Beyond The Crown - Britain’s Constitutional Imprint On America’s Separation Of Powers

Author: LawSphereX

Category: Constitutional & Human Rights

Published: 2026-08-23T18:30:27.656997+00:00

Updated: 2026-08-26T17:11:47.026+00:00

BEYOND THE CROWN: BRITAIN’S CONSTITUTIONAL

IMPRINT ON AMERICA’S SEPARATION OF POWERS

Asst. Prof. Tabassum Sultana, CMR University School of Legal Studies Anoushka Girish, CMR University School of Legal Studies

ABSTRACT

The doctrine of separation of powers, most notably articulated by Montesquieu in De l’Esprit des Lois (1748), finds its origins in the gradual constitutional evolution of Britain, though it was more rigidly institutionalised in the United States. This paper traces how centuries of English constitutional struggle from the Magna Carta (1215) to the Bill of Rights (1689) influenced Montesquieu’s observations during his 1729–1731 visit to England. Misinterpreting Britain’s “mixed constitution” as a strict division of powers, Montesquieu idealised a balance that inspired the framers of the 1787 U. S. Constitution. America transformed his vision into a concrete system fortified by checks and balances, unlike Britain’s flexible conventions.

By juxtaposing Britain’s unwritten pragmatism with America’s codified precision, the paper reveals how philosophical insight, historical context, and transatlantic exchange shaped the modern principle of divided authority.

Introduction Over centuries, the English crown gleamed not only over Britain but across oceans and continents. The empire’s reach was enormous from the misted hills of Scotland to the spices and ports of India, from the Caribbean islands to the shores of Africa. Englishmen were administrator’s of the seas, merchants of trade, and arbiters of power. Their rule, backed by the monarchy’s authority and Parliament’s sanction, stretched over a quarter of the world. Yet behind this imperial spectacle lay a centuries-long domestic struggle a battle not for new lands, but for the control of power itself. 1 In early England, the king’s will was law. He was the maker, enforcer, and interpreter of justice. Monarchs like Henry VIII or Elizabeth I exercised almost absolute authority, governing with the confidence that power was divine and inseparable. But as the empire expanded, so did opposition.

The Magna Carta of 1215 first whispered the radical thought that even a king could be bound by the law. By the seventeenth century, England was no longer merely a monarchy, it was a furnace of political transformation. Parliament began to assert itself, challenging royal prerogatives and demanding accountability. The execution of Charles I in 1649 an act unthinkable in medieval Europe was more than a political rebellion as it was a philosophical declaration that sovereignty belonged not to the person of the king, but to the system of law. 2 The English government that emerged from this turmoil was unique. It did not divide powers as the later systems would, but it balanced them precisely. The monarch remained the head of state, but executive authority increasingly rested with ministers who sat in Parliament.

The House of Commons made the laws, the House of Lords revised them, and the judiciary, though loyal to the Crown, began to exercise a measure of independence. It was a government of blended powers not divided, but intertwined sustained by convention, precedent, and the ever watchful public spirit of liberty. 3 It was into this England that Baron de Montesquieu, a French aristocrat from Bordeaux, arrived in the early 1720s. Montesquieu’s France was still gripped by absolute monarchy. The Bourbon kings ruled with unrestrained grandeur, and power flowed entirely from the throne. Judges were obligated to royal favour, and the Estates-General France’s representative body had long been dissolved. To a man of letters and reason like Montesquieu, England seemed a

1 Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 11–15.

2 Vishnoo Bhagwan, Vidya Bhushan & Vandana Mohla, World Constitutions: A Comparative Study, 12th edition (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2022), ISBN 978-9393853141.

3 Id

revelation. 4 He travelled through London’s smoky streets, attended sessions of Parliament, conversed with political men, and observed something extraordinary a society where the monarch did not command all, where the legislature and the judiciary seemed to breathe independently. 5 But what Montesquieu saw was not precisely what England practiced. He mistook balance for separation. 6 In his landmark work The Spirit of the Laws (1748), he described England as a nation where legislative, executive, and judicial powers were wholly distinct each preventing the other from excess. What in England was a fusion became, in his writing, a doctrine of division. 7 Yet his “misinterpretation” was a stroke of genius. It gave philosophical shape to an instinct long felt but never fully articulated: that liberty survives only when power is divided. 8 Across the Atlantic, a new world was listening.

