M. Appendix M
The most esteemed authors who have written upon the English
Constitution agree with each other in establishing the
omnipotence of the Parliament. Delolme says: "It is a fundamental
principle with the English lawyers, that Parliament can do
everything except making a woman a man, or a man a woman."
Blackstone expresses himself more in detail, if not more
energetically, than Delolme, in the following terms: -"The power
and jurisdiction of Parliament, says Sir Edward Coke (4 Inst.
36), is so transcendent and absolute that it cannot be confined,
either for causes or persons, within any bounds." And of this
High Court, he adds, may be truly said, "Si antiquitatem spectes,
est vetustissima; si dignitatem, est honoratissima; si
jurisdictionem, est capacissima." It hath sovereign and
uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, enlarging,
restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of
laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations;
ecclesiastical or temporal; civil, military, maritime, or
criminal; this being the place where that absolute despotic power
which must, in all governments, reside somewhere, is intrusted by
the constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and
grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend the ordinary
course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary
tribunal. It can regulate or new-model the succession to the
Crown; as was done in the reign of Henry VIII and William III.
It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in
a variety of instances in the reigns of King Henry VIII and his
three children. It can change and create afresh even the
constitution of the kingdom, and of parliaments themselves; as
was done by the Act of Union and the several statutes for
triennial and septennial elections. It can, in short, do
everything that is not naturally impossible to be done;
and, therefore some have not scrupled to call its power, by a
figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of Parliament."