gnty
vested at first solely in the Sovereign, but gradually in the Sovereign
and Parliament. This sovereignty neither the Crown nor the Parliament
can, jointly or severally, get rid of, for it is of the very essence of
a sovereign power that it cannot, by Act of Parliament or otherwise,
bind its successors.[10] This principle of supremacy has never been lost
sight of by the British Parliament. Their right to alter or suspend a
colonial Constitution has never been disputed. Contract never enters
into the question. The dominant authority delegates to its subordinate
communities as much or as little power as it deems advantageous for each
body, and, if it sees fit, resumes a portion or the whole of the
delegated authority. The last point of difference to be noted between
the American Constitution and the Constitution of the British Empire is
the fact that as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jupiter fully
equipped, so the American Constitution came forth from the hands of its
framers complete and, what is of more importance, practically in
material matters unchangeable except by the agony of an internecine war
or some overwhelming passions. The British Empire, on the other hand,
is, as respects its component members, ever in progress and flux. An
Anglo-Saxon colony, no less than a human being, has its infancy under
the maternal care of a governor, its boyhood subject to the government
of a representative council and an Executive appointed by the Crown, its
manhood under Home Rule and responsible government, in which the
Executive are bound to vacate their offices whenever they are out-voted
in the Legislature. Changes are ever taking place in the growth, so to
speak, of the several British possessions, but what is the result?
Nobody ever dreams of these changes injuring the Imperial tie or the
supremacy of the British Parliament, that alone towers above all,
unchangeable and unimpaired; and, what is most notable, loyalty and
devotion to the Crown--that is to say, the Imperial tie--so far from
being weakened by the transition of a colony from a state of dependence
in local affairs to the higher degree of a self-governing colony, are,
on the contrary, strengthened almost in direct proportion as the central
interference with local affairs is diminished. On this point an
unimpeachable witness--Mr. Merivale--says: "What, then, are the lessons
to be learnt from a consideration of the American Constitution and of
our colonial syste