Constitution of Great Britain

“ Every British subject born on the continent of America or in any other of the British dominions is by the law of God and nature, by the common law, and by act of Parliament (exclusive of all charters from the crown) entitled to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights of our fellow subjects in Great Britain. Among those rights are the following, which it is humbly conceived no man or body of men, not excepting the Parliament, justly, equitably, and consistently with their own rights and the constitution can take away. ”

“ I do not mean on the king, but on men in power. This spirit is so far from being incompatible with the British constitution, that it is the greatest glory of it, and the nation has always been most prosperous, when it has most prevailed and been most encouraged by the crown. I wish it increased in every part of the world, especially in America; and I think the measures, the tories are now pursuing, will increase it to a degree that will ensure us, in the end, redress of grievances and an happy reconciliation with Great Britain. ”

“ That we claim all the benefits secured to the subject by the English Constitution, and particularly that inestimable one of Trial by Jury.
That we hold it essential to English liberty, that no man be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, without having an opportunity of making his defence.
That we think the Legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the Constitution to establish a Religion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of Government in any quarter of the globe. These rights we, as well as you, deem sacred ”

“ Imitation of the British Constitution, without discriminating between forms and realities, has led Europe a strange dance. Great Britain can hardly be said to have a constitution in the proper sense of the term. ”

“ By institutions of government I mean the established rule or order of action through which the sovereign (in our case the sovereign people) attains the ends of government. The governmental institutions of Great Britain have been established by the growth through many centuries of a great body of accepted rules and customs which, taken together, are called the British Constitution. In this country we have set forth in the Declaration of Independence the principles which we consider to lie at the basis of civil society "that all men are created equal ”

“ Almost everything in the British constitution is in the nature of a compromise. Constitutional monarchy in its essence is a half-way house between Autocracy and Republicanism and its great advantage to the minds of its supporters is that the system has the extremes of neither, the best qualities of each, and all the advantages of that strength and permanence which moderation and toleration always afford. In Britain the system certainly has the affection and devotion of the great mass of the people. ”

“ The British Parliament can do every thing they please. Their bill of rights is only an act of Parliament, which may be, at any time, altered or modified, without a violation of the constitution. The people of Great Britain have no constitution to control their legislature. ”

“ It is worthy of remark, and the remark may, perhaps, excite some surprise, that representation of the people is not, even at this day, the sole principle of any government in Europe. Great Britain boasts—and she may well boast—of the improvement she has made in politics by the admission of representation; for the improvement is important as far as it goes; but it by no means goes far enough. Is the executive power of Great Britain founded on representation? ”

“ They are equal in rights, nor is extreme of poverty to be seen in any part of the Union. If we are thus singularly situated, both as to fortune and rights, it evidently follows that we cannot draw any useful lessons from the examples of any of the European states or kingdoms; much less can Great Britain afford us any striking institution, which can be adapted to our own situation—unless we indeed intend to establish an hereditary executive, or one for life. Great Britain drew its first rude institutions from the forests of Germany, and with them that of its nobility. ”

“ In monarchies, the only practical resistance, which the judiciary can present, is to the usurpations of a single department of the government, unaided, and acting for itself. But, if the executive and legislative departments are combined in any course of measures, obedience to their will becomes a duty, as well as a necessity. Thus, even in the free government of Great Britain, an act of parliament, combining, as it does, the will of the crown, and of the legislature, is absolute and omnipotent. ”

“ In Great Britain, the constitution is accounted more secure, because the King is the source of law, of honour, and of all ministerial and executive power; whilst he is responsible to the nation through his ministers, for the manner in which that power is exercised. ”

“ This it is which constitutes the leading difference between the nobility of Great Britain and those of other countries. With us they are permitted to have legislative power before they arrive at their higher stations; and as they are, like all the rest of mankind, to be improved by experience in the science of legislation as well as in every other science, our constitution affords them that opportunity by their being eligible to seats in this House from the time of their majority. ”

“ The Constitution which it hath pleased your Majesty and Parliament to give us, modelled upon that of Great Britain—a Constitution which has carried the empire to the highest pitch of glory and prosperity—assures to this colony the most solid advantages, and will for ever attach it to the parent State. ”

“ In a limited monarchy, the people have some political rights. Such a monarchy is Great Britain. The king or sovereign is in a measure restrained by laws; and he can not make laws alone. The laws are framed and agreed to by parliament, and must be approved by the king or queen. Parliament consists of two bodies of men, the house of lords and the house of commons. The members of the latter are elected by the people, who, in such election, exercise a political right.
§10. But the political right of establishing a constitution or form of government, is not enjoyed by the people of that country. ”

“ It makes all the difference in the world, whether words are used by one possessed of power, or by one devoid of power. Congress might pass a law in precisely the same words as those used by the Parliament of Great Britain, and yet the law of Congress be invalid and inoperative, while the act of Parliament would be valid and binding. We have [Pg 165] a written constitution; Great Britain has no written constitution. The British Parliament, on many subjects, has an ampler jurisdiction than the American Congress. ”

