Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/18

12 as mildly, and, apart from political justice, as equitably and legally, as any other country. The will of the sovereign is never made to interfere, arbitrarily, with the administration of law, and the law itself proceeds from the principles that properly influence all legislation, though it can only receive its authority from the will of the king. That country furnishes a proof of the progress of opinion, as well as of its power to check abuses. It was only the great grandfather of the present sovereign who caused tall men to marry tall women at his command, in order to gratify a silly desire to possess a regiment of the tallest troops in the world. The influence of opinion on governments has been greatly aided by the wars and revolutions of the last, and of the present century, in which privileges have been diminished, and the rights, as well as, what is perhaps of more importance, the knowledge of their rights among the people, have been greatly augmented.

England, which is called a monarchy, is in fact a complicated but efficient aristocracy. Scarcely one of the powers that is attributed to the king by the constitution, and which were in truth exercised by his predecessors, is possessed by the present monarch in fact. By the constitution, the king of England is supposed to form a balance between the nobles and the people, whereas, in truth, his utmost influence is limited to holding a balance between parties, and this only in cases of a nearly equal force between contending factions. The extent of the authority of the king of England, at the present day, amounts to little more than the influence which he is permitted to use in minor cases, the aristocracy having devised expedients to control him on all occasions that are deemed of moment. As the mode in which this change has been effected, illustrates the manner in which