Based on McLaughlin's Anson G. Phelps Lectures on Early American History delivered at New York University in 1932, this important study locates the principles of the United States Constitution in the political philosophy of colonial New England, Puritan practices and the ideals of English personal rights and limited government common to all of the colonies.

Andrew C. McLaughlin [1861-1947] received bachelor degree and law degrees from the University of Michigan. He taught Latin and history at Michigan until 1906, when he joined the history faculty at the University of Chicago. McLaughlin served as department chair of history from 1906 to 1927, as professor until 1929 and as a professor emeritus from 1929 to 1936. Along with The Foundations of American Constitutionalism, his list of major works includes The Courts, The Constitution and Parties (1912), Steps in the Development of American Democracy (1920) and A Constitutional History of the United States (1935), which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1936.

176 pp.