The History Of North America Vol 7 PDF Download

Excerpt from The History of North America, Vol. 7: The Formation and Development of the Constitution The most remarkable document in the world's history is the Constitution of the United States. This is not because, as is often alleged, the Constitution came hot-forged from the brains of those intrusted with the task of drawing up a form of government for the federated States, for not so did the Constitution come into existence. Nor because among the great documents adjusting human differences and binding together diversified interests the Constitution stands unique in its provisions, for upon analysis its constituent parts will be found to rest upon well defined and frequently expressed principles. The reason why we rank the Constitution so high among governmental monuments lies in the simple fact of its present existence, or, in other words, because of that quality of elasticity by which a document intended for one purpose has been made to serve another. The Constitution in its original form was a compact between thirteen quarrelling colonies; but so well was it formulated and so nicely were its parts adjusted that it has endured the stress of expansion until to-day, with comparatively slight alteration either by direct legislation or by conventional alteration, it binds together forty-seven strong States even more firmly - and this regardless of the Civil War - than it united the weak colonies. It is for this quality of flexibility and expansiveness that we designate the Constitution of the United States the most remarkable document in the world's history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.