For the
supreme power being placed in them by the people, it is always in
them, and they may exercise it when they please, unless by their
original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, or by an
act of their supreme power they have adjourned to a certain time,
and when that time comes they have a right to assemble and act again.
154. If the legislative, or any part of it, be of representatives,
chosen for that time by the people, which afterwards return into the
ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the legislative but
upon a new choice, this power of choosing must also be exercised by
the people, either at certain appointed seasons, or else when they are
summoned to it; and, in this latter case, the power of convoking the
legislative is ordinarily placed in the executive, and has one of
these two limitations in respect of time:- that either the original
constitution requires their assembling and acting at certain
intervals; and then the executive power does nothing but ministerially
issue directions for their electing and assembling according to due
forms; or else it is left to his prudence to call them by new
elections when the occasions or exigencies of the public require the
amendment of old or making of new laws, or the redress or prevention
of any inconveniencies that lie on or threaten the people.
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