to bring about the
final change that shall make the form and the name coincide with the
reality. England, which at one time led the van in this movement, has
been outstripped by several of the continental nations, but its
constant, though somewhat zigzag, advances in the same direction cannot
be doubted, while community of race and former relations make the
comparison between its condition and prospects and those of the United
States more mutually interesting and instructive than any that could be
instituted between either and another foreign country.

We are aided in making this comparison by a lecture delivered recently
before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, and since published as a
pamphlet, in which form we hope it may obtain the wide circulation and
general attention which it well merits. In a rapid sketch of the
development and present working of the English constitution the author,
Judge Hare, shows how the government, which, in theory at least, was
originally a personal one, has come to be parliamentary and in the
strictest sense popular, that branch of the legislature which is elected
by the people having raised itself from a subordinate position "to be
the hinge on which all else depends, controlling the House of Lords,
selecting the ministers and wielding through them the power of the
Crown." Hence a complete harmony, which whenever it is broken is
instantly restored, between the executive and the legislature, the
latter in turn being the organ of the public sentiment, which acts
through unobstructed channels and can neither be defied nor evaded. In
America, on the other hand, to say nothing of those organic provisions
of the Constitution which render the executive and the two branches of
the legislature mutually independent, and sometimes, consequently, out
of harmony with each other, divergent in their action and liable to an
absolute deadlock, the method by which it was directly intended to
secure the result that has been fortuitously obtained in
England--namely, the selection of an executive by a deliberative
assembly chosen by the people--has been practically subverted and its
purpose utterly frustrated. The Electoral Colleges do not elect, but
merely report the result of an election. This, on the surface, is a
change in the direction of a more complete democracy. What was devised
as a check on the popular impulse of the moment has broken down, and the
people have taken into their own hands the mission