detached
whole, which, as it represents the determination of the whole people, is
no less binding on the legislator than on the private citizen, but
which may be altered by the will of the people in predetermined
cases, according to established rules. In America the constitution
may therefore vary, but as long as it exists it is the origin of all
authority, and the sole vehicle of the predominating force. *a

[Footnote a: [The fifth article of the original Constitution of the
United States provides the mode in which amendments of the Constitution
may be made. Amendments must be proposed by two-thirds of both Houses
of Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the
several States. Fifteen amendments of the Constitution have been made
at different times since 1789, the most important of which are the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth, framed and ratified after the
Civil War. The original Constitution of the United States, followed
by these fifteen amendments, is printed at the end of this edition.
--Translator's Note, 1874.]]

It is easy to perceive in what manner these differences must act
upon the position and the rights of the judicial bodies in the three
countries I have cited. If in France the tribunals were authorized
to disobey the laws on the ground of their being opposed to the
constitution, the supreme power would in fact be placed in their hands,
since they alone would have the right of interpreting a constitution,
the clauses of which can be modified by no authority. They would
therefore take the place of the nation, and exercise as absolute a sway
over society as the inherent weakness of judicial power would allow them
to do. Undoubtedly, as the French judges are incompetent to declare a
law to be unconstitutional, the power of changing the constitution is
indirectly given to the legislative body, since no legal barrier would
oppose the alterations which it might prescribe. But it is better to
grant the power of changing the constitution of the people to men who
represent (however imperfectly) the will of the people, than to men who
represent no one but themselves.

It would be still more unreasonable to invest the English judges with
the right of resisting the decisions of the legislative body, since
the Parliament which makes the laws also makes the constitution; and
consequently a law emanating from the three powers of the State can in
no case be unconstitutional. But neither of