Contents
Preface
part 1.
xvii
The Constitution’s Deep Roots
1
The Meaning of Constitutional Government
2
The Lamp of Experience
10
The Constitutions of Antiquity
14
English Origins of America’s Constitution
22
The Growth of Parliament
26
The Challenge of Parliamentary Supremacy
28
The Common Law Tradition
32
The Republican Tradition and the Struggle for
Constitutional Liberty
39
The Influence of Continental Thinkers
47
The Education of the Founders
49
The French and American Revolutions Compared
52
Suggested Reading
60
app e n d i x a . Relevant Chapters of Magna
Charta (1215)
63
app e n d i x b . Petition of Right (1628)
app e n d i x c . The English Bill of Rights (1689)
part 2.
75
80
America’s First Constitutions and
Declarations of Rights
89
Colonial Governments
92
Relations with Great Britain
xi
103