Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The English Constitution
    The English Constitution
    The English Constitution
    Ebook355 pages5 hours

    The English Constitution

    By Walter Bagehot

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateMay 1, 1966
    The English Constitution
    Author

    Walter Bagehot

    Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) was an English businessman and journalist. He founded the National Review in 1855 with Richard Holt Hutton before becoming editor in chief of the Economist, a post he held for seventeen years.

    Read more from Walter Bagehot

    Related to The English Constitution

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Churchill’s World Crisis

      Nov 5, 2018

      Churchill’s World Crisis
      8 min read

    • Article

      Sir Tony Embraces The Old

      Jun 30, 2022

      Sir Tony Embraces The Old
      5 min read

    • Article

      LAWS of ATTRACTION

      Jun 6, 2019

      LAWS of ATTRACTION
      3 min read

    • Article

      Bring Back The Law Lords

      Jan 25, 2024

      Bring Back The Law Lords
      8 min read

    • Article

      Cohen Corner

      Aug 2, 2022

      Home Rule in a Nutshell was first published in November 1911 by Sealy Bryers & Walker of Dublin. It was a “a pocket book for speakers and Electors,” prepared by Jeremiah MacVeagh, an Irish nationalist politician, who was elected for the Irish Parliam

      5 min read

    • Article

      Interview / Penelope J Corfield

      Jan 20, 2022

      Rhiannon Davies: The subtitle of your book is The Deeds and Misdeeds of 15th-Century Britain. Can we call the actions of the past “misdeeds”? Penelope J Corfield I certainly don’t think, as historians, we should be patting the past on the head and sa

      9 min read

    • Article

      Call Of Duty

      Jun 20, 2021

      Call Of Duty
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tips For Learning Social History The Value Of Researching The Backdrop To Our Ancestors’ Lives

      Jun 12, 2020

      In last month’s Family Tree Academy we looked at the importance of setting your ancestors’ lives in their local context. But we also need to consider the impact of the wider world; the social, economic and political landscapes which shaped the lives

      3 min read

    • Article

      Flip The Script

      Jul 30, 2023

      To effectively address our diet-created health crisis (“Flipping the menu”, July 22), we should remove health promotion services from Te Whatu Ora, given its priorities and resources will always be sacrificed in favour of bottom-of-the-cliff treatmen

      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Sep 29, 2022

      Letters
      3 min read

    • Article

      Careful What You Wish For

      Sep 25, 2022

      Under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701 (amended to remove gender discrimination in 2013), the heir to the British throne becomes King or Queen the instant the previous monarch dies. So, New Zealand did not rapidly accept Charles as King, as Ch

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Census 1881

      Jun 29, 2021

      The Census 1881
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hope From The Seed Of Trauma

      Feb 13, 2023

      Hope From The Seed Of Trauma
      10 min read

    • Article

      The New Green King

      Sep 19, 2022

      The New Green King
      5 min read

    • Article

      Don’t Hobble The House

      Jun 29, 2023

      THE CENTRAL RULE OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION is the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. The Crown-in-Parliament has total legislative freedom, except that it cannot bind its successors. More prosaically, parliamentary sovereignty means that the go

      6 min read

    • Article

      Entreaty For Debate

      Apr 8, 2024

      Tautoko to Glenn Colquhoun for his letter to Act leader David Seymour (“Go north for a while”, April 6) . While Seymour fixates on personal freedom, Colquhoun writes, “We are individuals but we also share a collective existence.” Within hours of read

      7 min read

    • Article

      Britain’s Squid Pro Quo

      Nov 25, 2021

      FEW OF BRITAIN’S economic problems are more fundamental than the slide in the growth of productivity — output per person — in the last half century. In the 1960s productivity typically rose by more than three per cent a year, enabling output per head

