The colonial period : Revolution for independence over the 17th and 18th centuries.

Recall of history

The colonial period :  

          Revolution for independence over the 17th and 18th centuries.

Indeed, there were lots of immigrants for different reasons. Some of them were starving, they needed money, they were persecuted in their country so there was also political reasons → they settled in the USA and this first period of colonization had european origins (période de colonisation d’origine Européenne).    

          Immigrants settled in colony, and at the beginning of the movement there were 13 colonies. Each colony was headed by a governor so there were also 13 governors.

At the beginning of the colonial period, english didn't really payed attention to these US colonies because they were focused on the trade in Jamaica. Indeed, US colonies were extracting and exporting goods to the king of England.    

          Each colony had separate institutions so the law that was applied in each colony was different according to the colony because they were not founded at the same time. From 1609 to 1732, which is a pretty big lapse of time, the law brought by colonies from England to America changed, it wasn't the same (changement de lord).    

          The British law was imported with the immigrants and this law evolved in fonction of the needs of the colony : each colony had it's own colonial legislature which was a body of laws appropriate to each colony.

There were two types of litigation : civil litigation and criminal / penal cases.    

          The civil litigation became patterned (pris pour modèle) on the procedure used in english courts but simplified versions and in criminal cases, the colonies kept a system called the adversarial system (=le système accusatoire) from England which is a basic principle of english law which was maintained in the USA.  

          The adversarial system used in common law countries, which are the countries that apply the english way of apprehending the law, was mainly based on the rule of precedent (la règle du précédent): is the fact to deduce from previous cases what rule to apply in a new similar case.  

          This adversarial system used in common law countries is the alternative to an other system which is named the inquisitorial system (=le système inquisitoire) used in civil law countries (on the contrary of common low countries) like France.    

          The inquisitorial system is described as a system that aims to get the truth through an extensive instigation, an examination of all the evidences by the judge. On the opposite, the adversarial system aims to get the truth trough a competition between the two parties involved with on one side the prosecution (=le ministère public) and on the other side the defense.

 The US revolution :  

          Revolution appeared because of extreme tensions between the colonies and the king of England due to the fact  (en raison du fait) that the colonists had to pay taxes to the king when they export goods to England (« import taxes »). So these taxes were unfair and lead to a situation of conflict of interest between colonists and the king. Finally, this conflict of interest lead to the independence of the colonies. But usually, independence is accompanied by a war and this revolution lead to the war for independence. During the period (1776-1781) with these movements towards (vers) the independence, the two leaders Adams and Jefferson (who were lawyers) had the idea of Republic at a early stage due to the influence of Montesquieu in L'esprit des lois. Indeed, Montesquieu developed this idea of Republic and the principle of balance of powers also called in USA « checks and balances » (=pouvoirs et contrepouvoirs). Finally, the war was won by the colonists because the king capitulated, and this is the point of separation between USA and Europe.    

          There were different attempts (tentatives) but after the war they needed to organise the country so the 1st attempt to do this was the articles of confederation in 1781. But were a real flop for many reasons: problem of the absence of an executive branch of power → the colonists had overlooked (négligé) the executive (fear to this branch of power because of the strong executive in England by the king), then, the Congress, the legislative branch, had  limited power to make laws. So in the end they were dropped (abandonné) , they could not implement (=mettre en œuvre) their articles.    

          So the delegates of each states, « the founding fathers », decided to meet in Philadelphia in 1787 : the Constitutional convention. The goal was to fix the articles and find solutions. So the delegates considerate different modes of government and finally agree upon the « Great compromise »: the new constitution. So, for instance, there was a need for a compromise between big and small states because the smaller states didn't want to be forgotten, they wanted to have their say in this unification as much as the big states. On the contrary, the big states favored a system of government that assigned a representation based on the population which lead to tensions so they had to find compromise and it also lead to tensions between states who had slaves and states without slaves. So in order to find a common round, the legislative power was to be based upon two chambers : the house of representatives → the number of representatives, « congress men », would be based upon the population of the state ; in the second chamber → the Senate was to be based on an equal representation, regardless of the population. So this « Great compromise » was decided and it favored the small states.  

          During this meeting in Philadelphia, there was an other debate between those who were in favor of a strong executive and the opponents of a centralized branch of power. They finally decided upon a single executive: the President. Who was elected indirectly by the electoral college composed of delegates for each state (the number of delegates correspond to the total of senators (2 per state) and representatives). So it was an other arrangement towards the small states. Again, this constitution establish a compromise between those who feared to lose their authority and the nationalists who believed that a strong federal/national government was needed. So the US constitution was ratified between 1787 and 1790 by the different states.

...