In English the words Constitution and Legislation do not carry on their face the relation of one to the other, and the distinction between them. In Irish the case is different. In Irish the word for Legislation is _Reacht_, and the word for Constitution is _Bunreacht_--fixed and foundation legislation. But even the distinction so simply carried on the face of these words does not complete the relation of one to the other. For that relation is precise; and consists in the fact that all laws comprising the _Reacht_ must be built upon the foundation of the _Bunreacht_, and must be contained within the fixed limits of the _Bunreacht_. The moment they attempt to build elsewhere, or go outside those limits, that moment they cease to be binding on any citizen; and all citizens may claim the protection of the courts of law against them. From this follows the third definition of a Constitution, which is that it contains the highest and completest sovereign act of a nation. A nation may confer a Constitution on itself, and that Constitution may contain no declaration that the people are sovereign; but the fact that the nation did so make their own Constitution is itself a declaration of sovereignty. Declarations of sovereignty in the body of a Constitution may be very wise; and they are always pleasant; but they are not necessary. Similarly, a nation may make a Constitution for itself, and in that Constitution confer the chief executive authority on a person to be known as a king; and that person may be known in name as a sovereign; but the fact that he derives his power from the Constitution is evidence that, not he, but the people, are sovereign. His is only a sovereign name; theirs is the sovereign reality. Such Constitutions were made in 1814 by Norway, in 1830 by Belgium, and only last year by "Jugo-Slavia." In the last case the kingly line already existed before the Constitution was framed, and an oath was prescribed in it, according to which the King swore "to maintain the Constitution intact." In the first two cases the kingly lines were not chosen until the Constitutions had been framed, when the chosen dynasties stepped into the places appointed for them, and carried out the functions defined for them. In each case, however, the authority of the king sprang, not from the divine right of kings, but from the divine right of the people, as set forth in the sovereign act of giving themselves a Constitution. How different the power of kings such as these from the power of the French monarch who in the 18th century declared, "L'Etat, c'est moi"--"I am the State." He was right. He was sovereign. Sovereignty had to reside somewhere; and until the people arose and declared that it resided in them, and expressed that declaration in a formal Constitution, it continued to reside in the ruler who claimed it.