OCR Text |
Show 2na ACTS RELATING Part I. ments ;--but as no bounds are hitherto fet to it, the power he exercifes in prefcribing forms of government to countries already conquered, or fettled, is a power that feems Sect}. TO THE Commas. 23 The Americans have indeed difcovered, -" that in all free dates the conflitution " isflxca' ;"---that is, as the fequel explains it, zma/terab/e :--" the fupreme legiflative " power of the date (they tell us) derives warranted by the confiitution. For what do we mean by the conflz'tu- " its authority from the confiitution z"- 12'0" ? The quefiion Inuit be anfwered one time or other : as well may we anfwer it they then alk us with an air of triumph,- now as at any other time. " of the c<:.n.litution, without fubverting Is it not that alTemblage of inftitutions and cultoms which compofe the general fyfiem, according to which the feveral powers in the {late are diftributed ? I fay cultoms as well as infiitutions ;- for, Irepeat it again, it is upon cuf'rom that a great part of our political as well as of our civil government depends. Not that we are hence to conclude, that " If that power can overleap the bounds " its own foundation * P" I really do not know what thefe gentlemen mean by the conl'titution ;--for after all my refearches, I never could find out the immuz‘aé/c later of nature, in which they are f0 converfant 5 and to which they refer us, as the proper fiandard by which to try the validity of acts of parliament. But if the conflitution means, as I {uppofe it to mean, the alTemblage of infiitutions the conltitution is unalterablc, or that any and cuf'coms, by which the (lifierent powers power in it is not liable to be put under, in the Fate are dil'tributed ; then, f0 far is or reflrained by, fuch other controuls and and checks, as the wifdom of the prefent or future parliaments may adopt. *See Letter from the reprcfentative ofhlaflhchul'et's Bay to lord Camden, dated january 20, 1768, in 'l‘he true Sentiments of America, C 4. The the |