m and reasonableness of the common law, the fact
nevertheless remains, that its development by the courts has been
influenced by an evident disposition to favor the possessing as against
the non-possessing classes. Both the common and the statute law of
England reflected in the eighteenth century the political supremacy of
the well-to-do minority.

CHAPTER II

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

The American colonists inherited the common law and the political
institutions of the mother country. The British form of government, with
its King, Lords and Commons and its checks upon the people, they
accepted as a matter of course. In their political thinking they were
not consciously more democratic than their kinsmen across the Atlantic.
Many of them, it is true, had left England to escape what they regarded
as tyranny and oppression. But to the _form_ of the English government
as such they had no objection. The evils which they experienced were
attributed solely to the selfish spirit in which the government was
administered.

The conditions, however, were more favorable for the development of a
democratic spirit here than in the mother country. The immigrants to
America represented the more active, enterprising and dissatisfied
elements of the English people. Moreover, there was no hereditary
aristocratic class in the colonies and less inequality in the
distribution of wealth. This approach to industrial and social equality
prepared the mind for the ideas of political equality which needed only
the stimulus of a favorable opportunity to ensure their speedy
development.

This opportunity came with the outbreak of the American Revolution which
at the outset was merely an organized and armed protest against what the
colonies regarded as an arbitrary and unconstitutional exercise of the
taxing power. As there was no widespread or general dissatisfaction with
the _form_ of the English government, there is scarcely room for doubt
that if England had shown a more prudent and conciliatory spirit toward
the colonies, the American Revolution would have been averted. No
sooner, however, had the controversy with the mother country reached the
acute revolutionary stage, than the forces which had been silently and
unconsciously working toward democracy, found an opportunity for
political expression. The spirit of resistance to what was regarded as
unconstitutional taxation rapidly assumed the form of avow