The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution
(Part of the New Histories of American Law Series)
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Book Overview
Using the British Empire as a case study, this succinct study argues that the establishment of overseas settlements in America created a problem of constitutional organization that created deep and persistent tensions within the empire during the colonial era and that the failure to resolve it was the principal element in the decision of thirteen continental colonies to secede from the empire in 1776. Challenging those historians who have assumed that the British had the law on their side during the debates that led to the American Revolution, this volume argues that the empire had long exhibited a high degree of constitutional multiplicity, with each colony having its own discrete constitution and the empire as whole having an uncodified working customary constitution that determined the way authority was distributed within the empire. Contending that these constitutions cannot be conflated with the metropolitan British constitution, it argues that British refusal to accept the legitimacy of colonial understandings of the sanctity of the many colonial constitutions and the imperial constitution was the critical element leading to the American Revolution.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0521132304
ISBN13:9780521132305
Release Date:October 2010
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Length:224 Pages
Weight:0.55 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 5.5" x 8.4"
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