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James wilson

James Wilson's Trust in the People,
Not the Government to Govern

James Wilson, a member of Pennsylvania delegation, was a legal theorist, law lecturer and Supreme Court Justice. In 1787, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Wilson helped draft the US Constitution, leading the fight for ratification in the state of Pennsylvania. In 1790, he engineered the drafting of that state's new constitution. His lectures during that year are considered landmarks in the history of American jurisprudence. He was a believer in a completely national government and also one of the first to conclude that England legally had no power over the colonies. In 1774 Wilson published an essay Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, Wilson asserted that because the English King chartered the colonies, the English King was the only bond between England and the colonies. Wilson then argued, based on English Common Law that...

Posted by: Chad Boger

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