View of the Constitution of the United States. St. George Tucker

or transient causes. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

      I shall now proceed to offer to the student a view of the constitution of the commonwealth of Virginia;³⁴ after which I shall go on to consider that of the United States, from which a more correct view will be obtained of the nature of the American governments, in general, than could be given in a general essay upon the nature of the several kinds of government.

      WORKS USED BY TUCKER

      James Burgh, Political Disquisitions, or an Enquiry into Public Errors Defects and Abuses.

      Jean Louis De Lolme, The Constitution of England, in Which It Is Compared Both with the Republican Form of Government, and the Other Monarchies in Europe.

      Sir Matthew Hale, Original Institution, Power, and Jurisdictions of Parliaments.

      Francis Hutchinson, An Inquiry into the Origination of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue: Concerning Moral Good and Evil.

      John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government.

      Sir James Mackintosh, Vindiciae Gallicae: Defence of the French Revolution and Its English Admirers.

      Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws.

      John Moore, A View of Society and Manners in Italy.

      Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man.

      Samuel, Baron von Pufendorf, On the Law of Nature and of Nations.

      William Robertson, History of Greece.

      Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract.

      Zephaniah Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut.

      Emerich de Vattel, Law of Nations.

      Samuel Williams, The Natural and Civil History of Vermont.