The very idea of a constitutional law-maker suggests two levels of power--the “constituent” that makes the constitution and the “constituted” that is made, directly or indirectly, by the constitution. This commonplace observation earned the Abbé Sieyès the reputation of being the originator of the idea of “constituent power.”6 So firm is this association, that the idea is commonly expressed in the language he used--as the pouvoir constituent. In fact, versions of the idea are much older. Some were elaborated in the constitutionally turbulent seventeenth century in England. Among the more notable statements in this period was George Lawson’s 1660 Politica Sacra et Civilis. Lawson posited that all government was circumscribed by an original act of consent by the “community civil,” an entity that was in suspense while civil government was in effect but stood ready to reassert itself on the appropriate occasion.7 John Locke’s version is better known. Near the end of the Two Treatises, Locke wrote that “the people are at liberty to provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative, differing from the other, by the change of persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for their safety and good.”8 It was Locke’s ideas that influenced those phrases in the American Declaration of Independence referring to the right of the people “to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles *718 and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”9