colony was governed, and in the main well and wisely governed, till 1780. Much of it, not merely its terms, such as the name General Court, but its solid framework, was transferred bodily to the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which is now in force, and which profoundly influenced the Convention that prepared the Federal Constitution in 1787. Yet the charter of 1691 is nothing but an extension and development of the trading charter of 1628, in which there already appears, as there had appeared in Edward IV.'s charter of 1463,1 and in the East India Company's charter of 1599, the provision that the power of law-giving, otherwise unlimited, should be restricted by the terms of the charter itself, which required that every law for the colony. should be agreeable to the laws of England. We have therefore in the three charters which I have named, those of 1463, 1599, and 1628, as well as in that of 1691, the essential and capital characteristic of a rigid or supreme Constitution-viz. a frame of government established by a superior authority, creating a subordinate law-making body, which can do everything except violate the terms and transcend the powers of the instrument to which it owes its own existence. So long as the colony remained under the British Crown, the superior authority, which could amend or remake the frame of government, was the British Crown or Parliament. When the connection with Britain was severed, that authority passed over, not to the State legislature, which remained limited, as it always had been, but to the people of the now independent commonwealth, whose will speaks through what is now the State Constitution, just as the will of the Crown or of Parliament had spoken through the charters of 1628 and 1691.

I have taken the case of Massachusetts as the best example of the way in which the trading Company grows into a colony, and the colony into a State. But some of the other colonies furnish illustrations scarcely less apposite. The oldest of them all, the acorn whence the oak of English dominion in America has

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, framed by the inhabitants of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield in 1638, memorable year, when the ecclesiastical revolt of Scotland saved the liberties of England. Connecticut was afterwards regularized by Charles II.'s charter of 1662 to "the Governor and Company of the English colony of Connecticut."

The charter to the Flanders Company of 1463 forbids the making of any law contrary to the intent of the charter, and provides that any such law shall be null

sprung, the colony of Virginia, was, by the second charter, of 1609, established under the title of "The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the first colony in Virginia." 1

Within the period of ten years, under the last of the Tudors and the first of the Stuarts, two trading charters were issued to two Companies of English adventurers. One of these charters is the root of English title to the East and the other to the West. One of these Companies has grown into the Empire of India; the other into the United States of North America. If England had done nothing else in history, she might trust for her fame to the work which these charters began. And the foundations of both dominions were laid in the age which was adorned by the greatest of all her creative minds, and gave birth to the men who set on a solid basis a frame of representative government which all the free nations of the modern world have copied.

When, in 1776, the thirteen colonies threw off their allegiance to King George III, and declared themselves independent States, the colonial charter naturally became the State Constitution.* In most cases it was remodelled, with large alterations, by the revolting colony. But in three States it was maintained unchanged, except, of course, so far as Crown authority was concerned, viz. in Massachusetts till 1780, in Connecticut till 1818, and in Rhode Island till 1842.3 The other twenty-nine States

1 The phrase First colony distinguishes what afterwards became the State of Virginia from the more northerly parts of Virginia, afterwards called New England. The Second colony was to be Plymouth, one of the two settlements which became Massachusetts.

2 Even in declaring herself independent, New Jersey clung to the hope that the mother country would return to wiser counsels, and avert the departure of her children. She added at the end of her Constitution of 2d July 1776 the following proviso" Provided always, and it is the true intent and meaning of this Congress, that if a reconciliation between Great Britain and these colonies should take place, and the latter be taken again under the protection and government of the Crown of Britain, this charter shall be null and void, otherwise remain firm and inviolable." The truth is that the colonists till alienated by the behaviour of England, had far more kindly feelings towards her than she had towards them. To them she was the old home, to her they were simply customers. Some interesting illustrations of the views then entertained as to the use of colonies may be found in the famous discussion in the fourth book of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776.

Rhode Island simply passed a statute by her legislature in May 1776, sub stituting allegiance to the colony for allegiance to the King. Connecticut passed the following statute :-"Be it enacted by the Governor and Council and House of Representatives, in general court assembled, that the ancient form of civil government contained in the charter from Charles II., King of England, and

admitted to the Union in addition to the original thirteen, have all entered it as organized self-governing communities, with their Constitutions already made by their respective peoples. Each Act of Congress which admits a new State admits it as a subsisting commonwealth, recognizing rather than affecting to sanc tion its Constitution. Congress may impose conditions which the State Constitution must fulfil. But the authority of the State Constitutions does not flow from Congress, but from acceptance by the citizens of the States for which they are made. Of these instruments, therefore, no less than of the Constitutions of the thirteen original States, we may say that although subsequent in date to the Federal Constitution, they are, so far as each State is concerned, de jure prior to it. Their authority over their own citizens is nowise derived from it.1 Nor is this a mere piece of technical law. The antiquity of the older States as separate commonwealths, running back into the heroic ages of the first colonization of America and the days of the Revolutionary War, is a potent source of the local patriotism of their inhabitants, and gives these States a sense of historic growth and indwelling corporate life which they could not have possessed had they been the mere creatures of the Federal Government.

