[11]
The great _arcanum imperii_, which with us belongs to the three branches
of the Legislature, and which is expressed by the current phrase,
"omnipotence of Parliament," thus became the acknowledged property of
the three branches of the Federal Legislature; and the old and
respectable doctrine of State independence is now no more than an
archaeological relic, a piece of historical antiquarianism. Yet the
actual attributions of the State authorities cover by far the largest
part of the province of government; and by this division of labor and
authority, the problem of fixing for the nation a political centre of
gravity is divested of a large part of its difficulty and danger, in
some proportions to the limitations of the working precinct.
Within that precinct, the initiation as well as the final sanction in
the great business of finance is made over to the popular branch of the
Legislature, and a most interesting question arises upon the comparative
merits of this arrangement, and of our method, which theoretically
throws upon the Crown the responsibility of initiating public charge,
and under which, until a recent period, our practice was in actual and
even close correspondence with this theory.
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