One of the more influential books read by the Founders was /*The English Constitution*/, by a Frenchman, John Louis De Lolme, published in1771, which we have put online at http://www.constitution.org/lolme/lolme.pdf . He provided an outsider's perspective on the fundamentals of English government, often examining things that English writers, because they were so close to their subject, overlooked or so took for granted that they didn't think it worthwhile to discuss. In general, Lolme admired the English "constitution", a term that then meant only a design of government, not necessarily a written document. His treatise helped American colonists to contrast the institutions they had been evolving in North America with those of the mother country, and helped them formalize the differences in writing the Constitution for the United States.
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