ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the specific relevance of the American Revolution for the shaping of modern constitutionalism. It sets out certain aspects of constitutional development in the era of the American Revolution that, while indicating a departure from the older pattern of British constitutional government, are also significant for an understanding of the subsequent evolution of constitutionalism elsewhere in the world. Ranke neglected, perhaps, the fact that the notion of popular sovereignty was absent from constitutional thought in Britain. The traditional threefold division of the mixed constitution gave way, in a brilliant essay by John Adams, to a fourfold division: The people as distinguished from the members of Parliament became a kind of fourth estate: “In the power of legislation, the king, lords, commons and people are to be considered as essential and fundamental parts of the constitution. The smallest minority, of course, is the single individual, particularly, under the conditions of modern mass society, the unorganized individual.
