TO THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION Albert Denn BY DICEY, Q.C., B.C.L. OF THE INNER TEMPLE; VINERIAN PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LAW FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD HON. LL. D. GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH FOURTH EDITION London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1893 All rights reserved PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION THIS book is (as its title imports) an introduction to the study of the law of the constitution; it does not pretend to be even a summary, much less a complete account, of constitutional law. It deals only with two or three guiding principles which pervade the modern constitution of England. My object in publishing the work is to provide students with a manual which may impress these leading principles on their minds, and thus may enable them to study with benefit in Blackstone's Commentaries and other treatises of the like nature those legal topics which, taken together, make up the constitutional law of England. In furtherance of this design I have not only emphasised the doctrines (such, for example, as the sovereignty of Parliament) which are the foundation of the existing constitution, but have also constantly illustrated English constitutionalism by comparisons between it and the constitutionalism on the one hand of the United States, and on the other of the French Republic. Whether I have in any |