CONSTITUTION, in politics (constitutio, from Lat. constituere, to set up, or establish). In its modern acceptation, C. signifies a system of law established by the sovereign power of a state for its own guidance. Such being the ultimate object of a C., its proximate objects, generally stated, are, to fix the limits and define the relations of the legislative, the judicial, and the executive powers of the state, both amongst themselves and with reference to the citizens of the state, regarded as a governed body. Among the Romans, a C. was at first nearly synonymous with the edict of a prwtor (see EDICT), and even under the empire signified only an imperial edict or decree. In continental countries, since the formation of the federal government of the United States of Amer ica, or, at all events, since the first French revolution, the idea of a C. has been generally that of a body of written public law, promulgated at once by the sovereign power. See CODE and ASSEMBLY, NATIONAL. In Great Britain it is the whole body of the pub lic law, consuetudivary as well as statutory, which has grown up during the course of ages, and is continually being modified by the action of the general will as interpreted and expressed by the parliamentary representatives of the nation. Much confusion is often introduced into our conceptions of the action of the English and other mixed gov ernments by representing the three elements of which they are generally composed— the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic (king, lords; and commons)—as the cen ters of three independent sovereignties. whereas they are only three organs through which the one sovereignty finds expression. There is, and can be, in an independent state, but one sovereignty—one center of power—viz., the general will Of the nation. Opposition to this will, from wheneesover it may come, within the state, is treason in the individual, and rebellion in the mass; whereas the vindication of this will by its own act may be revolution, but can never be rebellion. Another source of error consists in supposing this general will to be the numerical aggregate of all the individual wills in the community. It is, on the contrary, the sum of all the wills, not numerically but
really, making allowance, that is to say, for the fact that one individual, from the greater clearness of his convictions and strength of his character, often contributes to this sum, or mass of volition, ten times as much as another individual.
But though the idea of a mixed government is generally associated with that of a C., it does not seem to be inseparable from it. We are not entitled, for example, to deny the name of a C. to a system which is apparently the result of one single will, if to that will the general will has freely confided the task of determining the rules by which it shall be governed. Assuming that the late emperor of the French was invested with supreme power by this ultimate sovereign, the general will, the government which he established was, for the time being, the C. of France. But inasmuch as France had, under the imperial system of government, no parliamentary machinery for effecting desired or desirable changes in its C., the "right of revolution," as it is called, became a necessity on the part of those who conceived that they embodied and were in a condi tion to express the general will. Disorderly as it may seem to us, it was really within the limits of the C., as constitutional as the C. which at any moment it might have overthrown. In a parliamentary government like that of England, however. the right of revolution emerges only when the self-modifying powers of the C. are obstructed or opposed by the executive, as took place in 1688. Whilst in pure monarchies it hangs permanently over the head of the executive, even when acting in accordance with the C., in a free country resistance is rebellion in all cases in which the machinery which the C. possesses for its own modification is unimpeded in its action. Of resistance of this latter kind, the events that culminated in the late American civil war fmonish an example. • For a historical account of the English C., see ENGLAND; see also PARLIAMENT, CONGRESS, CODE, CORTES, etc.