The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States: Showing That It Is a Development of Progressive History and Not an Isolated Document Struck ... Dutch Forms of Government (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States: Showing That It Is a Development of Progressive History and Not an Isolated Document Struck Off at a Given Time or an Imitation of English or Dutch Forms of Government

The time of two hundred years was sufficiently long, and the sixty-nine different forms of government were certainly numerous and varied enough, to bring about the final result and they account for the final result in a more clear, complete, and satisfactory manner than any of the theories of sudden inspiration or imitation of England or Holland that have been broached.

In order to show the evolution in all its details, I have divided two of the chapters into sections. Each section traces back a clause of the Constitution through all the previous documents, with quotations from each docu ment showing the gradual development, the experience that was acquired, or the experiments that were made. This has made necessary a great deal of small print, and sometimes rather long quotations from the old docu ments, which were very verbose. But the reader has it all before him, and can, in most instances, see at a glance the nature of the development without any laborious search through the sixty-nine documents. I have also tried to lessen his efforts,-wherever I could, by com ments and summaries.

Besides this detailed analysis, there are chapters giving a general view of the growth and discussing the sup posed resemblances to European forms of government. The last chapter deals with Mr. Campbell's theory that part of the Constitution and many other American institutions were derived from Holland.

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