The Constitutional TextBook Author:Making of America Project, Furman Sheppard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE PREAMBLE—DISTRIBUTION OF LEGISLATIVE POWERS — THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. § 55. A Constitution is the fundamental law of a country, setti... more »ng forth the principles upon which the government is founded, the political and individual rights of the citizens, and the manner in which the sovereign powers are organized, distributed, and administered. § 56. This fundamental law in some countries is contained in a single written instrument, generally called the Constitution. In other countries it is to be collected from ancient usages, legislative acts, royal grants, judicial decisions, and other sources. § 57. The Government of the United States is an illustration of the first case. Here there is a written constitution-, and every act of Congress contrary thereto is unconstitutional, and therefore void. § 58. England is an illustration of the second case. There we find no written constitution; but the fundamental law is said to be contained in ancient usages, acts of Parliament, and decisions of the courts. No act of Parliament can, therefore, be, in a strict sense, and in our meaning of the term, unconstitutional, or can be declared to be such by the courts, for the general power of Parliament to make laws is unlimited § 59. The Constitution commences with the following declaration:— " We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." § 60. This part of the Constitution has been termed the Preamble, though it was not so named by its framers. A. preamble is the commencemen...« less