The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution

This book explores the constitutional issues at the heart of the conflict between Britain and its American colonies in the eighteenth century.

Jack P. Greene (Author)

9780521760935, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 October 2010

224 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.43 kg

'Beautifully executed, it provides a compelling distillation of arguments that Greene has long been developing about the Revolution … [he] has fashioned an invaluable and succinct guide to the constitutional interpretation of the Revolution, one that succeeds in offering a clear alternative to dominant historical interpretations of the period and in placing both law and imperial relations at the heart of the discussion - where they belong.' Journal of American History

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.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], History of ideas [JFCX], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], History of the Americas [HBJK]