Constitution of the United Kingdom

“ It also gave them power to make laws, with the assent of the freemen of the province, or their delegrates, provided such laws were consonant with reason, and, as near as conveniently, may be agreeable to the laws and customs of the realm of England. [9] It also provided, that the inhabitants and their children should be denizens and lieges of the kingdom of England, and reputed and held as the liege people born within the kingdom; and might inherit and purchase lands, and sell and bequeath the same; and should possess all the privileges and immunities of natural born subjects within the realm. ”

“ In its anxiety to economise time, Parliament does not hesitate to render its measures applicable to the whole of the United Kingdom by appending to them clauses which regulate separately the application of the provisions to Scotland and Ireland ”

“ An amendment, which has the deliberate judgment of two-thirds of congress, and of three fourths of the states, can scarcely be deemed unsuited to the prosperity, or security of the republic. It must combine as much wisdom and experience in its favour, as ordinarily can belong to the management of any human concerns. [10] In England the supreme power of the nation resides in parliament; and, in a legal sense, it is so omnipotent, that it has authority to change the whole structure of the constitution, without resort to any confirmation of the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have it in our power to secure our liberties and happiness on the most unshaken, firm, and permanent basis. We can establish what government we please. But by that paper we are consolidating the United States into one great government, and trusting to constructive security. You will find no such thing in the English government. The common law of England is not the common law of these states. I conceive, therefore, that there is nothing in that Constitution to hinder a dismemberment of the empire. ”

“ The greatest security for the liberties of the people established in that Government, depends on the control which their Parliament has over the purse-strings. In England, this power rests merely on custom; here, the House are expressly intrusted with it; what is custom in England, is reduced to writing in our constitution. Then, if this power is in England a ground for Parliament to judge of Treaties, it is a fair inference that it ought to be exercised here. ”

“ Our powers are limited, many acts of sovereignty are prohibited to the National Government, and retained by the States; and many restraints are imposed upon State sovereignty. If either, by accident or design, should exceed its powers, there is the utmost necessity that some timely checks, equal to every exigency, should be interposed. The Judiciary is established by the constitution for that valuable purpose.
In the British Government, the Legislature is omnipotent to every legislative effect, and is a perpetual convention for almost every constitutional purpose. ”

“ A contract seems to exclude, rather than to imply, delegated power. The judges of Great Britain are appointed by the crown. The judicial authority, therefore, does not depend upon representation, even in its most remote degree. Does representation prevail in the legislative department of the British government? Even here it does not predominate, though it may serve as a check. The legislature consists of three branches,—the king, the lords, and the commons. Of these, only the latter are supposed by the constitution to represent the authority of the people. ”

“ That we cannot have a proper body for forming a Legislative balance between the inordinate power of the Executive and the people, is evident from a review of the accidents & circumstances which gave rise to the peerage of Great Britain—I believe it is well ascertained that the parts which compose the British Constitution arose immediately from the forests of Germany ”

“ The slightest examination of the British constitution will at once convince us, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are by no means totally distinct, and separate from each other. The executive magistrate forms an integral part of the legislative department; for parliament consists of the king, lords, and commons; and no law can be passed except by the assent of the king. Indeed, he possesses certain prerogatives, such as, for instance, that of making foreign treaties, by which he can, to a limited extent, impart to them a legislative force and operation. ”

“ I am in conscience and conviction opposed to our having the right to impart a legislative power at all. In England it might be done, because the Legislature is omnipotent; but we are limited within the sphere of our constitution; and if the power is not there to be found, it can nowhere exist. Hence I state that in forming this constitution it was declared that all laws to be enforced must have the assent of the three branches representing three distinct interests of the community; and to repeal them the same formality is required. ”

“ That the Duchy of Warsaw shall be for ever united by its constitution to the Russian empire, under the title of the kingdom of Poland; that it shall have a distinct administration, a budget, and an army of its own. The Emperor reserves to himself the right of giving it the territorial extension which he may think desirable— (by which was intended that the Polish Palatinates, which Russia had acquired at the former partition of Poland, should be re-united to the new kingdom) . ”

