[p. 492]
|492| to the point of not mentioning them and of not giving honour to the ruler who makes them expressly into fundamental provisions of the rights and obligations of his subjects. However older constitutions may relate to such principles, in them these are tied to particular and external circumstances, entangled in them, indeed often obscured; it is not for the sake of the principle, i.e. for the sake of rationality and of an absolute right, that rights appear to be present in them, but they appear as single acquisitions, which are to be thanked to particular circumstances and are also restricted only to this and that case, as if they could just as well be lost again through unfortunate circumstances. It is an infinitely important advance of culture that it has penetrated to the cognition of the simple foundations of state institutions and has known how to grasp these foundations in simple propositions as an elementary catechism. If the assembly of estates had brought it about that the 20 §§ which contain these general provisions were hung up on tablets in the churches, taught to the growing youth and made a standing article of school and church instruction, one could wonder less at this than at the fact that the assembly of the land ignored them and did not feel the value of the public recognition by the government and of the general knowledge of such principles.
But on account of this universality they make up only the outline for a legislation yet to be drafted, like the Mosaic commandments or the famous Droits de l’homme et du citoyen of more recent times. For an existing legislation and an already present government and administration they are the abiding regulators upon which a revision as well as an extension of what already exists must be founded, if either is necessary. The royal constitutional charter stops at these general
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.