on is itself evidence
that the people are sovereign, even though no statement to that effect is
included in the writing. But when one comes to look in the Constitutions
of the world it is curious to note the persistence with which that truth
is overlooked. The Canadian Constitution, for example, having provided for
the Union of Provinces by which the Federation was created, begins at once
with the statement that "the Executive Government and authority of and
over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen."
Nothing has been said about a Legislature--nothing about the people of
Canada. The Constitution begins at once with an Executive Authority which
nothing has brought into being, and which therefore exists of its own
right, original and indefeasible, all things else in the Constitution
depending from it. The pyramid is hung from heaven, for the philosophy of
the plan is to be found in the mediaeval myth of the Divine Right of
Kings.

The Constitution of Canada consequently proceeds downwards from that apex
to the Legislature; and in that Legislature, according to the philosophy,
the Senate comes before the Commons. "There shall," it says, "be one
Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House, styled the
Senate, and the House of Commons." As for the base, it is found nowhere at
all. The interest is exhausted before it is reached; and the People are
not mentioned.

I have taken the Canadian Constitution because it is specially mentioned
in the present draft of the Constitution of _Saorstat Eireann_; but the
same supposition is found in many other constitutions, such as those of
Denmark, Sweden, South Africa. In them are to be found the relics of the
mediaeval theory of government, of a divine authority conferred on a
family, which therefore ruled of its own right; and of its own grace
summoned the subjects of that authority for counsel and advice. Therefore
in these constitutions it is assumed that the sovereignty is above and the
subjection below--even though no one to-day supposes that the practical
facts are what they assume them to be.

In the Irish Constitution, as in most modern constitutions, this order is
inverted. The sovereignty is below, and the subjection is above. Never
once throughout the Irish Constitution (either in its original or its
present form) are the people once considered as subjects, but always as
sovereign citizens. The pyramid is based on the broad earth