The American Constitutional Tradition : Colonial Charters, Covenants, and Revolutionary State Constitutions, 1578-1780.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (253 pages)
- The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Law, Culture, and the Humanities Series .
- The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Law, Culture, and the Humanities Series .
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Foreword -- Part I: Constitutionalism in Colonial America -- 1 The Enterprise Colonies of Virginia -- 2 The Covenant Colonies of New England -- 3 The Proprietary Colonies of the Mid-Atlantic -- 4 The Emergence of the American Constitutional Tradition in the Age of the Imperium -- Part II: Revolutionary Constitutionalism, 1775 to 1784 -- 5 The Quest for a Federal Union -- 6 The Revolutionary State Constitutions -- 7 The American Constitutional Tradition in the Revolutionary Era -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author.
Closer examination of foundational, revolutionary documents, and of the colonial legislation enacted on the basis of those foundational documents, reveals an American tradition of constitutionalism that the Revolutionaries were able to draw upon when fashioning their constitutions for the newly independent states and for the federal government.