The Greast Thing you have ever seen.

The Continental Congress officially changed the name of the 13 colonies from the “UnitedColonies” to the “United States of America.” The judgment to act on the insurance on the Brithish government was one that was taken in the most severe manner. In 1643, the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, Connecticut settlements formed the New England Confederation, a “league a friendship” for resistance against the Natice Americans. This confederation was dissolved in 1684 approximately 41 years after its initial creation. The Albany plan in 1754, the Brithsh Board of Trade held meetings of seven of the northern colonies at Albany. The main objective of these meetings was to consult on the problems of trade and certain military preventions. here during this time period Benjamin Franklin offred what came to be known as the Albany Plan of Union.

Almost all of British political history can be summarized as a century- long battle for supremacy between the monarch and the Parliament. The competition was greatly squabled by England's Glorious Revolution of 1688, however it traveled to and through the American colonial period and even into the nineteenth century. By the mid-1700’s the relevance between Britain and the colonies had transpired into federal. This stated that the central government in London was authoritative for colonial protection and meddling in foreing affairs. The Colonies had no representation in Parliament, they calmed such taxes amounted to “ taxation without representation.” They saw little need to comply with the presence of Brithish.

In the spring of 1774, Parliament passed yet another set of laws, this time to reprimand the colonist for the disturbances in Boston and other locations. These original laws, denounced in America as the Intolerable Acts, prompted widespread calls for a congregation of the colonies. Delegates from every colony except Georgia met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. Most respected men were in attendance on this date such as Samual Adams, John Dickinson, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The term “ natural-born subjects “ correlates to the philosophy of an English philosopher named Thomas Hobbes ( 1588-1679). He stated that, according to the laws of nature, humans live free;ly and without jurisdiction, remaining powerless people voluntarily create governments to promote their well being and safety. The delegates also urged the colonies to refuse all transactions with ENgland until the hated taxes and trade regulations were repealed. Eventually, the delegates requested for the creation of local committees to enforce that boycott. This meeting was adjourned on October 26, 1774, with a call for a second congress to be convened the following May. During the fall and winter of 1774-177, the Britsh government continued to refuse to oc,promise, let alone reverse, its colonial policies. The second Continteal congress served as the first government of the United States for five fateful years, from the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776 until the Articles of Confederation went into effect on March 1, 1781. During that time, the Second Contintenal Congress fought a war, raised armies and a navy, borrowed funds, purchased supplies, created a money system, made treaties with foringn powers.

The Declaration of Independence reflects the principles of popular sovereignty and individual rights. Popular sovereignty states that the people are the only source of governmental authority. The opening lines of the Declaration of Independence reflects the political principles of natural rights and the social contract theory: “ All men are… endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights.” With the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the United States was born. The 13 colonies became free and independent States, and the Amercan Revolution became more than a war for independence. No political system has ever been founded on the notion that the people, born free and equal, should rule instead of being ruled.

Most States adopted written constitutions-bodies of fundamental laws setting out the principles, structures, and processes of their governments. Assenbies or conventions were commonly used to draft and then adopt these new documents. The Massachusetts constitution of 1780, authored by John Adams, is the oldest of the present-day State constitutions. memories of the royal governors were fresh, and tate governors were given little real power. Most of the true authority that was given was enacted to the Legislative body. The right to vote was limited to those adult white males who could meet rigid qualifications, including property ownership.

The governmental system set up by the Article was quite simple. A congress was the sole body created. It was unicameral, made up of delegates chosen yearly by the States in whatever way their legislatures might direct. Each state only had one vote in the Congress, regardless of its population or wealth. The Articles established no executive or judicial branch. These functions were to be handled by committees of the Congress. Each year, the Congress would choose one of its members as its president. That person would be its presiding officer, but not the President of the United States.

Problems were made more difficult by the weaknesses of the Articles, soon surfaced. WIth a central government unable to act , the States bickered among themselves. They grew increasingly jealous and suspicious of one another. They often refused to support the new central government, financially and in almost every other way . Several of them made agreements with forign governments without approval of the Congress, even though that was forrhibted by the Articals . Most organized their own military forces. The States taxed one another's goods and ven banned some trade. They painted their own money with little backing. Economic chaos spread throughout the colonies as prices soared and sound credit vanished. Debts, public and private, went unpaid. Violence broke out in a number of places.

These farmers emulated the great thinkers of the 17th and 18th century, the farmers of the Constitution believed that government should ecsite only by the consent of the governed. They also subscribed to such Enlightened ideas as natural rights, the social contract, separation of powers, that these principles formed the basis of their new plan of government. Is it any wonder that the product of such a gathering was describing by the Englisgh Statesmen as “ the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man”?

By 1787, debts from the Revolutionary War were piling up, and many states had fallen behind in paying what they owed. States were imposing tariffs on each other and fighting over borders. Britain was angry because pre-war debts were not being paid, and it was refusing to honor the treaty that had ended the war (the Paris Treaty of 1783). Recognizing that things were not going well, Congress declared, on February 21, 1787, “that there are defects in the present Confederation” and resolved that a convention should be held in Philadelphia “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation . . . and to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union.”
On May 25, the convention went into session at the Philadelphia state house. George Washington was elected the presiding officer. The delegates quickly decided that their discussions should not be made public and that “nothing spoken in the House be printed, or otherwise published or communicated.” Because of the secrecy rule, the public knew little of what was happening inside the Philadelphia state house. And without the careful notes taken by James Madison, who attended every session and carefully transcribed the proceedings, today we would know little about how the Constitution came into being.
Before the convention officially began, Madison and the other delegates from Virginia had drafted a plan—the Virginia Plan—for correcting the Articles of Confederation. Their plan went well beyond amendments and corrections and actually laid out a completely new instrument of government. The plan provided for three separate branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislative branch would have two houses, with the first house to be elected by the people of each state, and the second by the first house from a list created by the state legislatures.

Special conventions would ratify the Constitution rather than state legislatures because the state legislatures would be opposed to giving up power to the newly proposed federal government. Delegates to the ratifying conventions were elected by voters so that a democratic process was in place for the purposes of ratification. The use of special ratifying conventions enable supporters of the Constitution to claim it was approved by "the people" of the nation in its entirety rather than simply by the states. This was an important distinction for those who favored a strong national government with direct powers over the nation as a whole and its citizens. The Confederation’s Congress almost censured the Convention for exceeding its authority. The Congress under the Articles of Confederation had only granted the Constitutional Convention the authority to revise and improve the Articles. Consequently detractors of the Constitution claimed that it was an extra-legal document written without the authority of Congress. Debate took place in conventions, assemblies, newspapers, journals, pamphlets, editorials, and at public meetings throughout the nation. This debate involved political philosophy, Roman and Greek history (compare to today’s focus on sex and scandal).Both sides contributed to the building of the American polity, even though the Antifederalists ended up losing the debate.