      3 min read

    Reviews for The English Constitution

    4/5

    31 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Politics have not changed much since the 19th century. The main difference is that now elites hide their fear and contempt of the lower class. My insecurities aside, insightful essays that remain relevant.
    • 4/5
      The classic on British politics in the mid-Victorian period, originally published in 1867 on the eve of the Great Reform Act, and re-issued five years later with an introductory essay speculating about the consequences of enfranchising working-class men — "We have in a great community like England crowds of people scarcely more civilised than the majority of two thousand years ago..." (He goes on to encourage any reader who doubts his view of the lower classes to go down to the kitchen and try out a few abstract ideas on the housemaid and footman.)Apart from Bagehot's touching — and almost certainly misplaced — faith in the deference and ignorance of the lower orders, this is a fascinating and very convincing analysis of what made the British constitution work, enlivened by constant sniping at the failings of the American and French systems and the frailties of monarchs. At the core of his argument is the strength of the cabinet system, in which the executive is appointed — and dismissed — by the legislature from among its own members. A lot of what he says looks remarkably prescient: in his discussion of the House of Lords and the power to create new peers, he certainly anticipated the budget crisis of 1909-1911 and the Parliament Act. He's also a strong supporter of life peerages (not to be realised until 1958) and a firm critic of the hereditary principle: he even hints, thirty years before Queen Victoria died, that the then Prince of Wales (Edward VII) is already doomed to be a useless king. (Plus ça change....)This is clearly the Liberal side of Victorian Britain: Bagehot came from a banking and shipping family, and was a graduate of the determinedly secular UCL, a fan of people like John Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin. An entertaining read, and interesting background to Trollope's Palliser novels, which also span the 1867 watershed.
    • 4/5
      This is really an excellent book for anyone who is interested in different forms of government. Bagehot is wholeheartedly in favor of the English parliamentary system. He admits it's not perfect, but he thinks it's better than anything else out there. He examines each institution (House of Commons, monarch, etc.) and explains why he thinks that institution plays an important role in the system. While the book has some dry sections, it is very well-written overall, and occasionally pretty funny. Some choice tidbits:"As it is, Mr Mill was returned by the electors of Westminster; and they have never, since they had members, done themselves so great an honour. But what did the electors of Westminster know of Mr Mill? . . . They meant to do homage to mental ability, but it was the worship of an unknown God -- if ever there was such a thing in this world.""When you establish a predominant Parliament, you give over rule of the country to a despot who has unlimited time -- who has unlimited vanity -- who has, or believes he has, unlimited comprehension, whose pleasure is in action, whose life is work. There is no limit to the curiosity of Parliament.""But there is a still worse case, a case which the life of George III--which is a sort of museum of the defects of a constitutional king--suggests at once.""Now a competent legislature is very rare.""Great communities have scarcely ever--never save for transient moments--been ruled by their highest thought. And if we can get them ruled by a decent capable thought, we may be well enough contented with our work."
    • 4/5
      Walter Bagehot was editor of the Economist and his name is still on the weekly page about England. This book describes the English Constitution and compares it favorably with the United States Constitution.

