l War. While we write, another strike of the same class has
suspended the traffic of the great Western railway line. In three States
the militia have been called out to protect property and liberty, the
rights of capital, the freedom of labour, the interest of the public,
against a class insurrection; the public authorities have been forcibly
resisted, and lives have been lost in a skirmish with fire-arms between
the _posse_ of the Sheriff and the insurgent Knights of Labour. Every
American mob feels itself invested with something of the majesty of the
sovereign people. Every body of English rioters--political, social, or
simply lawless--knows and feels itself guilty of resistance to the
Sovereign. The truncheon of the police, the uniform of the soldier,
unquestionably represents the legal will of the Sovereign; and before
that will the largest and most excited multitude gives way at once.

Mr. Bagehot overlooks the _certainty_ which personal sovereignty gives:
the absence of a moment's possible doubt on which side is that supreme
arbiter, sure to be backed by nine-tenths of the physical forces of
society. He underrates, if he does not altogether ignore, the much wider
and deeper influence of the Royal name; its power over passion as well
as over ignorance. The omnipotence of Parliament, even when, in the
belief of half the nation, a Parliamentary majority represents a
minority of the people, is due less to traditional respect for the House
of Commons, or superstitious reverence for a majority vote, such as
prevails in America, than to the fact, that resistance means rebellion,
visible, unmistakable disobedience to the Queen. It is therefore deeply
to be regretted, not for any sentimental reason, but for the sake of
order and the protection of life and property, that the democratic
changes in our Constitution are gradually undermining the habit of
submission to the Queen's Majesty which still characterizes, to a great
extent, the English people. The Services still feel proud to consider
that they serve, in their own phrase--not the State but--'the Queen.'
That sentiment of loyalty, which Mr. Bagehot ascribes to the ignorant
alone, is as strong in the upper or middle as in the lower orders; has a
far wider, deeper influence than he allows, than it was consistent with
the whole scope of his work on the English constitution to recognize.

One of the most remarkable and interesting points in Tocqueville's
conversations, as