How a Constitution United America | Julie Silverbrook | BRI’s Constitutional Conversations
Julie Silverbrook, Executive Director of ConSource, on how state constitutions led to way to the revolution.
0:00 so we’ve talked about all these different ways that the different states were developing their constitutions what was it about the act of creating a constitution that brought both the people of the states together but then the states together as a unified whole yeah so I think what’s really important to remember is that these colonies were set up by British charters and the
0:21 British Charter is defined to the way that they were governed so during the revolution in some cases people just refat the colonists just refashion their charters to operate as government but for other colonies that was not sufficient and so what they really needed to do was have a clean break and if you already were established and governing under a written document I
0:42 think it is just logical that if you’re going to break from that and do something different you’re also going to write that down so I think that’s a really important act I and I it is different than the British model which is an unwritten Constitution but really when States start writing their own state constitutions and some of this predates the Declaration of
1:02 Independence and some and that was passed on July 4th 1776 I that to me is like a real moment where the revolution is happening that you can’t really go back once you’ve written a new governing document and then you’ve agreed to it that’s a that’s a huge watershed moment
1:22 and this is people choosing to be a part of this body so you know a constitution what’s in that it’s constitute it constitutes the body politic writing allows for you to disseminate it so that other people in the colonies now understand this new formation a
1:43 government of government it’s a compact that we’re agreeing to and you actually see the invention of a constitutional convention during this period I we’re between New Hampshire and Massachusetts basically they come up with these special constitutional conventions there specially elected bodies just for
2:05 ratifying the Constitution and that’s something that is obviously used during the federal constitutional model