Americans frequently assume that their political institutions and principles are exclusive and unheralded; yet, most of them might be traced back to the heritage of England at the time the colonies were first made, and over the course of the colonial period as English political institutions evolved. Recognize the ways that English politics and political traditions affected the political and legal institutions of colonial America.
What features of the English political heritage did the colonists claim for them? How did English institutions and principles develop in the colonies? How and why had English and American conceptions of their shared political heritage diverged so sharply by the middle of the 1700s? What constitutional disagreements brought regarding the American Revolution?