CONSTITUTION, in matters of policy, signifies the form of government estab lished in any country or kingdom.
The constitution and government of a country frequently differ, though the latter should he founded on the former in every particular. The two terms are considered by some persons as synony mous, but accurate writers have ever made the necessary distinction between Lord Bolingbroke defines a con- . stitution to be a general system of laws, institutions, and customs derived from the immutable principles of reason, and ac cepted by the people ; and government, the particular tenor of conduct pursued by a chief and subordinate magistrate ; he also asserts that the constitution of Great Britain may remain fixed for ever, that it is the basis on which her princes ought to act, and a true criterion by which their government must be appre ciated ; hence, according to the princi ples of the revolution, and the present settlement, the degree of submission may be regulated, particularly as the claim of descent is remote, and the choice of the community was purposely. direct ed to preserve the constitution.
Men in the primitive ages might live voluntarily under or be compelled by con- . quest to bear a government without a . constitution, but they soon (as Hooker remarks) rejected the yoke, or made it sit easy on their necks. Archdeacon Paley says, a constitution is so much of the laws of a cduntry as marks the desig nation and form of its legislature, 'the rights and functions of the legislative body, and the nature and jurisdiction of the courts of justice ; the constitution therefore is the principal section or title of the code of public laws, and the terms constitutional, and unconstitutional, sig nify in this case legal and illegal. The jurisprudence of England is composed of ancient usages; acts of parliament, and the decisjonsTof the courts of law ; those then are the sources whence the nature and limits of her constitntion are to be deduced, and the authorities to which appeals must be made in all cases of doubt. An act of parliament can be con sidered unconstitutional, only when it mi litates against other laws which regulate the form of government. Those who con sider the British constitution as a plan made by our ancestors at some distant xra are deceived ; the great Charts, and the bill of Rights, were successful efforts to restrain the abuses of regal power, but they are partial modifications of the constitution, which, like others In Europe, originated from a variety of causes, and may be compared to an old mansion, repaired and altered at different periods, according to the abilities and taste of its possessors. Several approved histo rians conjecture, that the British con stitution may have had its origin from the Anglo-Saxons ; those alledge that the go vernment of the northern nations, found ed on the ruins of that of Rome, was-free, and, though injured by succeeding prin ces, still retains a degree of legal admini stration, and an air of independence. The Saxons, who conquered Britain in the fifth century allowed their chiefs a very limited authority, and brought with them the same spirit of liberty which had distinguished their ancestors. The king therefore de pended solely on his own abilities,and pos sessed no arbitrary power derivedfrom his station ; the people, subject to little legal restraint, and less polished, paid great re spect to the monarch and his family, yet were more regardless of regular descent, than present convenience, in filling the vacant throne. As their sovereignty was
neither hereditary nor elective,thewill of the king' in the appointment of a succes sor was not always accepted, for the con currence of le was required, not only in this case, but in the usual mode of government : the states might establish a sovereign by suffrage, but they seldom ex ercised this privilege. The constitution may have differed in the different king doms of the Heptarchy, and have chang ed between the invasion and the Norman conquest, yet itt all events they maintain ed a wittenagenot, or council, whose consent was necessary for making of laws and ratifying public acts ; the preambles - of all those from Ethelbert to Edward the Confessor, , and even those of Canute, give undoubted proofs of the existence of a limited regal government, which was however very aristocratical, though the ancient democracy may, under the pa tronage of some distinguished lord, have given security and dignity to the gentry, and protection to the lower classes of people. The courts of the decennary, the hundred, and the county, were all calcu lated to defend general liberty, and re strain the power of the nobles, and the admission of all freeholders in. the latter court was a great check upon the aristo cracy. Some writers assert that the go vernment of the Anglo-Saxon princes had little more affinity to the present constitu tion than in the relations between the king and nobility, common to those found ed by the northern nations, and place the wra of its origin at the conquest, when William of Normandy overturned the ancient form of legislation, expell ed the landholders, and gave their lands to his chiefs, whose government was ty rannical, different from the coostitution, and a mixture of the customs of' Normandy and the laws of Edward the Confessor ; the latter he altered and confirmed iu Parliament; and his statutes even declar ed, that all freemen should hold their possessions without unjust exaction and tollage, they rendering only their free ser vice due to the crown ; this was granted as a right by the common council of the kingdom, and has been justly called the first magna charta of the Normans, though equally conferred onthe Engl isli. Notwith standing this, the monarch often assumed absolute power, and the constitution be came gradually aristocratical and oppres sive to the lower orders of freemen ; nor were the nobles exempt from heavy ex actions on their fiefs, and he even sup pressed the most powerful baronies at pleasure. Self-preservation at length sug gested opposition, and the• barons were induced to grant the people some advan tages, to secure their co-operations ; as the latter soon began tofeeltheir own im portance, they ventured to make condi tions for themselves, and insisted upon protection from the laws. In the reign of Henry I. the above causes produced theinvflects, in the resolution-of the na tion to give the crown to a prince, who should hold it under a compact with the people. Henry had sworn to grant a charter after his coronation, which he did, restoring the Saxon laws under Ed ward the - Confessor, with the emenda tions made by his father and the advice of parliament, annulling evil customs and illegal sanctions ; some of those were recited in the charter, and expressly re pealed ; the King also mitigated his feudal rights over his own tenants ; those , due from theirs, and their profits, were determined by a moderate rule of law.