The Legislature of the Province of Virginia: Its Internal DevelopmentMiller, Elmer I. The Legislature of the Province of Virginia. Its Internal Development. New York: The Columbia University Press, 1907. 182 pp. Reprint available March, 2005 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. 1-58477-504-1. Cloth. $70. * Miller offers a fascinating case that "the Virginia colony was a good illustration of the vigorous assertion of the Anglo-Saxon spirit of self-rule and adaptation to environment. The long conflict between government by appointees of a distant power, and government by representatives chosen by the people themselves, ending as it did in victory for the people, shows that among English people in Virginia at least the principle of representative government was stronger than absolutism." [175]. Tracing the evolution of the colony from its first colonial charters to the outset of the Revolution, this work is notable both for its breadth of sources and its quaint, if altogether too common, nod to the Social Darwinist influences then so evident in the academy. Originally published in the series Studies in History, Economics and Public Law published by the Political Science faculty of Columbia University. |
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