ter consequence when great
affairs are in progress than when small affairs are in progress-when
there is much to do than when there is little to do. But in addition to
this, a Parliamentary or Cabinet Constitution possesses an additional
and special advantage in very dangerous times. It has what we may call
a reserve of power fit for and needed by extreme exigencies.

The principle of popular government is that the supreme power, the
determining efficacy in matters political, resides in the people--not
necessarily or commonly in the whole people, in the numerical majority,
but in a CHOSEN people, a picked and selected people. It is so in
England; it is so in all free countries. Under a Cabinet Constitution
at a sudden emergency this people can choose a ruler for the occasion.
It is quite possible and even likely that he would not be ruler before
the occasion. The great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid
energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not required--are
impediments--in common times; A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday
politics than a Chatham--a Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon.
By the structure of the world we often want, at the sudden occurrence
of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman--to replace the pilot of the
calm by the pilot of the storm. In England we have had so few
catastrophes since our Constitution attained maturity, that we hardly
appreciate this latent excellence. We have not needed a Cavour to rule
a revolution--a representative man above all men fit for a great
occasion, and by a natural legal mode brought in to rule. But even in
England, at what was the nearest to a great sudden crisis which we have
had of late years--at the Crimean difficulty--we used this inherent
power. We abolished the Aberdeen Cabinet, the ablest we have had,
perhaps, since the Reform Act--a Cabinet not only adapted, but
eminently adapted, for every sort of difficulty save the one it had to
meet--which abounded in pacific discretion, and was wanting only in the
"daemonic element"; we chose a statesman, who had the sort of merit
then wanted, who, when he feels the steady power of England behind him,
will advance without reluctance, and will strike without restraint. As
was said at the time, "We turned out the Quaker, and put in the
pugilist".

But under a Presidential government you can do nothing of the kind. The
American Government calls itself a Government of the supreme people;
but at a