History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States

This 2-volume book represents the very first special history of the origin and establishment of the Constitution of the United States in American literature. The Constitution of the United States was the means by which republican liberty was saved from the consequences of impending anarchy; it secured that liberty to posterity, and it left it to depend on their fidelity to the Union. The alternatives, therefore, that presented themselves to the generation by whom the Constitution was established, were either to devise a system of republican government that would answer the great purposes of a lasting union, or to resort to something in the nature of monarchy. With the first alternative, the preservation of the States, and of all the needful institutions which marked their separate existence, though a difficult, was yet a possible result. To this preservation of the separate States America owes that power of minute local administration, which is so prominent and important feature of the American liberty. Finally, the Constitution of the United States made the people of these several provinces one nation, and gave them a standing among the nations of the world.

George Ticknor Curtis (1812-1894) was an American historian, lawyer and writer. He wrote biographies of Daniel Webster (1870) and James Buchanan (1883) as well as a number of legal treatises, including his oft-cited A Treatise on the Law of Patents for Useful Inventions in the United States of America. Another notable work is History of the Origin, Formation and Adoption of the Constitution. While not a Mormon himself, Curtis was also a defender of Mormonism, writing pro-Mormon articles for New York newspapers and magazines, most notably the New York Evening Post and The Forum.