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"Americans did not rebel from Great Britain because they wanted a different government. They rebelled because they believed that Parliament was violating constitutional precepts. Colonial Whigs did not fight for American rights. They fought for English rights."--from the Preface

John Phillip Reid goes on to argue that it was generally the application, not the definition, of these rights that was disputed. The sole--and critical--exception concerned the right of representation. American perceptions of the responsibility of representatives to their constituents, the necessity of equal representation, and the constitutional function of consent had diverged gradually, but significantly, from British tradition. Drawing on his mastery of eighteenth-century legal thought, Reid explores the origins and shifting meanings of representation, consent, arbitrary rule, and constitution. He demonstrates that the controversy which led to the American Revolution had more to do with jurisprudential and constitutional principles than with democracy and equality. This book will interest legal historians, Constitutional scholars, and political theorists.

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CHOICE Review

A fine addition to Reid's earlier The Concept of Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution (CH, Jul'88). The thesis is that the Colonial whigs based their defense of representation on patently English foundations. The author sketches a reasoned treatment of the inconsistencies inherent in that constitutional base, particularly with respect to connections between concepts of shared interests and burdens on the one hand and theories of virtual representation on the other. Although Reid primarily engages in constitutional and jurisprudential historical analysis, the dominance of certain social/economic themes in English thought nonetheless emerge. The major distinction between 18th-century British notions of representing property and the American Colonial view of representing individuals is well articulated. Reid places primary emphasis upon British exponents of constitutional and related thought, an advantage over other treatments, which view the issue largely from American theoretical perspectives. A very well-written, well-reasoned, and readable work of scholarship. It provides a fine example of cogent legal-historical research and analysis. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and public library patrons. -K. F. Moors, Duquesne University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

John Phillip Reid is professor of law at New York University. He is the author of twelve books on political and legal thought, including The Concept of Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution , also published by The University of Chicago Press.