American Exceptionalism

From the point of view of their source or origin, then, we may classify constitutions as follows:

• Sovereigns granted charters to their subjects.
• Constitutions framed by ordinary legislative assemblies
• Constitutions framed by constituent assemblies.

 Ours was NOT an Octroyed Constitution.

As an ‘octroyed constitution’ is evidently enacted top-down by a monarch, there is some confusion to be found in legal literature regarding the concept of an ‘imposed constitution’ and the ‘technique of constitutional octroi’. In their contribution to the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, devoted to ‘Process’ and within their developments about ‘constitution-making as an international effort’, Claude Klein and András Sajó consider for instance that ‘the involvement (of the occupying power) may reach the level of imposition (constitutional octroy)’ and refer in a footnote to ‘various forms of colonization’. 12

Check the date...  ours is older than dirt.