tical controlling powers are together. The
laws which are enacted by governments, control men only as individuals,
but the nation, through its constitution, controls the whole government,
and has a natural ability to do so. The final controlling power,
therefore, and the original constituting power, are one and the same
power.

Dr. Johnson could not have advanced such a position in any country where
there was a constitution; and he is himself an evidence that no such
thing as a constitution exists in England. But it may be put as a
question, not improper to be investigated, that if a constitution does
not exist, how came the idea of its existence so generally established?

In order to decide this question, it is necessary to consider a
constitution in both its cases:--First, as creating a government and
giving it powers. Secondly, as regulating and restraining the powers so
given.

If we begin with William of Normandy, we find that the government of
England was originally a tyranny, founded on an invasion and conquest of
the country. This being admitted, it will then appear, that the exertion
of the nation, at different periods, to abate that tyranny, and render
it less intolerable, has been credited for a constitution.

Magna Charta, as it was called (it is now like an almanack of the same
date), was no more than compelling the government to renounce a part of
its assumptions. It did not create and give powers to government in a
manner a constitution does; but was, as far as it went, of the nature of
a re-conquest, and not a constitution; for could the nation have totally
expelled the usurpation, as France has done its despotism, it would then
have had a constitution to form.

The history of the Edwards and the Henries, and up to the commencement
of the Stuarts, exhibits as many instances of tyranny as could be acted
within the limits to which the nation had restricted it. The Stuarts
endeavoured to pass those limits, and their fate is well known. In
all those instances we see nothing of a constitution, but only of
restrictions on assumed power.

After this, another William, descended from the same stock, and claiming
from the same origin, gained possession; and of the two evils, James
and William, the nation preferred what it thought the least; since, from
circumstances, it must take one. The act, called the Bill of Rights,
comes here into view. What is it, but a bargain, which the parts of
the government made