127 



this argument, they must go on, and say further, that 

 effectual opposition could not be made to Great l*ritain, 

 without establishing a form of governujent perpetual 

 and unalterable by the legislature ; which is not true. 

 An opposition which at some time or other was to come 

 to an end, could not need a perpetual institution to car- 

 ry it on: and a governujent, amendable as its defects 

 should be discovered, was as likely to make effectual 

 resistance, as one which should be unalterably wrong. 

 Besides, the assemblies were as imirh vested with all 

 powers requisite for resistance as the conventions were. 

 If tlieretbre these })0wers included that of modellinir the 

 form of government in the one case, they did so in the 

 other. The assemblies then as well as the conventions 

 may model the government; that is, they may alter the 

 ordinance of government. 2. They urge, that if the 

 convention had meant that this instrument should be 

 alterable, as their other ordinances were, they would 

 have called it an ordinance: but they have called it a 

 constitution, which ex vi termini means ' an act above 

 the power of tlie ordinary legislature.' I answer that 

 constitution cojistitutium, statutum, lex, are convertible 

 terms. ' Constitutio dicitur jus quofl a principe condi- 

 ture.' — Constitutum quod ab imperatoribus rescri[)tmn 

 statutumve est. ^ Sfatutum, idem quod lex.' Calvini Lexi- 

 con juridicum. Constitution and statute were original- 

 ly terms of tlie^ civil law, and from thence introduced 

 by ecclesiastics into the English law. — Thus in the 

 statute 25 Hen. VI 11. c. 19. § 1. ' Constitutions and or- 

 dinances^ are used as synonymous. The term constitu- 

 tion has njany other signihcations in [)hysics and in 

 politics ; but in juris[)rudence, whenever it is applied to 

 any act of the legislature, it invariably means abtalute, 

 law, or ordinance, which is the present case. No in- 

 ference then of a different meaning can be drawn from 

 the adoption of this title; on the contrary, we might 



* To bid, to set, was the ancient lej^islative worr's of the Eng- 

 lish. LI,. Hloiharri and Edrici. LI. hire. LI. Eadweidi. — 

 EL Aathelstani. 