9 The American colonies, weary of royal imposition and arbitrary rule, found in Montesquieu’s vision the perfect architecture for freedom. When the United States declared independence in 1776 and drafted its Constitution a decade later, it took this European theory and made it real. The President, Congress, and Supreme Court became three distinct guardians of liberty, each limited by the others. 10 Thus, the idea that began in the shadow of the British crown, was refined by a French philosopher wandering through London, and finally realized by American statesmen across an ocean. The separation of powers born of English restraint, shaped by French reason, and perfected by American idealism became the world’s most enduring shield against tyranny.

11 The Empire and the Birth of Restraint The separation of powers, at its heart, is a philosophy of restraint12 a recognition that power, if left unbounded, consumes itself and the people it governs. It is the idea that authority must not 4 Laurence Claus, “Montesquieu’s Mistakes and the True Meaning of Separation,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Autumn 2005), pp. 419-451. Print ISSN 0143-6503; e-ISSN 1464-3820.

5 Lee Ward, “Montesquieu on Federalism and Anglo-Gothic Constitutionalism,” Publius: The Journal of

Federalism, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Fall 2007), pp. 551-577. Print ISSN 0048-5950; e-ISSN 1747-7107.

6 Sharon Krause, The Spirit of Separate Powers in Montesquieu, 62 Rev. Pol. 231 (2000).

7 ia Akhtar, Montesquieu’s Theory of the Separation of Powers, Legislative Flexibility and Judicial Restraint in an Unwritten Constitution, 4(3) Amicus Curiae 552 (2023). 8 M.J.C. Vile, The Rise and Fall of the Doctrine of the Separation of Powers, 18 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1 (1950). 9 Thomas Osborne, Moderation as Government: Montesquieu and the Divisibility of Power, Critical Rev. Int’l Soc. & Pol. Phil. (2023). 10 Jacob T. Levy, The Separation of Powers, in The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory 382 (Richard Albert et al. eds., Cambridge Univ. Press 2025) 11 Albert O. Hirschman, The Principle of the Separation of Powers in Historical Perspective, 9 World Pol. 117 (1957).

12 M.J.C. Vile, Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers 2d ed. (Liberty Fund 1998).

reside wholly in any one body or person, but be divided among different institutions, each acting as a sentinel over the others. Its moral foundation lies in an ancient truth that justice demands both energy and equilibrium. A government must be strong enough to act, but never so strong that it cannot be questioned. 13 In Britain, this principle emerged gradually, not as an explicit constitutional command, but as the outcome of centuries of struggle between monarchy and Parliament. 14 The English constitution was never written on parchment; it was carved into practice. The monarch represented executive power, Parliament exercised legislative authority, and the judiciary evolved as an independent arbiter of rights and legality. Yet, unlike the rigid divisions later seen in the American model, Britain preferred harmony over hostility among its institutions.

15 Ministers who led the executive sat in the legislature; the Lord Chancellor, for centuries, was both a cabinet minister and the head of the judiciary. Power was not partitioned but intertwined a system of checks achieved through convention and accountability rather than legal demarcation. 16 England’s Blended Constitution The British system thrived on this fusion because it rested on an unwritten moral code17constitutional conventions, political responsibility, and the supremacy of Parliament. The executive was answerable to the legislature, and the legislature was bound by electoral will. The monarchy, though theoretically powerful, evolved into a dignified institution rather than an active one. By the nineteenth century, Britain had achieved what Walter Bagehot later called the “efficient secret”18 of its constitution: the close union between the legislative and executive powers.

Its genius lay in flexibility a living constitution capable of adapting without rupture. 19 This fluidity allowed Britain to avoid many of the convulsions that tore through continental Europe. Change came not through revolution, but through gradual accommodation. The

13 Sharon Krause, The Spirit of Separate Powers in Montesquieu, 62 Rev. Pol. 231 (2000)

14 A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution 144–46 (10th ed. 1959).

15 Geoffrey Marshall, Ministerial Responsibility and the Theory of the British Constitution, 11 Parl. Aff. 7 (1957).

16 Paul Craig, Public Law and Democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States of America: A

Comparative Analysis, 59 Mod. L. Rev. 1 (1996).

17 Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London: Chapman and Hall, 1867), 7–10.

