“The expedient of having two or more deliberative assemblies, or other authorities, in a state, whose concurrent sanction shall be requisite for enacting or abrogating laws, has often been resorted to, as a safeguard against sudden and violent measures adopted under an ebullition of feeling, yet without precluding well-weighed and deliberate changes. This expedient he thought a very good one, as far as it goes; it is adopted in various forms in each of our states. But it appeared to him that experience had proved this provision to be not alone sufficient for accomplishing fully the object he had in view, which was to give the requisite stability to those more fundamental laws which may be considered as part of the constitution of any state, (yet not so as to attempt prohibiting a wary and deliberate alteration of them,) and at the same time to afford proper facilities for introducing changes into matters of detail.
“‘Nature,’ said he, ‘does not give the same degree of strength to the footstalks of the leaves of a tree,—destined, as these are, to be shed every year,—and to the roots, which are designed to hold the trunk fast in the ground. If she did, either the one would be far too strong or the other far too weak, or both of these inconveniences might take place at once; yet this is the error committed by almost all governments. The same machinery is provided to facilitate or to impede every change alike, in great or in small matters; the same mode is prescribed for the maintaining, or abrogating, or introducing of every law and every institution alike. Among you, for instance, an act for regulating the manufacture of soap, or an act which should introduce a complete change into your constitution,—which should take away or restore the liberties of half the nation,—must go through exactly the same forms, and be passed or rejected by the same authorities under the same regulations: in short, you are like a tree whose leaf-stalks and main roots have neither more nor less toughness and stoutness the one than the other.’
“Now this is a state of things which he considered as always inexpedient, and often dangerous, and which he accordingly proposed to remedy. The system which he recommended, and which has been universally adopted, is this. All our laws are divided into two classes; the ordinary or repealable laws, and the fundamental. The former are enacted, altered, or repealed much in the same manner as all laws of all other nations: but a fundamental law is one which there exists no immediate power to enact, annul, or amend; and it is forbidden by the rules of the house to propose any measure that, even incidentally, goes to defeat or interfere with the operation of any fundamental law. But it is allowed to propose, and to pass, a bill for removing any fundamental law from the list, and reducing it to an ordinary law; after which, it is open to be dealt with like any other law. So, also, it is allowed to pass a bill for placing any already existing ordinary law on the list of fundamentals.
“The enactment, therefore, or repeal of a fundamental law, may be accomplished at two steps, though not at one; but it is further provided that these two steps shall not take place in one session of parliament.” [He was describing the details, he said, in the terms, and according to the usages, of the kingdom of Nether-London; having premised that there is a substantial agreement in principle throughout all the states on this subject.] “When it is proposed to remove a law from the list of fundamentals, the motion made is, ‘that such and such a law shall, at the close of the present session, cease to be fundamental.’ It remains, therefore, even should the motion be carried, and the act receive the royal assent, irrevocable during the existing session. When, again, the reverse measure is to be proposed, of enrolling on the list of fundamentals some existing law, an act must have first passed, authorizing the legislature to take into consideration, in the ensuing (or some subsequent session) the question of enrolling such and such a law.
“Lastly, another and more important safeguard against precipitancy, is that, in the case of a motion for removing any law from the list of the fundamentals, or adding one to that list, every member who does not vote for the motion is, by a rule of the house, reckoned, whether present or absent, as having voted against it. In other words, such a motion can be carried only by an absolute majority of the whole house, not by a mere comparative majority of members present.”
Mr. Sibthorpe having interposed a remark, that there is something in the British constitution of the nature of a fundamental law, inasmuch as it is treason to propose the abolition of kingly government,—so that the maintenance of that government is irrevocable till a bill shall first have been passed for altering the laws of treason,—Mr. Adamson admitted that this was so far on the same footing with the law he had been describing; “but,” added he, “if any one should—which I allow is highly improbable—propose such an alteration of the laws of treason, that question might legally be put to the vote in as thin a house as is competent to transact ordinary business. I think you would do well, after introducing our last regulation as to an absolute majority, to place some more of your laws on the same footing. Not that there would be any occasion for saying anything about treason. With you, as with us, it would no doubt be quite sufficient that a member should be at once ‘called to order’ if he presumed to make any motion contrary to the rules of the house.
“You would find, I think,” he continued, “that the adoption of our system in regard to fundamental laws would tend to promote among you that comparative calmness and moderation which you have remarked in our proceedings, and to mitigate the vehemence with which, by your accounts, one set of men oppose every change, good or bad, while another seem to be hostile to everything that is established. Those who are by temper and habit most disposed to the dread of innovation, lest rash schemes should be adopted, would have their apprehensions somewhat calmed by seeing a provision made at least against any great change being introduced with inconsiderate haste; and those, again, who are most disposed to dread the perpetuation of abuses, might be moderated in their impatient eagerness for reform, by seeing a regular path open for the examination and remedy of anything, however consecrated by long usage, that should appear, on mature deliberation, to be evil.
“That you would be exempt from the possibility of error, or that we are so, it would be an absurd presumption to pretend. Our system does not profess to make human judgment infallible; it professes only to provide that our deliberative assemblies shall decide according to the best of their judgment, and shall neither retain nor reject anything, without a full opportunity at least being given for the exercise of deliberate reflection and mature discussion. To attempt more than this is mere folly. One generation of fallible men has neither the right nor the power to supersede for ever, by irrevocable laws, the judgment of all future generations of their posterity; though the endeavour to do so may delay a beneficial change, and convert it, when it does come, into a noxious one. The will of a whole nation can no more be permanently and effectually stopped in its course than the current of a river. If you dam up the regular channel, you cause it first to flood the neighbouring country, and then to work itself new and circuitous channels. You may think yourself well off if this is the worst. Should your dam be ultimately burst, a fierce and destructive deluge of revolutionary violence will succeed.”
The debate which the visitors witnessed, and which led to the foregoing explanations, terminated in the removal of the law in question from the list of fundamentals. But as the minority had been considerable, the general expectation was, that before the next session,—in which alone the final repeal of the law could be proposed,—a dissolution of parliament would take place, in order that the sentiments of the people on the subject might be fully ascertained.