctrine has to me no self-evidence, and it is assumed, but not proved.

The State of Delaware is NOT equal in power or influence to the State of New York, and you cannot make it so by giving it an equal veto in an Upper Chamber.

A little State will like, and must like, to see some token, some memorial mark of its old independence preserved in the Constitution by which that independence is extinguished.

But it is one thing for an institution to be natural, and another for it to be expedient.

If indeed it be that a Federal Government compels the erection of an Upper Chamber of conclusive and co-ordinate authority, it is one more in addition to the many other inherent defects of that kind of Government.

The power was not used, but its existence was as useful as its energy.

Just as the knowledge that his men CAN strike makes a master yield in order that they may not strike, so the knowledge that their House could be swamped at the will of the king--at the will of the people--made the Lords yield to the people.

The House has ceased to be one of latent directors, and has become one of temporary rejectors and palpable alterers.

For many years, indeed from the year 1830, when I retired from office, I have endeavoured to manage the House of Lords upon the principle on which I conceive that the institution exists in the Constitution of the country, that of…

I have invariably objected to all violent and extreme measures, which is not exactly the mode of acquiring influence in a political party in England, particularly one in opposition to Government.

This course gave at the time great dissatisfaction to the party; notwithstanding that I believe it saved the existence of the House of Lords at the time, and the Constitution of the country.

My opinion is, that the great object of all is that you should assume the station, and exercise the influence, which I have so long exercised in the House of Lords.

You will see that I have endeavoured to guide their opinion, and have succeeded upon some most remarkable occasions.

You must be the best judge of the course which you ought to take, and of the course most likely to conciliate the confidence of the House of Lords.

My opinion is, that you should advise the House to vote that which would tend most to public order, and would be most beneficial to the immediate interests of the country.

This is the mode in which the House of Lords came to be what it now is, a chamber with (in most cases) a veto of delay with (in most cases) a power of revision, but with no other rights or powers.

The question we have to answer is, "The House of Lords being such, what is the use of the Lords?

The common notion evidently fails, that it is a bulwark against imminent revolution.

The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.