UNIVERSITY OF LONDON HISTORICAL SERIES No. I. THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES. Selected and arranged, with an Introduction by A. F. POLLARD, M.A., Litt.D., F.B.A., Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford; Professor of English History in the University. Three Volumes. Crown 8vo. IOS. 6d. net each. Volume I. NARRATIVE EXTRACT. Volume II. CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS, Volume III. FOREIGN RELATIONS, THE LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., London, New York, Toronto, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. CONSTITUTIONS A COLLECTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS EDITED, WITH A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR PERCIVAL NEWTON M.A., D.LIT., B.Sc., F.S.A. Harding 11.4.54 90033 PREFACE. THIS collection of documents relating to Federal and Legislative Unions has been prepared, in the first place, for the use of students in the Honours School of History in the University of London who are working on the special subject, "The Unification of South Africa." Certain constitutions are among the most familiar of political documents, and there are numberless commentaries upon them; but comprehensive collections of documents of this sort are lacking, and the assembling together in one volume of most of the historically important federal constitutions of modern times may, perhaps, be of general use to students of political institutions. In certain cases the device of legislative union has been preferred to federation, and some constitutional instruments embodying this device have been included for purposes of comparison. Some federal constitutions have had no long-continued existence, but are historically important as expressing particular points of view, or as directed to cope with particular dangers. Such are the New England Confederation of 1643, the Constitution of the Confederate States of America of 1861, and the abortive New Zealand Provincial Constitution of 1852. The Constitution of the Republic of the United States of Brazil has been included as an example of the important but comparatively little known constitutions of Latin America. The latest example of constitution-making, the constitution of the |