y. In our own time the divergence
has become so conspicuous that it would not now be possible for
well-informed writers to make the mistake of Montesquieu and Blackstone.
In our time it has come to be perfectly obvious that so far from the
English Constitution separating the executive power from the
legislative, this is precisely what it does not do. In Great Britain the
supreme power is all lodged in a single body, the House of Commons. The
sovereign has come to be purely a legal fiction, and the House of Lords
maintains itself only by submitting to the Commons. The House of Commons
is absolutely supreme, and, as we shall presently see, it really both
appoints and dismisses the executive. The English executive, or chief
magistrate, is ordinarily the first lord of the treasury, and is
commonly styled the prime minister. He is chairman of the most
important committee of the House of Commons, and his cabinet consists of
the chairmen of other committees.

[Sidenote: What our government would be if it were really like that of
Great Britain.]

To make this perfectly clear, let us see what our machinery of
government would be, if it were really like the English. The presence or
absence of the crowned head makes no essential difference; it is only a
kind of ornamental cupola. Suppose for a moment the presidency
abolished, or reduced to the political nullity of the crown in England;
and postpone for a moment the consideration of the Senate. Suppose that
in our House of Representatives the committee of ways and means had two
chairmen,--an upper chairman who looks after all sorts of business, and
a lower chairman who attends especially to the finances. This upper
chairman, we will say, corresponds to the first lord of the treasury,
while the lower one corresponds to the chancellor of the exchequer.
Sometimes, when the upper chairman is a great financier, and capable of
enormous labour, he will fill both places at once, as Mr. Gladstone was
lately first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. The
chairmen of the other committees on foreign, military, and naval affairs
will answer to the English secretaries of state for foreign affairs and
for war, the first lord of the admiralty, and so on. This group of
chairmen, headed by the upper chairman of the ways and means, will then
answer to the English cabinet, with its prime minister. To complete the
parallel, let us suppose that, after a new House of Representatives is