Interpretation Of The Formation Of The Constitution Of The United States, From The Perspective Of Law Culture

The US Constitution has bearing on the specified historical conditions and cultural backgrounds. The two methods of analysis of positivism and value has been applied in this thesis that explain my positions as follows: Firstly, in the point of view of legal culture, the US constitution is the inevitable outcome of the historical evolution of Greek, Roman and British legal culture in the British colonies in North America. Secondly, the birth of the US constitution depends on the two elements: in the first place, the west legal culture is the resources of the US constitution; in the second place, it is the outcome of mutual movements of social Constitutionalism and state Constitutionalism. Thirdly, the enactment of the US constitution may be looked upon as the specimen of the practice of constitutionalism in North America, which makes the constitution possess significance of both theory and practice. Fourthly, it should be favorably acknowledged that the US constitution has inherited many important value concepts of human civilization. However, the influence of some partiality and limitations of West culture has made it unable to fully exploit the potential and integration of the constitutional factors of modernity which are the cornerstone of constructing the political civilization of the modern national state and the international justice and harmony. Fifthly, the thesis gives explanations to the two value concepts existed respectively in the East culture or in the West culture, i.e., justice and harmony, which are also the fundamental value concepts of both constitutionalism and constitution.The thesis consists of five parts, and it goes as follows: Part one is the prelude, which mainly includes the significance of the selected topic, the present research situation and research methods the thesis adopts. Part two probes into the origin of the legal culture of the US constitution, which includes the thought of constitution and the system of constitution. Part three tries to expound the practice of the US morden constitutionalism from the enlightenment of the thought of constitutionalism, local autonomy, formation of civil society, experiment of the Confederation and the practice of enactment of the constitution which embodies the public wisdom, and gives definitions of the state movement of constitutionalism, the social movement of constitutionalism, the custom of constitutionalism. Part four sums up the characteristics of the system of the US constitution. This part analyzes the correlation between constitutionalism and constitution, expounds three principles the US constitution establishes,and explains the mechanism of correcting mistakes and renewal of the US constitution. Part five makes reflection to the US morden constitutionalism and constitution, and points out the relationship among legal culture, constitutionalism and constitution, and expounds and proves the morden elements of constitution and the two themes of morden constitutional culture.