o
the House of Lords and the House of Commons, allowing for the absence of
the elements of hereditary rank and territorial influence. While the
English constitution has changed much, the American constitution has
changed very little in these respects. Allowing for the more democratic
character of the constituencies, the organization of the supreme power
in the United States is nearer the English type of the 18th century--is,
in fact, less elastic than in the United Kingdom.

On the other hand, it is not uncommon to misinterpret the rigidity of
the United States constitution, from a regard rather to the theory which
its text suggests than to the practical working of the machine. For the
letter of the constitution has to some extent been modified, if not
technically amended, in various respects by judicial interpretation, and
by use and wont (e.g. as regards the election of the president). This
side of the matter may be studied in C. G. Tiedeman's work cited below.
Moreover, even in respect of the 18th-century British character
attaching to the constitution, as drawn up in 1787, it has to be
remembered that this was not taken direct from England. As several
American constitutional historians have elaborately shown (e.g. A. C.
McLaughlin, in _The Confederation and the Constitution_, 1905), the
English idea had already been developed in various directions during the
preceding colonial period, and the constitution really represented the
English constitutional usage _as known in America_, into which the
Philadelphia convention introduced new features corresponding to the
prevailing civil conditions or suggested by English analogy. It is
important to emphasize this point, since the resemblance of the American
constitution of 1789 to the contemporary English constitution has
sometimes been exaggerated; but the fact remains that the written
constitution has been less susceptible of development than the
unwritten.

Between England and some other constitutional countries a difference of
much constitutional importance is to be found in the terms on which the
component parts of the country were brought together. All great
societies have been produced by the aggregation of small societies into
larger and larger groups. In England the process of consolidation was
completed before the constitution settled down into its present form. In
the United States, on the other hand, in Switzerland, and in Germany the
constitution is in form an