America's Unplanned Constitutional Tradition

Aaron N. Coleman reviews Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution, by Gordon S. Wood, at Law & Liberty.

"Wood’s central contention in Power and Liberty is that the 'Revolutionary era was the most creative period of constitutionalism in American history and of the most creative in modern Western history.' But the haphazard and chaotic nature of American constitutionalism is front and center. Its unruly nature contrasts sharply with the common perception that Americans of that era agreed on constitutional issues and embraced a destined experiment in democratic-republicanism."

See the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and The Constitution, in American State Papers, Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 43, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 40.