Section ii
There are four principal sources of English Constitutional Law: (1) Treaties, or quasi-treaties, (2) Precedents and customs generally known as Common Law, (3) Compacts, and (4) Statutes. The first and the two last of these divisions are the written part of the Constitution, the second is the unwritten part. They do not always differ much in form. The difference is chiefly to be found in their essential characteristics, in the matters which they regulate, and in the spirit which has dictated them.
There are two Treaties:— the Act of Union with Scotland (1707),[1] and the Act of Union with Ireland (1800).[2] The characteristics of treaties in the general sense of the word is that they bring two nations and two sovereignties face to face. The special characteristic of these two Acts of Union is, that the two sovereigns appear on the scene only in order to be absorbed and melted into one: these statutes belong to international law for a moment and then take rank in constitutional law. The Acts of 1707 are two statutes, one voted by the Scotch Parliament, and the other by the English Parliament, and sanctioned separately by Anne, first as Anne, Queen of Scotland,[3] and secondly
- ↑ [6 Anne, c. 11 (D).]
- ↑ [39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 67 (D).]
- ↑ The sanction in Scotland was not given as in England by the French phrase La reine le veut, pronounced after reading the title of the Bill, but by the representative of the Crown touching the parchment on which the Bill was written with a sceptre.