18 A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 10th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1959), 144– 46. 19 Vernon Bogdanor, The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 35–40.

system’s strength lay in its reliance on trust20 the trust that those in power would respect unwritten boundaries, that political convention would stand where written law was absent. 21 Montesquieu’s Journey: A Frenchman in England Across the Channel, France was a very different world. Under the Bourbon kings, the monarchy was absolute and unrestrained. 22 Courts existed, but they were instruments of royal will. 23 The Estates-General, once a forum of national representation, had not met for over a century. 24 Power in France was not shared; it was concentrated. It was this world that Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, was born into in 1689. 25 Curious and cosmopolitan, Montesquieu travelled through Europe in search of ideas that might explain liberty.

When he visited England in the 1720s, he encountered a society utterly unlike his own where a monarch ruled but did not dominate, where Parliament debated openly, and where courts seemed independent of the throne. 26 He attended parliamentary sessions, studied trials, and conversed with thinkers of the time. What he saw astonished him: a state where liberty coexisted with order, where government seemed divided and yet functional. A Misinterpretation That Shaped the World

Montesquieu, however, misread what he observed. England did not practice separation of powers in the strict sense it practiced a balance of powers.27 Yet when Montesquieu returned to France and began writing The Spirit of the Laws (1748), he described England as the ideal model of liberty precisely because its powers were, in his view, separated. He transformed the English “fusion” into a philosophical doctrine of “division.” In his formulation, the legislative, executive, and judicial powers must be distinct and independent, lest tyranny result.28 This misunderstanding became one of history’s most creative errors. What Montesquieu had misinterpreted, the world adopted. His version of the English system purified, logical, and 20 Geoffrey Marshall, Ministerial Responsibility and the Theory of the British Constitution, 11 Parl. Aff. 7 (1957).

21 Martin Loughlin, Foundations of Public Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 22–28.

22 David W. Carrithers, Montesquieu and the Spirit of the Laws: A Historical Perspective, 15 Hist. Polit. Thought

45 (1994).

23 Thomas L. Pangle, Montesquieu and the Discovery of the Social, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 22–30. 24 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller & Harold S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), bk. 11, ch. 6.

25 J.H. Brumfitt, Liberty and Law in Pre-Revolutionary France, 8 French Hist. Stud. 1 (1970).

26 Robert Wokler, Montesquieu: A Critical Biography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), 40–45.

27 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller & Harold S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), bk. 11, ch. 6. 28 Thomas L. Pangle, Montesquieu and the Discovery of the Social (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 22–30.

abstract became a constitutional blueprint for generations to come. The American Reinvention of Power No nation would take Montesquieu’s idea more seriously than the United States. 29 The American colonies, having experienced royal governors, mercantile exploitation, and legislative subordination to the Crown, were determined to prevent the concentration of authority that had marked the British Empire. When they declared independence in 1776, they sought not merely freedom from Britain, but freedom from the very structure of absolute power. 30 In 1787, at the Philadelphia Convention, the Founding Fathers Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and others turned Montesquieu’s theory into constitutional design. The United States Constitution divided the federal government into three distinct branches: the Legislative (Congress), the Executive (President), and the Judicial (Supreme Court).

Unlike Britain’s flexible conventions, these divisions were legal and absolute. 31 No person could serve in more than one branch; no branch could usurp another’s power. Checks, Balances, and the Architecture of Liberty The genius of the American system lay not merely in dividing power but in making each branch capable of checking the others. 32 As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. ” The President could veto Congressional acts, Congress could override the veto, and the Supreme Court could declare both unconstitutional. This system, first tested in Marbury v. Madison33, where Chief Justice John Marshall asserted judicial review, ensured that the Constitution itself not any person or body would remain the ultimate source of authority. In America, liberty survived because power was compelled to argue with itself.

Over time, this rigid separation became both the strength and challenge of American democracy. 34 It prevented tyranny but sometimes invited paralysis. Yet, even through 29 Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 261–70. 30 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller & Harold S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), bk. 11, ch. 6.

31 Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2005), 45–50.

32 James Madison, Federalist No. 51, in The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: New American Library, 1961), 324.

33 Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).

34 Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 285–90.

civil wars, impeachments, and crises, the structure endured proof that freedom thrives best when no single hand may hold the reins too tightly. Britain’s Fusion, America’s Separation While America built its Constitution on division, Britain evolved further through union. 35 Parliamentary sovereignty became the cornerstone of the British system. The Prime Minister and Cabinet, drawn from the majority party in Parliament, exercised executive power within the legislature itself. Far from violating democracy, this fusion ensured constant accountability the government survived only so long as it retained parliamentary confidence. 36 Judicial independence came later, particularly after the Constitutional Reform Act of 200537, which created a separate Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. But Britain still maintained its preference for cooperation over competition.

