d; we must fix
also a standard signification to it.

A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an
ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in a
visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent to a
government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The
constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the
people constituting its government. It is the body of elements, to which
you can refer, and quote article by article; and which contains the
principles on which the government shall be established, the manner
in which it shall be organised, the 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
subject, and it would have been the best manne