subject, and it would have been the best manner in which people could
have judged of their separate merits. Why then has he declined the
only thing that was worth while to write upon? It was the strongest
ground he could take, if the advantages were on his side, but the
weakest if they were not; and his declining to take it is either a
sign that he could not possess it or could not maintain it.

Mr. Burke said, in a speech last winter in Parliament, "that when the
National Assembly first met in three Orders (the Tiers Etat, the
Clergy, and the Noblesse), France had then a good constitution." This
shows, among numerous other instances, that Mr. Burke does not
understand what a constitution is. The persons so met were not a
constitution, but a convention, to make a constitution.

The present National Assembly of France is, strictly speaking, the
personal social compact. The members of it are the delegates of the
nation in its original character; future assemblies will be the
delegates of the nation in its organised character. The authority of
the present Assembly is different from what the authority of future
Assemblies will be. The authority of the present one is to form a
constitution; the authority of future assemblies will be to legislate
according to the principles and forms prescribed in that
constitution; and if experience should hereafter show that
alterations, amendments, or additions are necessary, the constitution
will point out the mode by which such things shall be done, and not
leave it to the discretionary power of the future government.

A government on the principles on which constitutional governments
arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of
altering itself. If it had, it would be arbitrary. It might make