Excerpt from The Constitution of the United States, Vol. 1 of 2: Its History, Application and Construction The Constitution of the United States is one of the great written instruments of the world. Its adoption marked the most advanced progress along the line of representative government which had occurred in history, and its influence has surpassed that of any similar document. Concerning the formation of the Constitution there was long a prevalent misconception. It was not wholly an orig inal creation of those who framed-it. The Colonial State papers, 'the Resolves of Congress, the Articles of Confedera tion and the State Constitutions contained many excellent provisions which were inserted in the greater instrument, while precedents for other provisions were found in the British Constitution. In the manner of arrangement I have followed the divi sion of the Constitution into articles, sections and clauses instead of considering similar provisions together. No attempt has been made to discuss collateral issues, or to criticise the Constitution because it contains too much or too little. Although new problems relating to constitu tional government are demanding consideration, I feel that one may be excused from discussing them in a work which treats of the Constitution as it is. 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.