author
Francis Newton Thorpe
1857–1926
A scholar of American constitutional history, he helped preserve the documents that shaped the United States and wrote widely about how the Constitution evolved in practice. His work remains especially notable for bringing together federal and state constitutions in one major reference set.
1 Audiobook
The Essentials of American Constitutional Law
by Francis Newton Thorpe
About the author
Born in Swampscott, Massachusetts, on April 16, 1857, Francis Newton Thorpe became an American legal scholar, historian, and political scientist with a strong interest in how the United States developed its political institutions. He studied at Syracuse University and later pursued graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.
Thorpe is best known for teaching constitutional history at the University of Pennsylvania and for editing the large seven-volume collection The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws. That project helped gather foundational American legal and political documents into a form that scholars, lawyers, and readers could use more easily.
He also wrote books on constitutional and political history, often focusing on the ways American government changed over time beyond the exact wording of the Constitution. He died in 1926, leaving behind work that still matters to readers interested in the ideas, documents, and debates that shaped the nation.