Available for the first time in a modern and readable edition! Originally published in 1885 and then republished years later to include an introductory essay by Belgian economist Emile de Laveleye, Oscar S. Straus' The Origin of Republican Form of Government in the United States of America is a classic work of governmental history, detailing the connections between the founding of the American republic, and the Hebrew Commonwealth. 'Thus we see at this early period of mankind - 1,500 years and more before the Christian era, before Rome had obtained a foothold in history, 500 years before Homer sang, and 1,000 years before Plato had dreamed of his ideal republic, when all Western Europe was an untrodden wilderness - the children of Israel on the banks of the Jordan, who had just emerged from centuries of bondage, not only recognized the guiding principles of civil and religious liberty that "all men are created equal," that God and the law are the only kings, but also established a free commonwealth, a pure democratic-republic under a written constitution, "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." '