ABSTRACT
There are only two countries in the world which do not have written constitutions: Great Britain and New Zealand. Written documents are universally regarded as necessary complements to the system of customs and conventions which provide a framework for formal political actions and institutional relationships. The expectation is that the written document will give authority, by making explicit and concrete, that which exists in abstract. Unfortunately, the expectation has not universally borne fruit. Constitutions have tended to be rewritten as often as regimes have been changed. It is not in jest that Peaslee’s Constitutions of Nations is regarded as one of the most revised and revisable works in print anywhere and at any time. In this sense the United States constitution has been unique, especially when the background of post-World War II constitution-making is used for contrast and comparison. For one, it has endured. For another, its framers were not professional ‘constitutional lawyers’ or ‘constitution-writers’; the age of this specialized ‘expert’ had not yet arrived. The idea of an expert sitting down to single-handedly write a constitutional document for a nation very often quite distant in culture and history from his own, was then unimaginable.1 The United States constitution was written by men who had a social and economic stake in the country and consequently real political interests in its operation.
