Part II Political Science, Ch.15 Empire
Bartholomew H. Sparrow
From: The Oxford Handbook of the U.S. Constitution
Edited By: Mark Tushnet, Sanford Levinson, Mark A. Graber
The word “empire” appears neither in the U.S. Constitution and its amendments, nor in Max Farrand’s compilation of the notes of the constitutional convention.1 It is equally absent from the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Land Ordinance of 1785, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Nor does Alexis de Tocqueville write of an American empire in his wide-ranging analysis of the physical characteristics, institutions, and mores of the young United States.2 The concept of “empire” is nonetheless implicit in the Constitution as it was...
