Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CON-STI-TU'TION, n.

1. The act of constituting, enacting, establishing, or appointing.
2. The state of being; that form of being or peculiar structure and connection of parts which makes or characterizes a system or body. Hence the particular frame or temperament of the human body is called its constitution. We speak of a robust or feeble constitution; a cold, phlegmatic, sanguine or irritable constitution. We speak of the constitution of the air, or other substance; the constitution of the solar system; the constitution of things.
3. The frame or temper of mind, affections or passions.
4. The established form of government in a state, kingdom or country; a system of fundamental rules, principles and ordinances for the government of a state or nation. In free states, the constitution is paramount to the statutes or laws enacted by the legislature, limiting and controlling its power; and in the United States, the legislature is created, and its powers designated, by the constitution.
5. A particular law, ordinance, or regulation, made by the authority of any superior, civil or ecclesiastical; as, the constitutions of the churches; the novel constitutions of Justinian and his successors.
6. A system of fundamental principles for the government of rational and social beings. The New Testament is the moral constitution of modern society. – Grimke.