The State Constitutions of America well deserve to be compared with those of the self-governing British colonies. But one

adopted by the people of this State, shall be and remain the civil Constitution of this State, under the sole authority of the people thereof, independent of any king or prince whatever; and that this republic is, and shall for ever be and remain, a free, sovereign, and independent State, by the name of the State of Connecticut.” (Three paragraphs follow containing a short "Bill of Rights," and securing to the inhabitants of any other of the United States the same law and justice as natives of the State enjoyed.) This is all that Connecticut thought necessary. She had possessed, as did Rhode Island also, the right of appointing her own governor, and therefore did not need to substitute any new authority for a royal governor.

Of course in practice it is possible for Congress to influence the character of a State Constitution, because a State whose Constitution contains provisions which Congress disapproves may be refused admission. But since the extinction of alavery and completion of the process of reconstruction; occasions for the exercise of such a power rarely arise. It was used to compel the seceding States to modify their Constitutions so as to get rid of all taint of slavery before their senators and representatives were readmitted to Congress after the war. Of course Congress is not bound to admit a community desiring to be recognized as a State. Utah has been kept knocking at the door of the Union for many years, because the majority of her inhabitants lie under suspicion, and the nation wishes to retain for the purpose of preventing polygamy that full control which can be exercised over a Territory but not over a State. And sometimes a dominant party postpones the admission of a State likely to strengthen by its vote the opposite party.

remarkable difference must be noted here. The constitutions of British colonies have all proceeded from the Imperial Parliament of the United Kingdom, which retains its full legal power of legislating for every part of the British dominions. In many

cases a colonial constitution provides that it may be itself altered by the colonial legislature, of course with the assent of the Crown; but inasmuch as in its origin it is a statutory constitution, not self-grown, but planted as a shoot by the Imperial Parliament at home, Parliament may always alter or abolish it. Congress, on the other hand, has no power to alter a State constitution. And whatever power of alteration has been granted to a British colony is exercisable by the legislature of the colony, not, as in America, by the citizens at large.

The original Constitutions of the States, whether of the old thirteen or of the newer twenty-five, have been in nearly every case subsequently recast, in some instances five, six, or even seven times, as well as amended in particular points. Thus Constitutions of all dates are now in force in different States, from that of Massachusetts, enacted in 1780, but largely amended since, to that of Florida enacted in 1886.1

Every existing Constitution is the work of the people, not of the legislature of the State. The Constitutions of the revolutionary period were in a few instances enacted by the State legislature, acting as a body with plenary powers, but more usually by the people acting through a Convention, i.e. a body especially chosen by the voters at large for the purpose, and invested with full powers, not only of drafting, but of adopting the instrument of government. But since 1792, when Kentucky framed her Constitution, the invariable practice has been for the Convention, elected by the voters, to submit, in accordance with the precedent set by Massachusetts in 1780. the draft Constitution

2

The four new States are now (1889) enacting their respective constitutions, but in what follows these are not, because they could not be, referred to.

2 In Rhode Island and Connecticut, as already stated, the legislature continuea the colonial Constitution as a State Constitution. In South Carolina a body calling itself the "Provincial Congress" claimed to be the "General Assembly," or legislature of the colony, and as such enacted the Constitution. In the other revolting colonies, except Massachusetts, Conventions or Congresses enacted the Constitution on behalf of the people, not submitting it to the voters for ratification. In Massachusetts the Convention submitted its draft to the voters in 1780, and the voters adopted it, a previous draft submitted by the legislature in 1778 having been rejected. In no State would the idea of allowing a Convention to enact a constitution as a sovereign body be now entertained.

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framed by it to the citizens of the State at large, who vote upon it Yes or No. They usually vote on it as a whole, and adopt or reject it en bloc, but sometimes provision is made for voting separately on some particular point or points.

1

The people of a State retain for ever in their hands, altogether independent of the National government, the power of altering their Constitution. When a new Constitution is to be prepared, or the existing one amended, the initiative usually comes from the legislature, which (either by a simple majority, or by a two-thirds majority, or by a majority in two successive legislatures, as the Constitution may in each instance provide). submits the matter to the voters in one of two ways. It may either propose to the people certain specific amendments, or it may ask the people to decide by a direct popular vote on the propriety of calling a constitutional Convention to revise the whole existing Constitution. In the former case the amendments suggested by the legislature are directly voted on by the citizens; in the latter the legislature, so soon as the citizens have voted for the holding of a convention, provides for the election by the people of this convention. When elected, the Convention meets, sets to work, goes through the old Constitution, and prepares a new one, which is then presented to the people for ratification or rejection at the polls. Only in the little State of Delaware is the function of amending the Constitution still left to the legislature without the subsequent ratification of a popular vote, subject, however, to the provision that changes must be passed by two successive legislatures, and must have been put before the people at the election of members for the second. Some States provide for the submission to the people at fixed intervals, of seven, ten, sixteen, or twenty years, of the propriety of calling a convention to revise the Constitution, so as to secure that the attention of the people shall be drawn to the question whether their scheme of government ought or ought not to be changed. Be it observed, however, that whereas the Federal Constitution can be amended only by a vote of three-fourths of the States, a Constitution can in nearly every State be changed by a bare majority of the citizens voting at the polls. Hence 1 In Kentucky and New Hampshire the legislature has no power to propose amendments. In some States it can do so only after stated intervals, e.g. of five years.

2

* Sometimes, however, an absolute majority of all the qualified voters is