owever, they represent inevitable and unopposed
amplifications of existing law or practice and are taken note of
scarcely at all by the nation at large.

*45. The Constituent Powers of Parliament.*--The principal means by
which changes are wrought in the English constitution to-day is that
of parliamentary enactment. It is to be observed that in Great Britain
there is not, nor has there ever been, any attempt to draw a line of
distinction between powers that are constituent and powers that are
legislative. All are vested alike in Parliament, and in respect to the
processes of enactment, repeal, and revision there is no difference
whatsoever between a measure affecting the fundamental principles of
the governmental system and a statute pertaining to the commonest
subject of ordinary law. "Our Parliament," observes Mr. Anson, "can
make laws protecting wild birds or shell-fish, and with the same
procedure could break the connection of Church and State, or give
political power to two millions of citizens, and redistribute it among
new constituencies."[54] The keystone of the law of the constitution
is, indeed, the unqualified omnipotence which Parliament possesses in
the spheres both of constitution-making and of ordinary legislation.
In Parliament is embodied the supreme will of the nation; and although
from time to time that will may declare itself in widely varying and
even inconsistent ways, at any given moment its pronouncements are
conclusive.

[Footnote 54: Law and Custom of the Constitution,
4th ed., I., 358.]

*46. What are "Constitutional" Laws?*--From this unrestricted
competence of Parliament arise two highly important facts. One of them
is that the distinction between "constitutional" laws, on the one
hand, and ordinary statutes, on the other, is neither so obvious nor
so essential as under most governmental systems. The concept, (p. 046)
even, of constitutional law has developed but slowly among the
English, and the phrase is as yet seldom employed in legal discussion.
In the United States constitutional amendments or addenda, in so far
at least as they assume written form, emanate from sources and by
processes different from those that obtain in the enactment of
ordinary statutes. In most continental nations the constituent process
is at least somewhat different from that employed in the enactment of
simple laws. And these specially devised processes are designed