and the constituent epoch
that succeeded: "The rights asserted by our forefathers were not
peculiar to themselves. They were the common rights or mankind. The
basis of the Constitution was laid broader by far than the
superstructure which the conflicting interests and prejudices of the
day suffered to be erected. The Constitution and laws of the Federal
Government did not practically extend those principles throughout the
new system of government; but they were plainly promulgated in the
Declaration of Independence."

Now, although France was deeply touched by the American Revolution, it
was not affected by the American Constitution. It underwent the
disturbing influence, not the conservative.

The Constitution, framed in the summer of 1787, came into operation in
March 1789, and nobody knew how it worked, when the crisis came in
France. The debates, which explain every intention and combination,
remained long hidden from the world. Moreover, the Constitution has
become something more than the original printed paper. Besides
amendments, it has been interpreted by the courts, modified by
opinion, developed in some directions, and tacitly altered in others.
Some of its most valued provisions have been acquired in this way, and
were not yet visible when the French so greatly needed the guiding
lessons of other men's experience. Some of the restrictions on the
governing power were not fully established at first.

The most important of these is the action of the Supreme Court in
annulling unconstitutional laws. The Duke of Wellington said to Bunsen
that by this institution alone the United States made up for all the
defects of their government. Since Chief Justice Marshall, the
judiciary undoubtedly obtained immense authority, which Jefferson, and
others besides, believed to be unconstitutional; for the Constitution
itself gives no such power. The idea had grown up in the States,
chiefly, I think, in Virginia. At Richmond, in 1782, Judge Wythe
said: "Tyranny has been sapped, the departments kept within their own
spheres, the citizens protected, and general liberty promoted. But
this beneficial result attains to higher perfection when, those who
hold the purse and the sword differing as to the powers which each may
exercise, the tribunals, who hold neither, are called upon to declare
the law impartially between them, if the whole legislature--an event
to be deprecated--should attempt to overleap the boundaries prescribed