later ton's undemocratic views - His PAGE CHAPTER VIII RATIFICATION AND AMENDMENTS. 211 -Old Congress calls for the new-Wash- ington elected President of United States -First Congress proposes Bill of Rights amendments - Resemblance to English PAGE INTRODUCTION THE purpose of this book is to tell the story of the incentives, making, ratification and amendment of our Constitution. The plan is, first, to narrate something of those conditions in England which influenced the political sentiments of early American colonists and the significant events in the founding of the Colonies, in order that readers shall have in mind what character of political bodies united under the Constitution. Next is shown the growth of the idea of union, the causes which strengthened and spread it and the forms in which it was expressed in famous documents. This carries the narrative through the period of government under the Articles of Confederation up to the time when public opinion resulted in the call for the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Then something is told of the men who met in the Convention, how they worked, contended, compromised and finally submitted the Constitution they had framed to the people; of the struggle for its ratification, the early demand for the first ten Amendments, and the election of Washington as the first President under its provision. Finally the story tells what were the causes which led to the further amendment of the Constitution, and what it is to-day as developed by custom and interpreted by courts. No pretense is made that any hitherto unused material is used in this book: its claim for usefulness rests upon its scope and plan, the selection of material and the sequence and manner of presenting it. Its facts are taken from a multitude of works telling either much more or much less; works ranging from leaflets on a single minor event, to ponderous histories having so much more ground to cover that the one story told here in full is there necessarily but sketched. The author's observation has convinced him that the want of a plainly told story of our Constitution is responsible for the lack of general knowledge of what he here seeks to impart. If this book give to only a few people a little more knowledge about our Constitution the author will be repaid-if it stimulate a further search in the rich storehouse of American history he will be more than repaid. EDWARD WATERMAN Townsend. Montclair, New Jersey, 1906. |
