The one is the domestic, the
other the foreign branch of the same government; neither having control
over the other, but within its own department. There are one or two
exceptions only to this partition of power. But you may ask, if the two
departments should claim each the same subject of power, where is the
common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little
importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them
aloof from the questionable ground: but if it can neither be avoided nor
compromised, a convention of the States must be called, to ascribe the
doubtful power to that department which they may think best. You will
perceive by these details, that we have not yet so far perfected our
constitutions as to venture to make them unchangeable. But still, in
their present state, we consider them not otherwise changeable than by
the authority of the people, on a special election of representatives
for that purpose expressly: they are until then the _lex legum_.
But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another, and
all others, in succession for ever? I think not. The Creator has made
the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powrers can only
belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed with
will. The dead are not even things. The particles of matter which
composed their bodies, make part now of the bodies of other animals,
vegetables, or minerals, of a thousand forms.
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