indeed so light
a matter, even as our constitution now works? Is it a light matter
that the Crown should have the power of dissolving Parliament; in
other words, of deposing the tyrant at will? Is it a light matter that
for several months in each year the House of Commons should be in
abeyance, during which period the nation looks on Ministers not as
slaves of Parliament but servants of the Crown? Is it a light matter
that there should still be such respect for the monarchical principle,
that the servants of that visible entity yclept the Crown are enabled
to carry on much of the details of internal and foreign administration
without consulting Parliament, and even without its cognisance? Or do
you suppose that the Red Republicans, when they advocated the
nomination of a Ministry of the House of Assembly with a revocable
_mandat_, intended to create a Frankenstein endowed with powers
in some cases paramount to, and in others running parallel with, the
authority of the omnipotent body to which it owed its existence? My
own impression is, that they meant a set of delegates to be appointed,
who should exercise certain functions of legislative initiation and
executive patronage so long as they reflected clearly, in the former
the passions, and in the latter the interests of the majority for the
time being, and no longer.

It appears to me, I must confess, that if you have a republican form
of government in a great country, with complicated internal and
external relations, you must either separate the executive and
legislative departments, as in the United States, or submit to a
tyranny of the majority, not the more tolerable because it is
capricious and wielded by a tyrant with many heads. Of the two evils I
prefer the former.

Consider, for a moment, how much more violent the proceedings of
majorities in the American Legislatures would be, how much more
reckless the appeals to popular passion, how much more frequently the
permanent interests of the nation and the rights of individuals and
classes would be sacrificed to the object of raising political capital
for present uses, if debates or discussions affected the tenure of
office. I have no idea that the executive and legislative departments
of the State can be made to work together with a sufficient degree of
harmony to give the