The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution (New Histories of American Law)

Jack P. Greene
Cambridge University Press, 12/23/2010
EAN 9780521132305, ISBN10: 0521132304

Paperback, 224 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

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. The failure to resolve the resulting tensions led to the thirteen continental colonies seceding 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. 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.

Prologue
inheritance
1. Empire negotiated, 1689–1763
2. Empire confronted, 1764–6
3. Empire reconsidered, 1767–73
4. Empire shattered, 1774–6
Epilogue
legacy.