convention, as much the work of Providence as the existence in the
human body of the living solidarity of its members. One law, one life,
circulates through all the members, constituting them a living
organism, binding them in living union, all to each and each to all.

Such is the sovereign people, and so far the original unwritten
constitution. The sovereign, in order to live and act, must have an
organ through which he expresses his will. This organ under the
American system, is primarily the Convention. The convention is the
supreme political body, the concrete sovereign authority, and exercises
practically the whole sovereign power of the people. The convention
persists always, although not in permanent session. It can at any time
be convened by the ordinary authority of the government, or, in its
failure, by a plebiscitum.

Next follows the Government created and constituted by the convention.
The government is constituted in such manner, and has such and only
such powers, as the convention ordains. The government has, in the
strict sense, no political authority under the American system, which
separates the government from the convention. All political questions
proper, such as the elective franchise, eligibility, the constitution
of the several departments of government, as the legislative, the
judicial, and the executive, changing, altering, or amending the
constitution of government, enlarging, or contracting its powers, in a
word, all those questions that arise on which it is necessary to take
the immediate orders of the sovereign, belong not to the government,
but to the convention; and where the will of the sovereign is not
sufficiently expressed in the constitution, a new appeal to the
convention is necessary, and may always be had. The constitution of
Great Britain makes no distinction between the convention and the
government. Theoretically the constitution of Great Britain is feudal,
and there is, properly speaking, no British state; there are only the
estates, king, lords, and commons, and these three estates constitute
the Parliament, which is held to be omnipotent; that is, has the
plenitude of political sovereignty. The British Parliament, composed
of the three estates, possesses in itself all the powers of the
convention in the American constitution, and is at once the convention
and the government. The imperial constitution of France recognizes no
convention, but clothes the senate wi