Where did the United
States Constitution come from?
I don't mean who wrote
it, who signed it, or who ratified it. I mean where did the concept of a
republic with separation of powers into an executive, a legislative and
judicial branches of government come from? Until the US
Constitution became law March 4, 1789, no country in the
world at that time, or previously, had ever had such a form of government.
Until the US Constitution,
there had been only a few governments that were considered republics: Rome and the Greeks come
to mind. But, neither had what was delivered by our Constitution.
A small body of
authority have proposed that a confederation of northeast Indian tribes had a
government that closely resembled our Constitution. But, there was no clear separation of powers,
and the confederation had little power to enforce its laws.
John Adams, in April
1776, wrote a paper, actually a letter to his colleagues, on his thoughts on
government. In it, he proposed a form of
government quite like our Constitution.
This was just after the war for independences began, and most citizens
of America
considered themselves British subjects.
The battles of Lexington and Concord had taken place a year earlier and the leaders of
the future United States
were about to engage in a struggle of attrition that was to last six long
years. But, John Adams had to come up
with the concept, and it doesn’t seem plausible he could come up with his ideas
out of the clear blue.
http://www.constitution.org/jadams/thoughts.htm
There are some
similarities of our Constitution to the constitution then in use in Virginia, and some
historians have suggested that the framers of the Constitution started
there. After all, James Madison,
considered “the father of the Constitution” was from Virginia.
And, if that is so, where did the Virginians get the concept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution
And in the words of immortal
Paul Harvey: “here is the rest of the story”:
Actually, our
Constitution, or the principles under which it operates was first articulated,
it is believed by most historians, by a Frenchman named
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La
Brède et de Montesquieu, or Montesquieu
(pronounced: Montiskju) for short (1689-1755). He was a social commentator and political thinker
and is famous for his theory of separation of state powers into an executive,
legislative and judicial branches. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montesquieu
Most
all of the framers of our Constitution would have been familiar with the theory
articulated by Montesquieu, and would have had his ideas in mind when writing our
Constitution, once they agreed that was the direction they wished to go.
