accurate, that there was practically no _new_ legislation, no
constructive legislation under the Saxons; their social law was all
unwritten.

And Parliament did not begin by being a law-making body. Its
legislative functions were not very active, as they were confined to
declaring what the law was; more important were its executive and
judicial functions. In modern English government, particularly in our
own, one of the basic principles is that of the three departments,
executive, legislative, and judicial; the Norman or Roman theory
rather reposed all power in one; that is, in the sovereign, commonly,
of course, the king, the others being theoretically his advisers or
servants. In England, to-day, the real sovereign is the Parliament;
the merest shadow of sovereignty is left to the executive, the king,
and none whatever given the judicial branch. In this country we
preserve the three branches distinct, though none, not all three
together, are sovereign; it is the people who are that. And each
department is of equal dignity; although at one period there was a
certain amount of public complaint that Congress was usurping more
power than belongs to it, and recently that power was being usurped by
the president, there has hardly been (except from Mr. Gompers and Mr.
Hearst) any complaint that power is usurped by the _judicial_ branch,
however unpopular its decisions. But in England there is no pretence
of maintaining the three branches uniform either in importance or in
power. Starting with the Great Council, which had originally only a
certain amount of executive power and a great deal of judicial power,
they have retained and added to the former, while practically giving
up the latter; and, moreover, they have divided into the two houses,
the House of Lords and the House of Commons, with a division of
sovereignty between them, the Commons, of course, getting the lion's