uilt up and protected.

When our Constitution was framed responsible party government had not
been established in England. In theory the Constitution of Great
Britain recognized three coordinate powers, the King, the Lords, and the
Commons. But as a matter of fact the government of England was
predominantly aristocratic. The landed interests exerted a controlling
influence even in the House of Commons. The rapidly growing importance
of capital had not yet seriously impaired the constitutional authority
of the landlord class. Land had been until recently the only important
form of wealth; and the right to a voice in the management of the
government was still an incident of land ownership. Men as such were not
entitled to representation. The property-owning classes made the laws
and administered them, officered the army and navy, and controlled the
policy of the government in every direction.

"According to a table prepared about 1815, the House of Commons
contained 471 members who owed their seats to the goodwill and pleasure
of 144 Peers and 123 Commoners, 16 government nominees, and only 171
members elected by popular suffrages."[155]

As the real power behind the government was the aristocracy of wealth,
the English system, though nominally one of checks and balances, closely
resembled in its practical working an unlimited aristocracy.

The framers of our Constitution, as shown in previous chapters, took the
English government for their model and sought to establish the supremacy
of the well-to-do classes. Like the English conservatives of that time
they deplored the existence of political parties and consequently made
no provision for them in the system which they established. Indeed,
their chief purpose was to prevent the very thing which the responsible
political party aimed to establish, viz., majority rule.

"Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed union,"
wrote Madison in defense of the Constitution, "none deserves to be more
accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence
of faction....

"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a
majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some
common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of
other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the
community....

" ... But the most common and durable source of factions has been the
various and u