alliance among a number of separate states,
each of which may have a constitution and laws of its own for local
purposes. In federal governments it remains a question how far the
independence of individual states has been sacrificed by submission to a
constitution. In the United States constitutional progress is hampered
by the necessity thus created of having every amendment ratified by the
separate vote of three-fourths of the states.

See also Government; Sovereignty; Cabinet; Prerogative, &c., and the
section on Government or Constitution in the articles on the various
countries. The standard work on the English constitution is Sir
William Anson's _Law and Custom of the Constitution_ (1st ed. 1886;
3rd ed. 1909); see also A. L. Lowell, _The Government_ _of England_
(1908); W. Bagehot, _The English Constitution_; S. Low, _The
Governance of England_ (1904); A. V. Dicey, _The Law of the
Constitution_ (7th ed. 1909); W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History of
England_ (1878); R. Gneist, _History of the English Constitution_
(Engl. trans. 1886); J. Macy, _The English Constitution_ (New York,
1897); E. W. Ridges, _Constitutional Law of England_ (1905); F. W.
Maitland, _Constitutional History of England_ (1908); G. B. Adams and
H. M. Stephens, _Select Documents of English Constitutional History_
(New York, 1901). For America, see C. E. Stevens, _Sources of the
Constitution of the United States_ (London and New York, 1894); G. T.
Curtis, _Constitutional History of the United States_ (2 vols., New
York, 1889-1896); T. McI. Cooley, _General Principles of
Constitutional Law in the United States_ (Boston, 1880; 3rd ed.
1898); S. G. Fisher, _Evolution of the Constitution of the United
States_ (Philadelphia, 1897); J. I. C. Hare, _American Constitutional
Law_ (2 vols., Boston, 1889); J. F. Jameson (ed.), _Essays on the
Constitutional History of the United States in the Formative Period,
1775-1789_ (Boston, 1889); W. M. Meigs, _Growth of the Constitution
in the Federal Convention of 1787_ (Philadelphia, 1900); and C. G.
Tiedeman, _Unwritten Constitution of the United States_ (New York,
1890). Also A. L. Lowell, _Government and Parties in Continental
Europe_ (2 vols., 1896); W. F. _Dodd, Modern Constitutions_ (2 vols.,
Chicago, 1909), a collection of the fundamental laws of twenty-two of
the most important countries.

"CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS"