The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-07-13


sovereign. This great council was
gathered from the shires and prin-
cipal towns, by sort of irregular
royal designation, and acted as an
advising or at least a confirming
parliament. But it consisted alone
of the bishops and earls and barons
and other chief men of the nobility.
The idea of representation where
by the great mass of the people
could share IN the government of
their country was only introduced
after King John. This innoya-
ton we would have marked the
dawn of a broad liberty. Bnt it
was not so. Each step IN the pro-
gress of the Commons toward the
freedom of government was met by
some new device on the part of the
jealous crown to check it. Thus
the crown gradually drew from the
great councils its leading spirits
and formed of them Royal Coun-
Gil in whom ali real power centered.
In time the ROYAL Council becom-
ing too unwieldy, it came to be the
practice of the sovereign to select
from the Royal Council still an
other smaller and inner circle,
which was known as the Privy
Council, and from this last by still
further Indignation Charles the
First formed that small junta of
advisors about his person which
furnished us with the historical an
cestor of the present English Cabi-
net. Ia the meantime the Grand
Council had divided into the Lords
and Commons. but the continual
power of the Crown tc bride the
leaders of these, by calls from Par
lament to the inner circles of it's
councils, drained them of all force
and left all power still with the
throne from which it radiated
down through Councillors and
Lords and Knights and Royal Sat-
elites like rays of light from cen
trail sun. They rarely reached or
rested upon the Commons and
never upon the masses of the peo-
pie. The Commons were there, it
is true, and there too with the
theoretical power of granting or
Withholding, but in fact they serve
no better purpose and were only
tolerated as sort of breakwater be-
tween the usurpations and exactions
OF the crown on the one side and
the wrath and despair of its SUBJ
jects on the other. The courts to
their shame were little better.
The House of Lords as nearer the
central source of power, in place
and sympathy was of more conse-
quence. The Commons, bribed or
brow beaten by royal favor or dis
pleasure, kept up the forms of leg
islative sanction. But the people,
divided as they were by feudallsm,
into serfs and so called freemen,
the people were as far from being
in touch with the springs of their
own government, as though their
sovereign had been despot.
The spirit and enterprise of the
long parliament first gave the Eng
lish people taste of real power,
and afforded them a slight glimpse
of that mighty truth which in the
wisdom of Providence was not to be
announced till a hundred years
later, and then by feeble colony
in the wilds of America. From
thence forward the power and pres
tige of the British throne and the
House of Lords have steadily
waned, while that of the despised
commons has waxed stronger and
stronger, until now we have the
startling spectacle of one OF the
triple departments of a government
practically absorbing the whole of
its functions and powers. Verify
the stone rejected by the builders
has become the chief pillar of the
editice.
The British House of Commons
is to-day the most powerful and
autocratic body of men among CIV
ilizcd races. Restrained by no
constitutional limitations with no
court 10 sit in judgment upon the
vahdity of their enactments and no
royal veto Of any practical appllca-
ton and only the effete barrier of
the House of Lords as a feeble dis
sentient, their acts are absolutely
uncontrolled and uncomfortable.
This is a dangerous power to be
reposed in the hands of any body
of men. Slowly as England has
builded, in the opinion of many
she has not builded well. Still af-
fecting to rest her government upon
a form Of monarchy, she is in fact
now entirely controlled by an IN
tense and unbridled democracy,
whose procedure is really confined