Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/516

 States, South Carolina excepted, they are annual. In South Carolina they are biennial; as is proposed in the Fœderal Government. Here is a difference, as four to one, between the longest and shortest periods; and yet it would be not easy to show, that Connecticut or Rhode Island is better governed, or enjoys a greater share of rational liberty, than South Carolina; or that either the one or the other of these States are distinguished in these respects, and by these causes, from the States whose elections are different from both.

In searching for the grounds of this doctrine, I can discover but one, and that is wholly inapplicable to our case. The important distinction so well understood in America, between a Constitution established by the People, and unalterable by the Government, and a law established by the Government and alterable by the Government, seems to have been little understood, and less observed in any other country. Wherever the supreme power of legislation has resided, has been supposed to reside also a full power to change the form of the Government. Even in Great Britain, where the principles of political and civil liberty have been most discussed, and where we hear most of the rights of the Constitution, it is maintained, that the authority of the Parliament is transcendent, and uncontrollable, as well with regard to the Constitution, as the ordinary objects of Legislative provision. They have accordingly, in several instances, actually changed by Legislative Acts, some of the most fundamental Articles of the Government. They have in particular, on several occasions, changed the period of election; and, on the last occasion, not only introduced septennial in place of triennial elections, but by the same Act, continued themselves in place four years beyond the term for which they were elected by the People. An attention to these dangerous practices has produced a very natural alarm in the