ABSTRACT
During the long-continued political struggles in England in the seventeenth century, controversies which began before the Civil War and lasted well beyond the Revolution of 1688, thousands of pamphlets dealing with politics were written and published. By far the most illuminating expressions of the contemporary interpretation of natural law are to be found in the group of state constitutions adopted between 1776 and 1780. There are, however, several letters and pamphlets having to do with the preparation of these constitutions which deserve prior comment. During the year 1775 a number of leaders in the movement of resistance began to discuss among themselves the problem of new governments. The spread of open hostilities from section to section, the departure of the royal governors, and the closing of the courts in many localities, made necessary, sooner or later, the establishment of newly constituted political systems.
