powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of
Parliaments, or by what other name such bodies may be called; the
powers which the executive part of the government shall have; and in
fine, everything that relates to the complete organisation of a civil
government, and the principles on which it shall act, and by which it
shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a government what
the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of
judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither
can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and
the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

Can, then, Mr. Burke produce the English Constitution? If he cannot,
we may fairly conclude that though it has been so much talked about,
no such thing as a constitution exists, or ever did exist, and
consequently that the people have yet a constitution to form.

Mr. Burke will not, I presume, deny the position I have already
advanced- namely, that governments arise either out of the people or
over the people. The English Government is one of those which arose
out of a conquest, and not out of society, and consequently it arose
over the people; and though it has been much modified from the
opportunity of circumstances since the time of William the Conqueror,
the country has never yet regenerated itself, and is therefore
without a constitution.

I readily perceive the reason why Mr. Burke declined going into the
comparison between the English and French constitutions, because he
could not but perceive, when he sat down to the task, that no such a
thing as a constitution existed on his side the question. His book is
certainly bulky enough to have contained all he could say on this