sue, between retaining
the present constitution--not the present constitutional body, but
between the present constitution and a democracy.

It is just as well for the house to recollect that what is at issue
is of some price. You must remember, not to use the word profanely,
that we are dealing really with a peculiar people. There is no
country at the present moment that exists under the circumstances
and under the same conditions as the people of this realm. You
have, for example, an ancient, powerful, richly-endowed Church, and
perfect religious liberty. You have unbroken order and complete
freedom. You have estates as large as the Romans; you have a
commercial system of enterprise such as Carthage and Venice united
never equaled. And you must remember that this peculiar country
with these strong contrasts is governed not by force; it is not
governed by standing armies--it is governed by a most singular
series of traditionary influences, which generation after generation
cherishes and preserves because they know that they embalm customs
and represent the law. And, with this, what have you done? You
have created the greatest empire that ever existed in modern times
You have amassed a capital of fabulous amount. You have devised and
sustained a system of credit still more marvelous and above all, you
have established and maintained a scheme, so vast and complicated,
of labor and industry, that the history of the world offers no
parallel to it. And all these mighty creations are out of all
proportion to the essential and indigenous elements and resources of
the country. If you destroy that state of society, remember this--
England cannot begin again. There are countries which have been in
great peril and gone through great suffering; there are the United
States, which in our own immediate day have had great trials; you
have had--perhaps even now in the States of America you have--a
protracted and fratricidal civil war which has lasted for four
years; but if it lasted for four years more, vast as would be the
disaster and desolation, when ended the United States might begin
again, because the United States would only be in the same condition
that England was at the end of the War of the Roses, and probably
she had not even 3,000,000 of population, with vast tracts of virgin
soil and mineral treasures, not only undeveloped but undiscovered.
Then you have France. France had a real revolution in our days and