“ Of the legislative authority of Parliament as regards the United Kingdom it is scarcely necessary to speak. Any law affecting the United Kingdom not only lawfully may, but can in fact, be changed by the Imperial Parliament. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I should have preferred that this provision should have gone further, and required the President to select his constitutional advisers from the Senate and House of Representatives. That would have conformed entirely to the practice in the British Parliament, which, in my judgment, is one of the wisest provisions in the British constitution. It is the only feature that saves that government. It is that which gives it stability in its facility to change its administration. Ours, as it is, is a great approximation to the right principle. ”

“ She had no right to abolish the constitution, even had Poland and herself been the only parties concerned; for, according to all the laws of civilized nations, the misconduct of a part does not entitle a sovereign to file a bill of indictment against the whole— and not only to take vengeance on the offending generation, but also to punish their latest and blameless posterity. ”

“ The people may employ any wise or good citizen in the execution of the various duties of the government. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, no protestant can hold a public trust. In England every Presbyterian, and other person not of their established church, is incapable of holding an office. No such impious deprivation of the rights of men can take place under the new fœderal constitution. The convention [16] has the honour of proposing the first public act, by which any nation has ever divested itself of a power, every exercise of which is a trespass on the Majesty of Heaven. ”

“ They re-organized society by naturally, though slowly, developing those numerous intermediary institutions—guilds, corporations, trial by jury, the judiciary, and representation of interests, orders, guilds and corporations, not of individual heads, in Parliament—all which, as a living, harmonious system, constitute, or did constitute, the English Constitution, and were essentially reproduced in the Constitution of the United States, and which wonderfully distinguish constitutionalism from absolutism. ”

“ There is no Declaration of Rights. Bills of Rights were introduced in England when its kings claimed all power and jurisdiction, and were considered by them as grants to the people. They are insignificant since government is considered as originating from the people, and all the power government now has is a grant from the people. The constitution they establish with powers limited and defined, becomes now to the legislator and magistrate, what originally a bill of rights was to the people. ”

“ It is to be observed, also, that in Great Britain constitutional law does not exist as a separate and distinct body of rules and precedents, its provisions being an integral part of the common and statute law of the realm, from which they are to be collected. ”

“ But why will gentlemen contend for incorporating amendments into the constitution? They say, that it is necessary for the people to have the whole before them in one view. Have they precedent for this assertion? Look at the constitution of Great Britain ”

“ Can the interests of others be safely confided to those, who have yet to learn how to take care of their own? The British constitution has, indeed, provided only for the members of the house of commons not being minors ”

“ What bodies are there in Britain, vested with such capacities for enquiring into, checking, and regulating the conduct of national affairs, as our sovereign states? What proportion does the number of free holders in Britain bear to the number of people? And what is the proportion in United America? ”

“ But, happily for us of this island, the British constitution has long remained, and I trust will long continue, a standing exception to the truth of this observation. For, as with us the executive power of the laws is lodged in a single person, they have all the advantages of strength and dispatch, that are to be found in the most absolute monarchy; and, as the legislature of the kingdom is entrusted to three distinct powers, entirely independent of each other ”

“ I only mention the subject to suggest that the reader of these lectures will better understand why the American people take the written obligations of the League so seriously and literally. We have been trained for nearly a century and a half to measure the validity and obligations of laws and executive acts in Courts of Justice and to apply the plain import of the Constitution. Our constant inquiry is, "Is it so nominated" in that compact? In Europe, and especially England, constitutionalism is largely a spirit of great objectives and ideals. ”

“ If, therefore, the legal provisions of the British Constitution, together with the unwritten maxims by which the conduct of the different political authorities is in fact regulated, did not give to the popular element in the Constitution that substantial supremacy over every department of the government which corresponds to its real power in the country, the Constitution would not possess the stability which characterizes it ”

“ There is, in short, no ground in the nature of things to presume that constitutional arrangements, which are well adapted for the condition of America, are well adapted for the totally different condition of the United Kingdom. ”