The English Constitution--speaking, of course, of its form, not its content--differs, therefore, from those of most other European nations more widely in method of expression than in essential nature and legal effect. They have been created usually as a result of a movement to change fundamentally the political institutions of the country, and the new plan has naturally been embodied in a document; but since the Restoration England has never revised her frame of government as a whole, and hence has felt no need of codifying it. The national political institutions are to be found in statutes,[9:1] in customs which are enforced and developed by the courts and form a part of the Common Law, and in customs strictly so called which have no legal validity whatever and cannot be enforced at law. These last are very appropriately called by Professor Dicey the conventions of the constitution. The two chief peculiarities of the English Constitution are: first, that no laws are ear-marked as constitutional,--all laws can be changed by Parliament, and hence it is futile to attempt to draw a sharp line between those laws which do and those which do not form a part of the constitution;--second, the large part played by customary rules, which are carefully followed, but which are entirely devoid of legal sanction. Customs or conventions of this kind exist, and in the nature of things must to some extent exist, under all governments. In the United States where they might, perhaps, be least expected, they have, as already observed, transformed the presidential electors into a mere machine for registering the popular vote in the several states, and this is only the most striking of the instances that might be cited.[9:2] England is peculiar, not because it has such conventions, but because they are more abundant and all-pervasive than elsewhere. The most familiar of them is, of course, the rule that the King must act on the advice of his ministers, while they must resign or dissolve Parliament when they lose the confidence of the majority in the House of Commons.