    Book preview

    The English Constitution - Walter Bagehot

    1^book_preview_excerpt.html}ے7r㿐њ]A^kRVT\+][i~B?2q 9]@<|y|y7?Ng.uOxh؇|y ˺8Oqi/1c CE&Ygx䇥cyϺS>'?/Sh޹2G䧻_ *&,и|*o&)/_cuAaƒg)}h1cۯT\R(/cFnrw/4 KEj^)N_ar|z\<}k~Sozfg? y{d>ğ$`j}ٍgSMO}*"/߾կ~ռ{͟=k~|ϯy߼W?|0ӛ7,_j^w5߼}SN[[!0׻EθMSw7'7~n4q&(m|p0yׁbFf /z^w:w_"|+RW/loO_}tx?& ޿~xs<|}}o|ooHwdoW>` (Y.]Eh$M):"e ?Yb3?=}xqkFOE]o.qzB W1,%):Ŵn\$c#rDQ VWEQ~WA-]3ژ0_nlf!@a lɚQaz7Q-|+1Togwd׿4L{ryB Ǩ95/WQ 19NTyaދvr~;ｐpOR$ ӹ_E.}3@3:GY8q}/: ^V!^yH6d!Y)tj?%laG d}q%lja>Ϣ^H}`^6\fa:9e\v g7yn9#-_jQ>>8I۱DY!}I;Zg>E <שyXwpPH\sr_W WINGE;yJ |)3L BQV~nE{Jd?~nS~yI"r; +=9ץg4!%I}N^W7jܓ{J09?,#LA1Pȇ[h]U]=)<&.U{84LGX2՝@O^GLtL@]`^-!ڣЅqcmzFJ;)/+y=̋~ qTK%KU0ģ!+NXԳ@ $;l)-C>DA+=^McA=qp(^mg@U`|aYzN@6в,Ct '(-룢Tp I:1̆á@ei ԕm QeُxD\,N=V>98.2MqW/I)HDpuɔHA@ ΒH\NNFQzz&1s:M3 ǀDCiB}:s203hH՘WTx\2؂%--мODȳb]ĄBDٸ[Ь /z3q.{USAak azn9ю~r#=A( EL0diVۭb:r|0}IiDxh}r,"8Z攉ʯ$yVDp"n%SGc7j{fTfUNWUW ,l.zh&1мj+*eBtjl 3ݎ'>H_4 'IQ+6_C:pGDNGKT(+ ӫ4hI+ ֻ=7_/J̗2h.Z%Â['ataΉtBnBTo_-ce]o]A~}"dTN F>ƜCO]a%|V/'x;RVQhxiFjyVwOz~1yc,0ZռvW,ZkA}jYƨʢ-&(B_Nk'ԧ=*Ts0?L''=)Op8HAՍzjh,Hf +V)IgXq3d1!c\>^8CΰO1l*VgDB,`,9ĽI:ݪNePR iSOP>Ũ*M$,t6I<~@SP5k :A`7tl5`B`t^Ρ}l*9 .$q@%{\!$}"#l'7 ۜ@AG6D<H:DˋtL$\OU:p Pa5*< ?uAw kF$I nGL"0S r_Adh WDINU U:_`ST!vQT M/S> %^|vSZ2=;h5dga* I&"0--Q]1Տv\H5cn$p6ÁZ"gVYM貱&,~|S'E>ȝ\Wcs*+J`1EĽ"ԈFCSj>)b1<38 2DZX!2YC´61CCSQ$|0ϐ`os+I8=Y TɛрNY 5¨3?ߒ[9▰q]j0R4%'XdBTk]t0 y/ysMIX[WD)>Cz! H@"""S@xpE2fLާl, @]f=c5v=zo l^\ey]6kpR0,f򸐶Eeڄd^!FfUz΋:6hi " NݩK @I^ ISF8rcɥ0`*. H9UYHŁydo} 'ڻ1 LryZ^,$J¢C Yp_<"[͓@М /[b+/Jw"&":gAm8i1NR +" 7tYM-JEK ɩ?FyfEA'jdPC0 .ƤA3QW\טo>"XPHy`)~g E:BoE|:1|شEdV';Cd ?~zb ?M;,C..!x#DNE<=?ôI B ڋD4UYUu,Ey펤.#UЧ ,gAl{͛dB[(5i q#Cvpd$OBC>HYƩu.*d68R%7br뙹݆5,9NMZ1+(k'+;WUSԫx \& #׺ 1!H14K@Vro,>=@l$ %؛d#ZMi1S)nIM"fmxSΰڳǣ Z"f3.ࣟ(WX%",N&&uzrTFn櫒㋆ip3YJH)1և- An.Bf78r+[<3Dx!b9 T`<š.e JH# {w.Zzpb2ʭi y,,TsUaY:^?H~`>RYZmg:2>"9-g$̇l,YM!dtgds;#s h6඘X;n^t!ӽ>)fe1}t㤜1&Wbu[D>ӝH mdkq .ϖZOՏ$,*B\4 2&8KMm$\ _W:(ImokS=R9)[U&`󖖛胱 o! )oACܑa<߭/ 2͌:] <5xT  tEdQA@p5f'm-JI r]אּz򋖛0YPB{9Q7 ƴYEk\5>b<H="ܨAh~i.mak᪲NIYZ?