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constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it. The life giving principle and the death dealing stroke must proceed from the same hand."

And, in defining what legislatures are, the same learned judge says: "They are creatures of the constitution; they owe their existence to the constitution: they derive their powers from the constitution. It is their commission, and therefore all their acts must be conformable to it, or else they will be void. The constitution is the work or will of the people themselves in their original, sovereign and unlimited capacity: law is the work or will of the legislature in their derivative or subordinate capacity. The one is the work of the creator, the other of the creature."

The constitution fixes limits to the exercise of legislative authority, and prescribes the orbit within which it must move. In short, the constitution is the sun around which all legislative, executive and judicial bodies must revolve; and that, whatever may be the case in other countries, yet in this there can be no doubt, that every act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution, is null and void.

The constitution of the state of Arkansas is then, the supreme law of the land, the commission or power of attorney which the people of a state have given to their representatives, defining and limiting the bounds within which they must act, and fixing the power which each department of the government may exercise; and is the supreme law of the land, and is fixed, permanent, uncontrolable and transcendant in its nature and operation, and cannot be revoked or altered except by the power that made it.

The constitution of this state is of binding force and obligation upon all departments of the government, and assigns the sphere within which each must act and establishes bounds beyond which neither can go. It is the work of the people, speaking in their original capacity, and establishes the permanent conditions of social alliance, and furnishes the test by which every act of the