“ D Sir Henry Maine: Popular Government (Am. ed.) , pp. 110, 111.
We possess, therefore, not a more suitable constitution than other countries, but a constitution which is perfectly definite and which is preserved by very formidable difficulties of amendment against inconsiderate change. The difference between our own case and that of Great Britain upon which we have most reason to congratulate ourselves is that here public opinion has definite criteria for its conservatism; whereas in England it has only shifting and uncertain precedent. In both countries there is the same respect for law. ”

“ According to the views of every member, the general government will have powers far beyond those exercised by the British Parliament when the states were part of the British empire. It will, in particular, have the power, without the consent of the state legislatures, to levy money directly from the people themselves, and, therefore, not to divest such unequal portions of the people as composed the several states of an equal voice, would subject the system to the reproaches and evils which have resulted from the vicious representation in Great Britain. ”

“ The British constitution in theory and in the present administration of it in general comes nearest the idea of perfection of any that has been reduced to practice; and if the principles of it are adhered to it will, according to the infallible prediction of Harrington, always keep the Britons uppermost in Europe till their only rival nation shall either embrace that perfect model of a commonwealth given us by that author or come as near it as Great Britain is. ”

“ Let the national government be armed with a positive and complete authority in all cases where uniform measures are necessary, as in trade, &c. &c. Let it also retain the powers which it now possesses.
Let it have a negative, in all cases whatsoever, on the legislative acts of the states, as the king of Great Britain heretofore had. This I conceive to be essential, and the least possible abridgment of the state sovereignties. Without such a defensive power, every positive power that can be given on paper will be unavailing. It will also give internal stability to the states. ”

“ The democracy of Great Britain, now coming to its own, is free from all such shackles.
In England there is no written Constitution: no limits are placed to the scope of legislative activity in altering fundamental principles or attacking individual rights; the Executive is not independent of, but necessarily in close alliance with the Legislature; there are no separate organs of local government to balance the tremendous power wielded by the organs of the Central Government ”

“ He asked what would be thought in Great Britain, from whose constitution our political reasonings were so much drawn, of an attempt to prove that a power of making requisitions of money on the Parliament, and of borrowing money, for discharge of which the Parliament should be bound, might be annexed to the crown without changing its quality of an executive branch, and that the leaving to the Parliament the mode only of complying with the requisitions of the crown would be leaving to it its supreme and exclusive power of legislation. ”

“ It is difficult for us to understand how so many good things are blocked, not only in the Federal Government, but in the separate States, by the written constitutions. In Great Britain the Constitution consists of unwritten principles embodied either in Parliamentary statutes or in the common law, and yields to any Act which Parliament may pass, and the judiciary can impose no veto on it. This is one reason why England is so far ahead of the United States in labour legislation. ”

“ So that, as the English constitution now stands, the parliament must expire, or die a natural death, at the end of the seventh year, and not sooner, unless dissolved by the royal prerogative. [57] Yet no man, tolerably well acquainted with the history of Great Britain for the last century, would venture to affirm, that the people had not enjoyed a higher degree of liberty and influence in all the proceedings of the government, than ever existed in any antecedent period. ”

“ The revolution, or rather the declaration of independence, found the people already united for general purposes, and at the same time providing for their more domestic concerns by state conventions, and other temporary arrangements. From the crown of Great Britain the sovereignty of their country passed to the people of it ”

“ In their view a free government seems to have been incompatible with a great extent of territory, or population. What, then, would become of Great Britain, or of France, under the present constitution of their legislative departments? § 661. The next objection was, that the representatives would be chosen from that class of citizens, which would have the least sympathy with the mass of the people; and would be most likely to aim at an ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few. ”

“ In 1774, the progress made by Great Britain in the open assertion of her pretensions, and the apprehended purpose of otherwise maintaining them by legislative enactments and declarations, had been such, that the colonies did not hesitate to assemble, by their deputies, in a formal Congress, authorized to oppose to the British innovations whatever measures might be found best adapted to the occasion ”

“ While we were dependent on the crown of Great Britain, it was in contemplation to form the whole into one; but it was found impracticable. No legislature could make good laws for the whole, nor can it now be done. It would necessarily place the power in the hands of the few nearest the seat of government. State governments must therefore remain, if you mean to prevent confusion. The general negative powers will support the general government. Upon these considerations, I am led to form the second branch differently from the report. ”

“ To all this I answer, that the nation is not so united; that they do not so universally hold they have such a right. And my reasons I have given before; that the terms “British Empire” are not the language of the common law, but the language of newspapers and political pamphlets; that the dominions of the king of Great Britain have no power coextensive with them. I would ask, by what law the parliament has authority over America? ”

“ In Great Britain, therefore, a measure which any Imperial Parliament passes becomes at once the supreme law of the land, though it may nullify a great number of laws which previous Parliaments had passed under different conditions of the sentiment of the nation. ”

“ When one looks to the changes, brought about in England in consequence of the Revolution of July, one is quite astounded. Here they changed nothing but the dynasty, in England the very spirit of the old Monarchy has been abolished, and what will be, in the course of time, the consequences, it is not easy to tell. A bad Constitution acts strongly on the people. Look to America, even to Belgium. Ever, my dearest Victoria, your devoted Uncle,
Leopold R.
Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell. ”