"What do you think of the English Constitution?"

Bart looked a little puzzled.

"The English government seems to be an admirable structure--on paper;
but as to the principles that lie below it, or around it, that
govern and control its workings, and from which it can't depart, I am
cloudy."

"Yes, a good many are; but then there is, as you know, a great
unwritten English Constitution--certain great fixed principles which
from time to time have been observed, through many ages, until their
observance has become a law, from which the government cannot depart,
and they take the form of maxims and rules."

"I think I understand what you mean; but to me everything is in
cloud-land, vague and shifting, and the fact that nobody has ever
attempted to put in writing these principles, or even to enumerate
them, leads one to doubt whether really there are such things. When
king, lords and commons are, in theory and practice, absolutely
omnipotent, I can't comprehend how there can be any other
constitution. When they enact a law, nobody can question it, nobody
can be heard against it; no court can pronounce it unconstitutional.
What may have been thought to be unconstitutional they can declare
to be law, and that ends it. So they can annihilate any one of the
so-called constitutional maxims. When a party in power wants to do a
thing, it is constitutional; when a minister or great noble is to be
got rid of, he is impeached for a violation of the constitution, and
constitutionally beheaded."