But though this exclusion is essential to the Presidential system of government, it is not for that reason a small evil.  It causes the degradation of public life.  Unless a member of the legislature be sure of something more than speech, unless he is incited by the hope of action, and chastened by the chance of responsibility, a first-rate man will not care to take the place, and will not do much if he does take it.  To belong to a debating society adhering to an executive (and this is no inapt description of a congress under a Presidential Constitution) is not an object to stir a noble ambition, and is a position to encourage idleness.  The members of a Parliament excluded from office can never be comparable, much less equal, to those of a Parliament not excluded from office.  The Presidential Government, by its nature, divides political life into two halves, an executive half and a legislative half; and, by so dividing it, makes neither half worth a man’s having—­worth his making it a continuous career—­worthy to absorb, as Cabinet government absorbs, his whole soul.  The statesmen from whom a nation chooses under a Presidential system are much inferior to those from whom it chooses under a Cabinet system, while the selecting apparatus is also far less discerning.

All these differences are more important at critical periods, because government itself is more important.  A formed public opinion, a respectable, able, and disciplined legislature, a well-chosen executive, a Parliament and an administration not thwarting each other, but co-operating with each other, are of greater consequence when great affairs are in progress than when small affairs are in progress-when there is much to do than when there is little to do.  But in addition to this, a Parliamentary or Cabinet Constitution possesses an additional and special advantage in very dangerous times.  It has what we may call a reserve of power fit for and needed by extreme exigencies.

The principle of popular government is that the supreme power, the determining efficacy in matters political, resides in the people—­ not necessarily or commonly in the whole people, in the numerical majority, but in a chosen people, a picked and selected people.  It is so in England; it is so in all free countries.  Under a Cabinet Constitution at a sudden emergency this people can choose a ruler for the occasion.  It is quite possible and even likely that he would not be ruler before the occasion.  The great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not required—­are impediments—­in common times; A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday politics than a Chatham—­a Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon.  By the structure of the world we often want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman--to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm.  In England we have had so few catastrophes since our