separate and distinct body of rules and precedents, its provisions being an integral part of the common and statute law of the realm, from which they are to be collected.
American Constitutional Law. In a State which has a constitution of the ‘fixed’ or statutory type, like the United States, much less is left to convention and understanding, and much less depends upon custom and expediency. The area of law under such a constitution is, therefore, much wider, while the task of the constitutional lawyer is much simpler. The constitutional law of such a State consists of the terms of the Constitution itself, with the amendments thereto, and the judicial decisions in which its provisions have come up for construction and application. No acts of the legislature declaring the rights of the citizen, no treaty with a foreign government, no abdication of power by any arm of the State, enters into it. In the American system the only authoritative exposition of a constitution is that afforded by the courts. This extraordinary jurisdiction is not confined to the Supreme Court, but is exercised as well by the inferior Federal courts and by the regular tribunals of the several States. As constitutional law, the judgments of these courts vary according to the Constitution whose provisions are under examination. The Supreme Court of the United States is the final authority on the Federal Constitution, and the supreme appellate courts of the several States on the constitutions of their respective States.
It will be borne in mind that the judicial power in the United States extends to acts of Congress and of the legislatures, the Constitution being the supreme law to which all legislation must conform; whereas, the British Constitution, not being a supreme law, but a part of the ordinary law of the land, the powers of Parliament are not and cannot be limited by it. Accordingly judicial decisions upon the legislative power and its limitations, which constitute the bulk of constitutional law in the United States, are wholly unknown in England.
This, indeed, is the leading principle of American constitutional law—that all acts of government, whether legislative, judicial, or administrative, made or done in contravention of the Constitution, are void. This principle is equally applicable to the constitutions of the several States and to that of the United States. But the Federal Government being one of strictly limited powers, a still more stringent principle is applied to test the validity of its acts—namely, that they are void if not specially sanctioned by the fundamental law. But it does not lie within the competence of the courts to control the action of the State on any other principles than such as are laid down in the fundamental law. They cannot declare void an act within the general competence of the legislative powers, merely because it is contrary to natural justice, or because it violates fundamental principles of republican government, or because of a supposed conflict with the general spirit of the Constitution. It should be added that an act adjudged to be unconstitutional is held to have been void and without legal validity from the time of its enactment.
In the article Constitution (q.v.), reference is made to certain changes which the Constitution of the United States has undergone as the result of judicial interpretation and the slow growth of custom. The former of these is clearly a part of constitutional law, but it is not easy to say how far a particular custom, if threatened with violation, would be supported by the courts. It seems probable, however, that the Supreme Court would not hesitate to recognize a well-established practice of the Government as a part of the constitutional law of the land. If, for example, a Presidential elector should at the present time assert his right to disregard the instructions under which he was chosen and cast his vote for the candidate of the opposing party, there is at least a question whether he could not be restrained by the courts from carrying his intention into effect. See Constitution of the United States; Law; Public Law. Besides the authorities referred to under the title Constitution, consult: Boutmy, The English Constitution (London and New York, 1891); and Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (5th ed., Boston, 1891).
CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PARTY. A party, formed chiefly out of the remnants of the Know-Nothing and Whig parties, which met in convention at Baltimore in May, 1860, and nominated John Bell (q.v.) and Edward Everett (q.v.), for President and Vice-President, respectively, on a platform which declared simply for “the Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws.” The party carried Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and cast a popular vote of about 600,000, and an electoral vote of 39, in the ensuing election. After this campaign the party virtually went out of existence. It was also known as the ‘Bell-Everett party.’
CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. See Matter, Properties of.
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. The Federal Constitution of the United States of America is one of the class of ‘written’ and ‘rigid’ constitutions, and the most important example of a constitution of the ‘supreme’ or ‘extraordinary’ type. That is to say, it is not only the result of a definite purpose and of a deliberate act of legislation, embodied in written form; it is not only incapable of modification by ordinary legislative processes; but it is the true supreme law of the land, to which all other law must conform, and conformity to it is the test of the validity of the ordinary law. The commanding quality of the Federal Constitution is the fact that it is not, like most political constitutions, including those of the several States of the American Union, a mere restriction upon the authority of the governing powers of the State, but that it creates a new frame of government, which it endows with certain limited powers, and from which it deliberately withholds all powers not so granted. The government so constituted by it is, therefore, a government of granted, and not of antecedent authority, and the Constitution is not only the supreme law of the land, but comprehends within itself the whole of that law.
There is some confusion, therefore, in the use of such phrases as the ‘territorial extent,’ ‘the Constitution follows the flag,’ and whether the Constitution ‘applies’ to certain newly acquired Territories. Strictly speaking, the Constitution has no territorial extension; it neither expands
