The English ConstitutionChronicling the past is much easier than chronicling the present, which was exactly Walter Bagehot's project when writing The English Constitution, first published in 1873. His ambitious undertaking was to describe the British government as it actually worked during 1865 and 1866. Government as it functions is very different from the government as it is spelled out on paper. Many factors, including the mindset of the people and the habits of those already in government, affect how a country is run. Political scientists and historians will find Bagehot's commentary on the living English government and invaluable tool in understanding the politics of the era. British journalist WALTER BAGEHOT (1826-1877) was an early editor of The Economist and was among the first economists to discuss the concept of the business cycle. He is also the author of Physics and Politics (1872) and The Postulates of English Political Economy (1885). |
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Página xxii
A statesman ought to show his own nature, and talk in a palpable way what is to him important truth. And so he will both guide and benefit the nation. But if, especially at a time when great ignoranee has an unusual power in publie ...
A statesman ought to show his own nature, and talk in a palpable way what is to him important truth. And so he will both guide and benefit the nation. But if, especially at a time when great ignoranee has an unusual power in publie ...
Página xxiii
No doubt the question cannot be easily discussed in the abstract; much must depend on the nature of the measures in each particular case ; on the evil they would cause if conceded ; on the attractiveness of their idea to the working ...
No doubt the question cannot be easily discussed in the abstract; much must depend on the nature of the measures in each particular case ; on the evil they would cause if conceded ; on the attractiveness of their idea to the working ...
Página xxx
In doing so besides the aristocracy forfeit their natural position — that by which they would gain most power, and in which they would do most good. They ought to be the heads of the plutocracy. In all countries new wealth is ready to ...
In doing so besides the aristocracy forfeit their natural position — that by which they would gain most power, and in which they would do most good. They ought to be the heads of the plutocracy. In all countries new wealth is ready to ...
Página xxxi
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 ...
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 ...
Página xlv
... every objection The thing is done and cannot be undone, and the most natural wish of the Opposition leaders is to prove that if they had been in office, and it therefore had been theirs to do it, they could have done it much better.
... every objection The thing is done and cannot be undone, and the most natural wish of the Opposition leaders is to prove that if they had been in office, and it therefore had been theirs to do it, they could have done it much better.
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Contenido
| 1 | |
Thk Monabchy continued | 67 |
The Housb of Lobbs | 89 |
The House w Coiimoss | 180 |
Its Suffoseb Checks and Balances | 219 |
The PbbBeqotsites of Cabinet Govkbnkeht and | 254 |
No IX | 272 |
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Términos y frases comunes
able action administration American arguments assembly authority better body cabinet cabinet government chamber choose classes Constitution course critical defect difficulty discussion educated effect elected England English equal executive existence experience fact feeling force foreign function George give greatest head House of Commons House of Lords ideas imagine important influence interest keep king leader least legislation legislature less live look majority matter means ment mind minister ministry monarch nation nature never object once opinion opposition Parliament Parliamentary parliamentary government party peers perhaps persons political popular possible present President presidential system principle probably Queen questions reason representatives respect result rule society sort sovereign speak statesmen sure things thought true vote whole wish
Pasajes populares
Página 74 - Secondly, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.
Página xxxviii - Commanding-in-Chief downwards ; she could dismiss all the sailors too ; she could sell off all our ships of war and all our naval stores ; she could make a peace by the sacrifice of Cornwall, and begin a war for the conquest of Brittany. She could make every citizen in the United Kingdom, male or female, a peer ; she could make every parish in the United Kingdom a " university ;" she could dismiss most of the civil servants ; she could pardon all offenders.
Página 75 - To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.
Página 10 - The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers.
Página xxiii - But in all cases it must be remembered that a political combination of the lower classes, as such and for their own objects, is an evil of the first magnitude; that a permanent combination of them would make them (now that so many of them have the suffrage) supreme in the country; and that their supremacy, in the state they now are, means the supremacy of ignorance over instruction and of numbers over knowledge.
Página 33 - The nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation -of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know, and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas : anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the question, " Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?
Página 14 - 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.
Página 137 - Commons - now that it is the true sovereign, and appoints the real executive - has long ceased to be the checking, sparing, economical body it once was. It now is more apt to spend money than the minister of the day. I have heard a very experienced financier say, 'If you want to raise a certain cheer in the House of Commons make a general panegyric on economy; if you want to invite a sure defeat, propose a particular saving.
Página 142 - Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men— by the fear that if you vote against them, you may yourself soon not have a vote at all.
Referencias a este libro
Institutional Theory in Political Science: The 'new Institutionalism' B. Guy Peters Sin vista previa disponible - 2005 |
Información bibliográfica
| Título | The English Constitution |
| Autor | Walter Bagehot |
| Edición | reimpresa |
| Editor | Cosimo, Inc., 2007 |
| ISBN | 1602062560, 9781602062566 |
| Largo | 368 páginas |
| Exportar cita | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |