4 FEBRUARY 1978, Page 19

Wrong Foot

Sir: Mr Michael Foot, writing in the Spectator of 14 January, finds occasion to remark that the Constitution of the United States 'is suffused with Jeffersonian

cum-Thomas Paineite revolutionary principles.' As a reading of the document will show, this is incorrect; it is primarily concerned with powers, not principles. Perhaps Mr Foot has confused it with the Declaration of Independence.

T. M. Norton Professor of Political Science, San Jose State University, San Jose, California