Page:James Bryce American Commonwealth vol 1.djvu/413

 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION BY USAGE

is yet another way in which the Constitution has been developed. This is by laying down rules on matters which are within its general scope, but have not been dealt with by its words, by the creation of machinery which it has not provided for the attainment of objects it contemplates, or, to vary the metaphor, by ploughing and planting ground which, though included within the boundaries of the Constitution, was left waste by those who drew up the original instrument.

Although the Constitution is curiously minute upon some comparatively small points, such as the qualifications of members of Congress and the official record of their votes, it passes over in silence many branches of political action, many details essential to every government. Some may have been forgotten, but some were purposely omitted, because the Convention could not agree upon them, or because they would have provoked opposition in the ratifying conventions, or because they were thought unsuited to a document which it was desirable to draft concisely and to preserve as far as possible unaltered. This was wise and indeed necessary, but it threw a great responsibility upon those who had to work the government which the Constitution created. They found nothing within the four corners of the instrument to guide them on points whose gravity was perceived as soon as they had to be settled in practice. Many of such points could not be dealt with by interpretation or construction, however liberally extensive it might be, because there was nothing in the words of the Constitution from which such construction could start, and because they were in some instances matters which, though important, could not be based upon principle, but must be settled by an arbitrary determination.