on 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 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