part 1
The Constitution’s Deep Roots
points to remember
1. The American Constitution is an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary document. Though written in a revolutionary age, it embraces
ideas and principles developed through trial and error that grew out
of our colonial experience. Constitutional and legal development in England and the political history of the Greek and Roman republics also
influenced the thinking of the Framers.
2. Three important political concepts drawn by the Americans from
the Roman experience were the doctrines of republicanism, political virtue, and checks and balances. But it is the English Constitution, including
the English charters of liberty and the English legal system, that had the
greatest impact on American constitutional development. Representative government, a tradition of well-established civil liberties, and the
heritage of the common law are three important political and legal institutions of England that Americans adopted in framing their own constitutions. Certain features of the English Constitution were rejected by
the Americans, however, including the monarchy and the principle of
legislative supremacy. The American Constitution therefore represents
a blending of English and American constitutional traditions.
3. The Framers of the American Constitution had learned from ancient and from British history that republics, like other forms of government, are vulnerable to corruption, and that legislative bodies as
well as courts of law can be just as much a threat to liberty as allpowerful monarchs. For this reason they did not place all their trust in
any one branch of government, and they established checks on the powers of each.
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