has been not to elevate politics, but to lower the courts toward the
political level, a result which conforms to the _a priori_ theory.

The abstract virtue of the written Constitution was not, however, a
question in issue when Washington and his contemporaries set themselves
to reorganize the Confederation. Those men had no choice but to draft
some kind of a platform on which the states could agree to unite, if
they were to unite peacefully at all, and accordingly they met in
convention and drew the best form of agreement they could; but I more
than suspect that a good many very able Federalists were quite alive to
the defects in the plan which they adopted.

Hamilton was outspoken in preferring the English model, and I am not
aware that Washington ever expressed a preference for the theory that,
because of a written fundamental law, the court should nullify
legislation. Nor is it unworthy of remark that all foreigners, after a
prolonged and attentive observation of our experiment, have avoided it.
Since 1789, every highly civilized Western people have readjusted their
institutions at least once, yet not one has in this respect imitated
us, though all have borrowed freely from the parliamentary system of
England.[6]

Even our neighbor, Canada, with no adverse traditions and a population
similar to ours, has been no exception to the rule. The Canadian courts
indeed define the limits of provincial and federal jurisdiction as fixed
under an act of Parliament, but they do not pretend to limit the
exercise of power when the seat of power has been established. I take
the cause of this distrust to be obvious. Although our written
Constitution was successful in its primary purpose of facilitating the
consolidation of the Confederation, it has not otherwise inspired