dans les autres exercises de leur pouvoirs. La
Virginie fut la premiere a produire une declaration des droits
proprement dite."--_Ibid._, p. 47.]

[Footnote 27: _Recueil des loix constitutives des colonies anglaises,
confederees sous la denomination d'Etats-Unis de l'Amerique-Septentrionale.
Dedie a M. le Docteur Franklin. En suisse, chez les libraires associes._]

[Footnote 28: _Cf._ Ch. Borgeaud, _Etablissement et revision des
constitutions en Amerique et en Europe_, Paris, 1893, p. 27.]

[Footnote 29: Especially the exceptional work of James Bryce, _The
American Commonwealth_, Vol I, Part II., The State Governments; Boutmy,
_Etudes de droit constitutionnel, 2me ed._, Paris, 1895, pp. 83 _et
seq._; and Borgeaud, _loc. cit._, pp. 28 _et seq._]

[Footnote 30: _The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters,
and other Organic Laws of the United States._ Compiled by Ben: Perley
Poore. Two vols., Washington, 1877. Only the most important documents of
the colonial period are included.]

[Footnote 31: This is not quite clear even to the best French authority
on American history, Laboulaye, as is evident from his treatment of the
subject, _Histoire des Etats-Unis_, II, p. 11.]

[Footnote 32: _Cf. Arch. Parl._, VIII, pp. 461-489.]

CHAPTER IV.

VIRGINIA'S BILL OF RIGHTS AND THOSE OF THE OTHER NORTH AMERICAN STATES.

The Congress of the colonies, which were already resolved upon
separation from the mother country, while sitting in Philadelphia issued
on May 15, 1776, an appeal to its constituents to give themselves
constitutions. Of the thirteen states that originally made up the Union,
eleven had responded to this appeal before the outbreak of the French
Revolution. Two retained the colonial charters that had been granted
them by the English crown, and invested these documents with the
character of constitutions, namely, Connecticut the charter of 1662, and
Rhode Island that of 1663, so that these charters are the oldest written
constitutions in the modern sense.[33]

Of the other states Virginia was the first to enact a constitution in
the convention which met at Williamsburg from May 6 to June 29, 1776. It
was prefaced with a formal "bill of rights",[34] which had been adopted
by the convention on the twelfth of June. The author of this document
was George Mason, although Madison exercised a decided influence upon
the form that was finally adopted.[35] This declaration of Virginia's
served as a pat