Englishmen boasted that “England is now the only monarchy in the world that can properly be said to have a constitution.”6 But England’s constitution is unwritten; instead of a single, written document, England’s constitution is the sum of its laws, customs, and precedents. In a debate with the conservative Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine suggested that England’s constitution did not, in fact, exist. “Can, then, Mr. Burke produce the English Constitution?” Paine asked. “If he cannot, we may fairly conclude that though it has been so much talked about, no such thing as a constitution exists, or ever
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