The first American Constitutions

More about the book

For the last twenty years this book has been cited by every serious writer on early American constitutional development. Any constitutional history of the independent United States must begin with this comprehensive study. This volume contains two new chapters: one demonstrating precedents in the state constitutions for the U.S. Constitution, and another chapter critically testing the _republicanism over liberalism_ thesis against political ideas and institutional arrangements that constitute the first state constitutions.