lawyers, that Parliament can do everything except making a woman a man, or a man a woman.”
Blackstone expresses himself more in detail, if not more energetically, than Delolme, in the following terms:—
“The power and jurisdiction of Parliament, says Sir Edward Coke (4 Inst. 36), is so transcendent and absolute, that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds. And of this high Court, he adds, may be truly said, ‘Si antiquitatem spectes, est vetustissima; si dignitatem, est honoratissima; si jurisdictionem, est capacissima.’ It hath sovereign and uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations; ecclesiastical or temporal; civil, military, maritime, or criminal; this being the place where that absolute despotic power which must, in all Governments, reside somewhere, is entrusted by the Constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary tribunal. It can regulate or new-model the succession to the Crown; as was done in the reign of Henry VIII. and William III. It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in a variety of instances in the reigns of King Henry VIII. and his three children. It can change and create afresh even the Constitution of the kingdom, and of parliaments themselves; as was done by the Act of Union and the several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. It can, in short, do everything that is not naturally impossible to be done; and, therefore, some have not scrupled to call its power, by a figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of Parliament.”
Appendix N.—Vol. I. p. 116.
There is no question upon which the American Constitutions agree more fully than upon that of political jurisdiction. All the Constitutions which take cognizance of this matter, give to the House of Delegates the exclusive right of impeachment; excepting only the Constitution of North Carolina, which grants the same privilege to grand juries. (Article 23.)
Almost all the Constitutions give the exclusive right of pronouncing sentence to the Senate, or to the Assembly which occupies its place.
