The Constitution of the United States | Page 4

short trip to the Continent, and while sojourning in Geneva, made a
visit to the offices of the League. All I there saw greatly interested me,
and I could have nothing but a feeling of admiration for the effective
and useful administrative work which the League is doing.
The men who framed the Covenant of the League tried to do, under
more difficult, but not dissimilar, conditions, what the framers of the
American Constitution did in 1787. In both cases the aim was high, the

great purpose meritorious. Those Americans who, for the reasons stated,
are not in sympathy with the structural form and political objectives of
the League, are not lacking in sympathy for its admirable
administrative work in co-ordinating the activities of civilized nations
for the common good. In any study of a World Constitution, the
example of those who framed the American Constitution can be studied
with profit.
JAMES M. BECK.
Chamonix,
July 14, 1922.

Contents
PREFACE BY THE EARL OF BALFOUR
INTRODUCTION BY SIR JOHN SIMON
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION
FIRST LECTURE: THE GENESIS OF THE CONSTITUTION
SECOND LECTURE: THE FORMULATION OF THE
CONSTITUTION
THIRD LECTURE: THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE
CONSTITUTION
THE REVOLT AGAINST AUTHORITY

I. The Genesis of the Constitution of the United States
I trust I need not offer this audience, gathered in the noble hall of this
historic Inn--of "old Purpulei, Britain's ornament"--any apology for

challenging its attention in this and two succeeding addresses to the
genesis, formulation, and the fundamental political philosophy of the
Constitution of the United States. The occasion gives me peculiar
satisfaction, not only in the opportunity to thank my fellow Benchers of
the Inn for their graciousness in granting the use of this noble Hall for
this purpose, but also because the delivery of these addresses now
enables me to be, for the moment, in fact as in honorary title a Bencher,
or Reader, of this time-honoured society.
If I needed any justification for addresses, which I was graciously
invited to deliver under the auspices of the University of London, an
honour which I also gratefully acknowledge, it would lie in the fact that
we are to consider one of the supremely great achievements of the
English-speaking race. It is in that aspect that I shall treat my theme;
for, as a philosophical or juristic discussion of the American
Constitution, my addresses will be neither as "deep as a well, nor as
wide as a church door."
My auditors will bear in mind that I must limit each address to the
duration of an hour, and that I cannot go deeply or exhaustively into a
subject that has challenged the admiring comment and profound
consideration of the intellectual world for nearly a century and a half.
If England and America are to act together in the coming time--and the
destinies of the world are, to a very large extent, in their keeping, then
they must know each other better, and, to this end, they must take a
greater interest in each other's history and political institutions. My
principal purpose in these lectures is to deepen the interest of this great
nation in one of the very greatest and far-reaching achievements of our
common race.
Americans have never lacked interest in English history; for however
broad the stream of our national life, how could we ignore its chief
source?
But is there in England an equal interest in the history of America,
whose origin and development constitute one of the most dramatic and
significant dramas ever played upon the stage of this "wide and

universal theatre of man"? It is true that Thackeray, in his Virginians,
gave us in fiction the finest picture of our colonial life, and the late and
deeply lamented Lord Bryce wrote one of the best commentaries upon
our institutions in The American Commonwealth. In more recent years
two of the most moving portraits of our Hamilton and Lincoln are due
to your Mr. Oliver and Lord Charnwood. We gratefully recognize this;
and yet, how many educated Englishmen have studied that little known
chapter of our history, which gave to the progress of mankind a
contribution to political science which your Gladstone praised as the
greatest "ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of
man"? If "peace hath her victories no less renown'd than war," this
achievement may well justify your study and awaken your admiration;
for, as I have already said and cannot too strongly emphasize, it was the
work of the English-speaking race, of men who, shortly before they
entered upon this great work of constructive statecraft, were citizens of
your Empire. The conditions of colonial development had profoundly
stimulated in these English pioneers the sense and genius for
constitutionalism.
In his speech on Conciliation with America of March 22,