The monarch “reigns but does not rule”; Parliament legislates freely; and the judiciary interprets law independently all without the rigidity of a written constitution. 38 Thus, the Atlantic divide reflected two philosophies: Britain’s trust in political convention and America’s faith in legal structure. One relied on unwritten understanding; the other on written checks. Both, however, pursued the same goal liberty through limitation. The Global Legacy of a Transatlantic Idea From the courts of Westminster and the convention halls of Philadelphia, the doctrine of separation of powers began to ripple outward, shaping constitutional democracies far beyond Europe and America.

39 The newly independent nations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, seeking to establish governments founded on both liberty and accountability, found in Montesquieu’s theory a ready blueprint for balanced governance. 40 India’s Constitution, for instance, embodies this spirit through its distinct legislative, executive, and judicial branches though not with the rigidity of the American model. 41 The framers of the Indian Constitution, influenced by British parliamentary traditions and American 35 Vernon Bogdanor, The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 22–25. 36 Geoffrey Marshall, Ministerial Responsibility and the Theory of the British Constitution, 11 Parl. Aff. 7 (1957).

37 Constitutional Reform Act 2005, c. 4 (UK).

38 Martin Loughlin, Foundations of Public Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 22–28.

39 Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1966), 120–25. 40 B.R. Ambedkar, The Framing of the Indian Constitution: Select Speeches and Writings (Bombay: Government of India, 1960), 45–50. 41 Donald S. Lutz, Principles of Constitutional Design (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 88–95.

constitutionalism alike, created a system of separation balanced with the principle of cooperation, allowing flexibility within a framework of restraint. Similar patterns appeared in nations like Australia, Canada, and France’s post-revolutionary republics, where Montesquieu’s ideas re-emerged through new lenses of democracy, federalism, and judicial review. 42 Today, the doctrine endures not merely as a legal principle but as a moral safeguard a universal language of governance that speaks of trust, limitation, and accountability. Its endurance across continents stands as proof that Montesquieu’s vision, born of a French mind and shaped by English politics, has transcended both geography and time. The Doctrine Crosses the Seas The doctrine’s influence did not end with these two nations.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as revolutions and decolonization’s swept the world, emerging states adopted their own versions. France’s post-revolutionary constitutions drew heavily on Montesquieu. Germany’s Basic Law of 1949 blended federalism with judicial oversight. 43 In Asia, Africa, and the Commonwealth, the idea took root through the dual influence of Britain and America. India, for instance, adopted a middle path parliamentary in structure, but with a fiercely independent judiciary. The framers of the Indian Constitution, inspired by both Westminster and Washington, designed what Dr. B. R. Ambedkar described as “a system of checks and balances, not separation in the absolute sense. ” The President and Council of Ministers execute laws, Parliament legislates, and the judiciary interprets overlapping just enough to maintain both cooperation and control.

44 The Modern Test of an Ancient Principle In the contemporary world, the doctrine of separation of powers is confronted by challenges more intricate than any faced in the centuries of its evolution. 45 The boundaries that once defined the legislative, executive, and judicial domains have grown increasingly porous. Globalization has intertwined domestic governance with international institutions, transnational corporations, and economic compulsions that often escape parliamentary 42 Jeffrey Goldsworthy, The Separation of Powers in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 10–15. 43 Richard Bellamy, Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defence of the Constitutionality of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 52–60. 44 S. P.

Sathe, Judicial Activism in India: Transgressing Borders and Enforcing Limits (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 25–30. 45 Jeffrey Goldsworthy, The Separation of Powers in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 10–15.

oversight. Technology, with its capacity to shape public discourse and influence governance in real time, has created new centres of power outside traditional institutions. Meanwhile, the surge of populism across nations has emboldened executives to invoke mandates of “the people” as justification for bypassing institutional restraint. Executives today frequently rely on emergency provisions or delegated legislation to act swiftly in crises whether of security, health, or economy often stretching the limits of constitutional authority. Legislatures, weakened by partisanship and the dominance of political majorities, sometimes abdicate their deliberative and supervisory functions, allowing the executive to legislate by proxy.

The judiciary, too, has evolved into a more assertive participant in governance, compelled to intervene in domains once considered political, thereby raising debates about judicial overreach and the proper limits of adjudicative power. Yet, despite these shifting dynamics, the doctrine of separation of powers retains its enduring relevance. Its philosophical strength lies in its recognition of a fundamental human truth that unchecked power, however benevolent its intent, inevitably tends toward excess. 46 The doctrine serves not merely as a legal mechanism, but as a moral compass that reminds governments of the necessity of restraint. It embodies the timeless distrust of concentrated authority, the understanding that liberty survives only when no single hand or institution may wield power without scrutiny.

