A question intimately connected with the political superintendence of opinion is presented to us relative to a doctrine which has lately been taught upon the subject of constitutions. It has been said 'that the laws of every regular state naturally distribute themselves under two heads, fundamental and temporary; laws the object of which is the distribution of political power, and directing the permanent forms according to which public business is to be conducted; and laws the result of the deliberations of powers already constituted.' This distinction being established in the first instance, it has been inferred 'that these laws are of very unequal importance, and that, of consequence, those of the first class ought to be originated with much greater solemnity, and to be declared much less susceptible of variation, than those of the second'. The French national assembly of 1789 pushed this principle to the greatest extremity, and seemed desirous of providing every imaginable security for rendering the work they had formed immortal. It was not to be touched, upon any account, under the term of ten years; every alteration it was to receive must be recognized as necessary by two successive national assemblies of the ordinary kind;Chapter fter these formalities an assembly of revision was to be elected, and they to be forbidden to amend the constitution in any other points than those which had been previously marked out for their consideration.
It is easy to perceive that these precautions are in direct hostility with the principles established in this work. 'Man and for ever!' was the motto of the labours of this assembly. just broken loose from the thick darkness of an absolute monarchy, they assumed to prescribe lessons of wisdom to all future ages. They seem not so much as to have dreamed of that purification of intellect, that climax of improvement, which may very probably be the destiny of posterity. The true state of man, as has been already said, is, not to have his opinions bound down in the fetters of an eternal quietism, but, flexible and unrestrained, to yield with facility to the impressions of accumulating observation and experience. That form of society will, of consequence, appear most eligible which is least founded in a principle of permanence. But, if this view of the subject be just, the idea, of giving permanence to what is called the constitution of any government, and rendering one class of laws, under the appellation of fundamental, less susceptible of change than another, must be founded in misapprehension and error.