PROBLEMS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 593 



experience, and the imperial constitution should be amended in 

 this respect, and the Imperial Government made subject to limita- 

 tions on the one side, and charged with powers against the states 

 of the Empire on the other, both in behalf of individual immunity 

 against governmental power. 



The first great problem, however, under this topic, is the French 

 question of amending the French constitution so as to introduce 

 into it a series of provisions concerning the immunities of the individ- 

 ual person. It is quite surprising that the French instrument should 

 be defective in regard to this matter. About every French consti- 

 tution down to the present one has contained such provisions in 

 much detail. In fact the French taught the European Continental 

 world the doctrine of individual immunity against governmental 

 power as a branch of constitutional law. It was at first thought 

 that the omission of such a Bill of Immunities from the present 

 French constitution was owing to the fragmentary nature of this 

 constitution, but the French have now had nearly thirty years for 

 the perfection of their instrument of organic law, and within this 

 period they have had a constitutional constituent convention and 

 have framed and adopted amendments to their constitution, but 

 nothing of this nature was, I think, even proposed. We are, there- 

 fore, driven to the conclusion that the French statesmen and people 

 do not consider such immunities for the individual to be necessary 

 under their present political system, but feel, on the other hand, 

 that, with an elective government in all parts and an executive 

 dominated by the legislature, the individual is in no danger of govern- 

 mental oppression. I do not know by what lessons of history or of 

 more immediate experience the French have proved this doctrine 

 to themselves. No government is more likely to ignore the natural 

 limits between its powers and the immunities of the individual than 

 an elective democratic government. The French have had this 

 experience, more than once, themselves. I am, therefore, unable 

 to regard this omission as anything less than a grave defect, pre- 

 senting to the French a most serious problem of constitutional 

 amendment. 



As I have said, every other written constitution in the world 

 contains a Bill of Immunities, and it is nearly the same thing as to 

 content in them all, but not a single European constitution provides 

 any means for its lawful realization against the possible attempt 

 of the legislature, and in some cases also of the executive, to encroach 

 upon it, except perhaps petition to the government itself. That 

 is to say, none of these European constitutions creates any judicial 

 bodies vested with the power of interpreting constitutional limita- 

 tions upon the powers of the whole government, and of restraining 

 the government from breaking through them. Many of them leave 



