In the years between 1770 and 1790 we can observe a dialectical paradox by means of which the rhetoric of constitutionalism contributed to its own destruction or transcendence. Those in the 18th century who read Locke or Blackstone’s commentaries found in them a searching criticism of the workings of faction and interest in the unreformed House of Commons.2 The first reaction was to criticise the practice of the 18th century in the light of its own theory; the second, more
