Vince Brannigan wrote:

Peter McLelland wrote:


It is interesting that the constitution they
adopted was merely an improved version of the UK one with and elected
second house and an elected king.

Actually no. The US federal system was a complex balance of powoer on
both national and local levels that had no UK counterpart. States in
fact were much closer to the UK model than the Federal government.

I believe David McCulloch's book "John Adams" says that a committee was
formed to study various forms of democratic government through history,
in order to attempt to discover strengths and weaknesses of the various
forms. I think John Adams was a member of this committee because of an
earlier work he did on the subject.

The prime mover was of course James Madison, who certainly borrowed
ideas on democratic governance from others, but the form of the US
government, as defined by its Constitution, was pretty well original
in its sum.

Certainly not a rip off ["mere improvement"] of the British system.


SMH