WI: No American Constitution?

ninebucks

Banned
At the time of the authorship of the American Constitution, the practice of having a codified constitution was still rather new and uncommon, (IIRC, the only other nation to have a proper codified constitution at the time was Poland).

So what if the nascient United States decides never codify its constitution? There can still be a convention, and it can still come up with the same basic ideas, but there's no big piece of paper with all 'the rules' written down and solidified, and, crucially, no Congress can be bound by a previous one and no law is less repealable than another.

Would American democracy be so stable if this were the case?
 

flaja

Banned
At the time of the authorship of the American Constitution, the practice of having a codified constitution was still rather new and uncommon, (IIRC, the only other nation to have a proper codified constitution at the time was Poland).[/quote[

Fat lot of good it did Poland.

So what if the nascient
United States decides never codify its constitution? There can still be a convention, and it can still come up with the same basic ideas, but there's no big piece of paper with all 'the rules' written down and solidified, and, crucially, no Congress can be bound by a previous one and no law is less repealable than another.

Would American democracy be so stable if this were the case?


Either a constitution would eventually be adopted, or the U.S. would become several separate countries (that would fight over the Northwest Territory and fishing rights), or Europe would conquer one or more of the separate U.S. states.

Following the Revolution the U.S. was too complicated a country to survive under the Articles of Confederation.
 
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