purpose of man,"
for the true record of its making shows how deliberate and
difficult the process was. Equally misleading is the
judgment of so profound a master in legal history as Sir
Henry Sumner Maine, when he says that the "Constitution of
the United States is a modified version of the British
Constitution which was in existence between 1760 and 1787."

A juster view is held by the critical scholars of America, a
view which indeed should be deducible, without need of
special scholarship, from the recorded history of the
Constitutional period. "The real source of the
Constitution," says a living American historian, "is the
experience of Americans. They had established and developed
admirable little commonwealths in the colonies; since the
beginning of the Revolution they had had experience of State
governments organized on a different basis from the
colonial; and, finally, they had carried on two successive
national governments, with which they had been profoundly
discontented. The general outline of the new Constitution
seems to be English; it was really colonial."

From the year 1775 there was a federal union in which each
colony regulated its internal affairs by its own
constitution, while the general affairs of the union were
controlled by the Continental Congress. This mode was
substantially continued after the colonies (1776-1779)
became States, with new State constitutions. It was not
finally superseded until the Articles of Confederation,
adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777, had been
ratified by all the separate colonies or States. Under the
articles a new government went into effect March 1, 1781.

The Articles of Confederation proving inadequate to the
requirements of the Federal Government, it came to be seen
that a general revision of them was needed, and a convention
for that purpose was called. This convention went beyond its
original purpose, which proved impracticable, and took upon
itself the task of framing wholly anew the present
Constitution of the United States. The following accounts
furnish the reader with the circumstances which directly led
to the calling of the convention, and with a clear and
concise report of its proceedings and the subsequent action
thereon taken by the States.