American constitution? That is the form, it seems to me, in which the
question of Republicanism as an alternative to existing institutions,
must presently return into the field of public discussion in Great
Britain; not as a question of political stability nor of individual
rights this time, but as an aspect of our general scheme, our scheme to
make the world more free and more stimulating and strengthening for our
children and our children's children; for the children both of our
bodies and of our thoughts.

It is interesting to recall the assumptions under which the last
vestiges of militant Republicanism died out in Great Britain. As late
as the middle years of the reign of Queen Victoria, there were many in
England who were, and who openly professed themselves to be,
Republicans, and there was a widely felt persuasion that the country
was drifting slowly towards the constitution of a democratic republic.
In those days it was that there came into being a theory, strengthened
by the withdrawal of the Monarch from affairs, which one still hears
repeated, that Great Britain was a "crowned republic," that the crown
was no more than a symbol retained by the "innate good sense" of the
British people, and that in some automatic way not clearly explained,
such old-time vestiges of privilege as the House of Lords would
presently disappear. One finds this confident belief in Progress
towards political equality--Progress that required no human effort, but
was inherent in the scheme of things--very strong in Dickens, for
example, who spoke for the average Englishman as no later writer can be
said to have done. This belief fell in very happily with that
disposition to funk a crisis, that vulgar dread of vulgar action which
one must regretfully admit was all too often a characteristic of the
nineteenth century English. There was an idea among Englishmen that to
do anything whatever of a positive sort to bring about a Republic was