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Yet , when we turn our attention from the legal existence to the actual exercise of royal authority in England , we see these formidable prerogatives dwindled into mere ceremonies ; and in their stead , a sure and commanding influence , of which the constitution , it seems , is totally ignorant , growing out of that enormous patronage , which the increased extent and opulence of the Empire has placed in the disposal of the executive magistrate . From each class he may learn much , but for reasons which I am about to lay before you for consideration , he is liable to be led by each class of authors somewhat astray in his attempt to ascertain the field of his labours and the mode of working it ; he will find , unless he can obtain some clue to guide his steps , that the whole province of so-called " constitutional law " is a sort of maze in which the wanderer is perplexed by unreality , by antiquarianism , and by conventionalism . That quickly fell apart with the partisan way President John Adams made judicial appointments during the last days of his administration after his party lost the election of 1800 , most notably of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court . If among the people of any land the hatred of the Jews or of Judaism should exist , it would certainly be desirable that this odious prejudice should find some exponent or advocate in the Parliament of such country , for the knowledge of popular errors or delusions may well be essential to the carrying out of just government or wise administration . Ministers who , after Supplies were voted and the Mutiny Act passed , should prorogue the House and keep office for months after the Government had ceased to retain the confidence of the Commons , might or might not incur grave unpopularity , but would not necessarily commit a breach of law . No doubt again their lordships have , at any rate since 1832 , acknowledged that they ought to pass any Bill deliberately desired by the nation , and also have admitted the existence of a more or less strong presumption that the House of Commons in general represents the will of the nation , and that the Lords ought , therefore , in general to consent to a Bill passed by the House of Commons , even though their lordships did not approve of the measure . The general object of this Lecture is to discover the theory on which a man is allowed to enjoy a special right when the facts out of which the right arises are not true of him . The historian of the American Union would not commence his researches at the year 1789 ; he would have a good deal to say about Colonial history and about the institutions of England ; he might , for aught I know , find himself impelled to go back to the Witenagemot ; he would , one may suspect , pause in his researches considerably short of Uri . But there are thousands of sensible Englishmen and Englishwomen who , while they doubt the advisability of introducing into England even manhood suffrage , refuse to admit the cogency of reasoning which leads to the result that every Englishman and Englishwoman of full age must have a right to vote for a member of Parliament . If there be any one person in whose single hand the power of the State is placed , that one person is not the King but the chairman of the committee , known as the Prime Minister . This body would , subject of course to supervision by the state , manage the office in accordance with their own knowledge and judgment ; would , as far as I understand the proposal , be allowed to share in the gains affected by good management ; and would , out of the revenue of the Post Office , make good the compensation due to persons who suffered by the negligence or misconduct of the officials . After a contest with a coalition of all his opponents , a dissolution of Parliament gave to the old parliamentary hand a large and decisive majority . The Chief Justice , after suggesting the possibility of sufficient privity on the ground that the plaintiff was privy in blood and might be heir , turns to the other argument as more promising , and evidently founds his opinion upon it . Lords ,109 should not become Acts of Parliament until they have been submitted to the vote of the electors and have received the sanction or approval of the majority of the electors voting on the matter . The constant amendment of a book republished in successive editions during thirty years is apt to take from it any such literary merits as it may originally have possessed . Objections to the Third Proposition First Objection The more complicated any system of popular election is made , the more power is thrown into the hands of election 87 See Mr. Asquith 's speech at St. Andrews , Feb. 19 , 1906 , cited by J. Proportional Representation , p. 17 . Little was heard about such rights during the great French Revolution . But attempt after attempt to secure the unity of Switzerland had ended in failure .