up under the
constitution of the United States, against the party relying upon it,
and this decision is affirmed by the state court of last resort, he may
sue out a writ of error, and so bring his case before the Supreme Court
of the United States. If the state decision be in his favour, the other
side cannot resort to like proceedings.

A decree of the Supreme Court of the United States on a point of
construction arising under the constitution of the United States settles
it for all courts, state and national.

The salient characteristic of the United States constitution is,
perhaps, its formidable apparatus of provisions against change; and, in
fact, only 15 constitutional amendments had been adopted from 1789 up to
1909, the last being in 1870. In the same period the unwritten
constitution of England has made a most marked advance, chiefly in the
direction of democratizing the monarchy, and diminishing the powers of
the House of Lords. The House of Commons has continuously asserted its
legislative predominance, and has reduced the other House to the
position of a revising chamber, which in the last resort, however, can
produce a legislative deadlock, subject to the results of a new general
election (see Parliament). And the cabinet, which depends on the
support of the House of Commons, has become more and more the executive
council of the realm. One conspicuous feature of the English
constitution, by which it is broadly distinguished from written or
artificial constitutions, is the presence throughout its entire extent
of legal fictions. The influence of the lawyers on the progress of the
constitution has already been noticed, and is nowhere more clearly shown
than in this peculiarity of its structure. As in the common law, so in
the constitution, change has been effected in substance without any
corresponding change in terminology. There is hardly one of the phrases
used to describe the position of the crown which can be understood in
its literal sense, and many of them are currently accepted in more
senses than one. The American constitution of 1789 reproduced, however,
in essentials, and with necessary modifications, the contemporary
British model, and, where it did so, has preserved the old conception of
what was then the British system of Government. The position and powers
of the president were a fair counterpart of the royal prerogative of
that day; the two houses of Congress corresponded sufficiently well t