Page:Studies in constitutional law Fr-En-US (1891).pdf/167

Rh districts mapped out in proportion to the number of the electors. According to all appearance the English electoral system is rapidly verging towards the French type.

In the United States the idea of political duties and rights inherent in the individual and citizen has long been familiar to the law; the State Constitutions clearly prove this. It was not therefore for want of recognizing the importance of the electoral franchise, but of set purpose, that the Convention of Philadelphia left it outside the national compact of 1787. I have noticed in the preceding pages the sense and the exact bearing of the Declaration of Rights formed by the first constitutional amendments. I will recapitulate two points only of this analysis: the first, that these amendments are directed against the federal power alone, and do not in themselves bind the separate States; the second, that the amendments give guarantees and means of protection to the individual, but do not give him the means of asserting political rights. As to active political rights, the Federal Constitution assures their possession only to the ancient sovereign bodies known as States. The only possessors of active political rights, according to the Federal Constitution, are the States. Citizens as individuals have no share in the sovereign authority. To give one proof only, and that a very striking one, I remind my readers that there are in strictness, under the working of the Federal Constitution, no federal electors. The central power does not go down to matters so fundamental as the