*a [Footnote a: [The fifth article of the original Constitution of the United States provides the mode in which amendments of the Constitution may be made.

Amendments must be proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States.

Fifteen amendments of the Constitution have been made at different times since 1789, the most important of which are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth, framed and ratified after the Civil War.

The original Constitution of the United States, followed by these fifteen amendments, is printed at the end of this edition.
-- Translator's Note, 1874.]] It is easy to perceive in what manner these differences must act upon the position and the rights of the judicial bodies in the three countries I have cited.

If in France the tribunals were authorized to disobey the laws on the ground of their being opposed to the constitution, the supreme power would in fact be placed in their hands, since they alone would have the right of interpreting a constitution, the clauses of which can be modified by no authority.