$>ϧ LS6ϋ)XST͐ޠ= bș'D~3et?&q9fP5z4k03=Wh47E5"Q HQxb%"5+kz#lX ɛ!R/ؐA j `mQNhPtR?nJ`Zlݙž;LNLZTm)(2bޱJ :+mE fQY&"BBk4)0r6$fюTBrEZ *es}EVPpT q@V6mB .dcU^kDo3p6#ҩnzIws9id(h[Oʔ#YM(űPک fY::ɩ(ȃޤOa\Q4>l\5T6ғ)Oح{&nS/ 5U}>6!;Fc.M ug g6&L| l8vD#$AI \X eLyhBc.eDIj2G#Z\'n),I%uY Y a`! vqĒ֜kKCFSw=Gil` 5ui@ֵ]1&ù3n9535oБ:pHX'K>q~iPJUDo|Iӛ'ZX*xԯa K)dE2jDR "m]i*af崺.u02d)_@NP(:[!Ū@lU,vPW9 l[!%!(h5?,8@q T ~#k"6WFƘJ(b> *DNjIj]w j{%\"|1/G*rGWZ} Vd[`^8·)7џ:DDK#yfy# @װ^ާo/L@24U|DI_^(3!Ţ ݨˣ2jV;*F&КҜV#BֻPKѢX Zw΄ ћO!jnʧ5?ZUYi %/;]͢6[WM,\aM$+>z,cW/U?֣hED-kU Ow}66L:(O:SƦ"GDy'ߟŵ慛i&2EpxpkvDA{}O=3zr5L۴,'PZj6Ŝ?%e8l$Ի$75L8,ʇ; &ЂXWSTD QaG^A9N#^gJ|hL){$bq4u{RR{~Jn`;WHiJ)^+&4c9"j J6_>_D;l]krY/~)= [)rnU_7-gXzc먞#km?HKv ,jhOJ) 9ܺߌDkK*yڿK{dw0蹞L[nKB[m-8y$%WQh:R};=3TTGle;4 $|r犿5yd2;8~^ͱM\Nм(8j" CUZBD%Z`LU)6H5eъc]Hu jTdު1ת`7]8Զnզ0=?qrUa3jLek0! ^U൦lljH)t@D+S%n|WUS9fNQ*~Xk,_9(CwMfRc4Լѹ^oݭbMAȠl b[T70LB zεELFqY9֬MOh`)hPjV C""zͱ;FաAѴvB߼SQ]xM raeqJ-&M3o)6q>/v|92DQU[ a"TMk ԸNC)Q ștH61_au|fM؝7dP[w`^sOViT L?̔;_z"1ܥ0hMck°9u [XߔD㔁f'mP=Cݹɡ:ZΏu@T1=~.`ȞMgen,bU7:0>E [p@ J)EOr-BL#U/nN5e s .hI&Xsjjg4{"t(DX .YRޚREA{E22^;U wDhst0"<`v[FAhZTu"v-ImBE]3s` `aVJνaoEɀ-v hVCKC%e%? _z\:"RS0:X*fX'VXh>щHĂz4}5Hjٵ[qrp|gHTδfI,k$R?l:M{ȧ6dHqv(تp-yRl92z~8i{fD"."\S|d |^G!K ܵ{k$*uKϛy-RQ?R=VnZXd_p^A|+|v\yɫLM#kr!9oe}.Sx|iHV2=QUa^r(z8zz9_on㬂oqzT^3O:?UyeP4r Vтb aZB}y\[WLHcJP$k>[ل4"a Ӳ㭘ۅ9eV➙7QzSzoG}t Ve\o)G%C*A^B䷷>ij3띓NW̅7ziMu|աx+ ACxKL`8aA8Nk?̀X mߟq,1+bBz2klI$41/< jtg km#NmvXff.d9'wβ\+o$@Az"7Q ސ'Z5$Q@% έkY+qk҉lFEu, &-ɷdF}>;e]o?h)d u!pJ.ʍыV ugPpƈ'+]i(Dw֗~x.]F_U1,ZO|1~˭~|.3ŒO E().UKɝq].@dy'gЮk /2S5XN7)5+[w˽UH !tjrnT^va_\}[n?WVڅ7H}m+靈"3hcL ӠmJduҫr%IZrȝBvl#2ct~"8߾x0"PrP >dZr:5 :CVs6b1~u4Ca*_'$ΠQm#]7cfnK ld1GBm?a)/*)tާR_60#Ғ2s|J -W&q0QE?M\WwX&Z}:Xm%Co%<)#° cgCp324TʪKv_$PMVPq19kCB  eȋ=}fqOf+}}BZLHEnw"l 8#KKT:[FEtk6=) ;%SEe􋘰J/ 4˯fKjr@c7X^-CoTh?c񸤽PTd;5ZsdTyM⩡׻FFtْWZLm_-dڄiJ&ȽCYLF(5dB( *5 E:ѠdR@ f:Pc$.vT7vvڅ ;׹ ޜvcTQի<]'՛d)X-ͲR(0!uoL 7̎#lR @O;Emo,L$U,e2FZVѶLsm8r=S%c{*{✠рt|Jqs-iԽWwC[@XUj
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1