Whether enshrined in written constitutions or sustained through unwritten conventions, the separation of powers continues to act as democracy’s quiet insurance policy. It is not designed to deliver administrative efficiency or political convenience; it exists to preserve equilibrium amidst change. Its purpose is endurance to ensure that even when institutions falter, and when the winds of populism or crisis threaten to unsettle constitutional order, liberty can recover. For as long as power remains divided, it can be corrected, restrained, and rebalanced and that enduring capacity for self-renewal is what ultimately safeguards freedom. Beyond the Crown: Power, Balance, and Freedom The evolution from monarchy to modern democracy represents far more than a change in the structure of governance; it signifies a profound transformation in the philosophy of power itself.

47 For centuries, authority was personified in the figure of the sovereign divine, 46 Richard Bellamy, Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defence of the Constitutionality of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 52–60. 47 Vernon Bogdanor, The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1–10.

indivisible, and unquestionable. 48 The crown symbolized not only political supremacy but moral legitimacy. Yet, over time, as societies matured and the consciousness of liberty deepened, the world began to recognize that true strength lies not in the concentration of power, but in its distribution. The doctrine of separation of powers stands as the culmination of this long historical and intellectual journey born from the disciplined restraint of English constitutional evolution,49 refined by the intellect of a French philosopher, and ultimately realized in the democratic experiment of the American republic. 50 Each stage in this progression marked a critical reimagining of governance: England taught the virtue of balance, France articulated the philosophy of division, and America institutionalized it through constitutional design.

Together, they transformed the idea of rule from a matter of sovereignty to a question of accountability. To go beyond the crown is to transcend the glittering spectacle of authority and embrace the moral weight of responsibility. 51 It is to replace the grandeur of command with the quiet discipline of constitutional restraint; to recognize that power, when left unchecked, corrodes both ruler and ruled. In its most profound sense, separation of powers is not merely a system of governance it is an ethic of humility. It reminds those who govern that power is not a right to be possessed but a trust to be exercised. In every nation that upholds this principle whether in Westminster’s halls, Washington’s courts, or India’s Parliament the enduring message is the same: liberty endures only when power is compelled to share itself.

The splendour of monarchy has yielded to the sovereignty of law; and in that transformation lies humanity’s greatest political achievement a world where freedom is preserved not by the might of one, but by the mutual restraint of all Conclusion From the palaces of Britain to the pages of The Spirit of the Laws, the idea of separation of powers has travelled far reshaping how nations imagine authority, liberty, and justice. 52 What

48 Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London: Chapman and Hall, 1867), 10–15.

49 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller & Harold S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), bk. 11, ch. 6. 50 Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 261–70. 51 Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1966), 120–25. 52 Vernon Bogdanor, The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1–10.

began as a delicate balancing act between the English monarch, Parliament, and judiciary was transformed by a French nobleman, Charles de Montesquieu, into one of the most enduring political philosophies in human history. 53 His keen observation of England’s constitutional balance though imperfectly understood became the foundation of a universal doctrine that outlived its origins. It was Montesquieu’s genius to see beyond the crown to look past the grandeur of monarchy and discern in its shadow a structure of restraint that preserved freedom. From that realization, he crafted a vision of governance where power would never again be absolute, where law would stand above rulers, and where liberty would be secured not by benevolence but by balance. Across the Atlantic, the American framers took this vision and etched it into the very architecture of their republic.

54 Each branch of government legislature, executive, and judiciary was made a sentinel against the excesses of the others. The doctrine became not just a theory, but a living safeguard of democracy. Meanwhile, in Britain, the principle remained embedded in the subtle conventions of constitutional monarchy a quiet equilibrium between sovereignty and accountability. As the doctrine spread across continents, it shaped the constitutional hearts of nations like India, whose founding fathers adopted its spirit while adapting it to their own democratic and cultural fabric. From Westminster to Washington to New Delhi, the separation of powers continues to define the rhythm of modern governance, ensuring that liberty does not perish under the weight of authority.

In essence, Beyond the Crown is not merely a story of political theory, but of humanity’s eternal pursuit of balance a journey that began with an empire, was reimagined by a French philosopher, and now sustains the conscience of nations. 53 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller & Harold S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), bk. 11, ch. 6. 54 Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 261–70.