Under these patents the settlement of Virginia and New England was accomplished. Subsequent charters brought about the settlement of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Wars followed by treaties resulted in the acquisition by England of the remaining territory now comprised in the thirteen original states, together with the western country east of the Mississippi.

By the treaty which ended the War of the Revolution the boundaries of the United States were agreed upon, and all the powers of government and right to soil passed to their proper jurisdictions under the United States.

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT

BRITISH subjects outnumbered all other immigrants to the colonies under British dominion. They brought with them the traditions of British rights, liberties, and immunities, British laws and customs, and the English language.

Centuries of struggle had won for Englishmen many guaranties of rights, liberties, and immunities. English common law was fairly established when the colonies were begun. Some rights and immunities which had been enjoyed from time immemorial were reduced to writing in Magna Carta (see p. 511), which was wrung from King John by the barons of England at Runnymede in 1215. Other individual rights were formally guaranteed in writing, notably the Bill of Rights (see p. 526) under William and Mary. The system of constitutional government safeguarded by a parliament elected by the people was well established when the first colonial charter was granted. The liberties and rights of Britons were concessions from kings who ruled as by divine right and were originally seized of all authority. This theory underlies the monarchical system to this day.

The colonies, beginning with Virginia and New England, were settled under charters granted by the king of England. These grants made large reservations of royal privilege and relatively small concessions to the emigrants. Broadly speaking, the colonists did not at first enjoy civil and political liberties as they were known in England. Protests against denial of privileges enjoyed by British freemen were made in Virginia as early as 1612. Gradually the colonies were given larger powers of government, always provided that colonial laws should be in conformity to the laws of England and that allegiance to the crown should be acknowledged.

The colonial period of the people who became Americans was

COLONIAL CONDITIONS

7 longer than the period extending from the establishment of the Constitution to the year 1937. The colonists had abundant experience during 169 years in various forms of government under British authority. In some respects eventually there was substantial home rule and enjoyment of individual liberties equal to those enjoyed in England; but in matters of trade the British government persisted in sacrificing the rights of the colonies to the advantage of Britain. This situation developed endless friction, complaint, and evasion of the British regulations.

CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION

FROM the early days of the colonies, the people claimed for themselves and their posterity exemption from all taxation that was not imposed by their own representatives. Since it was impossible for them to be represented in the British Parliament, they denied the right of that body to tax them. Attempts by Parliament to impose taxes as a means of regulating commerce were opposed, with increasing tension on both sides, but the climax was not reached until after the French and Indian War of 1754-63. During this war the colonists were drawn nearer the British sovereign as their legitimate protector, but bitter experiences and common impositions also served to draw them closer toward a colonial union, which was, however, mainly for more effective protest.

This war, which was part of the Seven Years' War in Europe, left Great Britain with many new colonial possessions all over the world, with a great burden of debt, and with a driving incentive for developing the imperial system. It was felt in Britain that the American colonies should help pay the cost of removing the French menace and for continued British protection. The imperialistic spirit awakened a desire for more strict control over all British possessions. This control was to be exercised through Parliament. A specific declaration to this effect was made in 1766, in the statute of 6 Geo. 3, ch. 12, in which Parliament declared that "the colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon, the Imperial Crown and Parliament of Great Britain," and that the king, with the advice and consent of Parliament, "had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever."

Violent opposition to this assertion of the power to tax the col

onies arose both in England and America. Lord Chatham in December 1765 declared that while British authority over the colonies was supreme in matters of government and legislation, "taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power; taxes are the voluntary grant of the people alone."

Efforts were made on both sides to avoid a collision. Parliament modified its declaration by providing that no duty or tax would be imposed on the colonies except for the regulation of commerce; and that the net revenue from the duty or tax would be devoted to the use of the colony in which it was levied. Many plans were suggested for reorganization of the governments in the colonies, with a view to reconciling the differences that disturbed good relations with Great Britain.

As early as 1754 Benjamin Franklin's plan of union was adopted by the Albany Congress of the colonies; but, foreshadowing the irrepressible conflict, the colonies rejected the plan because it gave too much control to the British government, and that government rejected it because it gave too much liberty to the colonies.

Aside from the resistance to "taxation without representation,' numerous grievances were nursed by the Americans against Great Britain grievances arising from differences that had grown up in the economic and social life of the colonies, for which no allowance was made by the British government. The colonies were moving toward separation from Britain. The more the colonists studied the subject, the more doubt they entertained as to the right of Parliament to assert supreme authority over them.

The first united action of protest in the preliminaries of the War for Independence was the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, held at New York and attended by delegates from nine of the thirteen colonies, mostly appointed by the assemblies. Voting by colonies, each having one vote, it framed petitions to the king and to Parliament and adopted an important Declaration of Rights, the first platform of American principles. The next step was a common policy of boycotting English goods, known as nonimportation agreements, followed by the appointment of intercolonial committees of correspondence to keep the leaders of the different regions in mutual touch and consultation. When affairs with the home government reached a crisis with the destruction of imported tea and the acts to coerce Massachusetts into obedience to British measures, the colonies took the step which led directly to the present Union. This was the meeting of the First Continental Congress on September 5, 1774, in Carpenters' Hall at Philadelphia.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

9

THIS important body was attended by delegates from all the colonies save Georgia, the representation of the people being indirect. It continued to be so throughout the Continental Congress and Articles of Confederation, except that Connecticut and Rhode Island delegates were popularly elected. Another highly important fact was that this meeting, following the practice of the Stamp Act Congress, adopted the rule of one vote for each colony without respect to size, population, or wealth. This decision for equality was undoubtedly inevitable. It had great effect upon the subsequent legislative events down to 1789, for the system was continued under the Second Continental Congress and by the Articles of Confederation. It was a rule that often impeded congressional action and hindered the development of a competent general government; the efforts to continue it almost disrupted the Convention of 1787 that drafted the Constitution.

While there were some conservative members in the First Continental Congress, the radicals were in control; the roll of the Congress included the prominent men of all the colonies. The petition and declarations were similar to those of the Stamp Act Congress. More important was the regulation of the enforcement of the nonimportation and noncomsumption agreement-the boycott. The carrying out of this remained with the people of the colonies, the coercive power was there; but the direction was at least given by a united action. Before the Congress adjourned on October 26, 1774, it provided for another gathering if the crisis continued.

The Second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, and endured until finally superseded in 1789 by the government organized under the new Constitution. It passed without break from the extra-legal conditions of its earlier existence to those of a constitutional body under the Articles of Confederation after March 1, 1781. It and its agents were during the years 1775-88 the only organ of union; in it were all the national powers not then withheld by the states-legislative, executive, and judicial—that existed to keep the states together as one nation, and to it belonged all the responsibility. Unfortunately, neither before nor after the Articles of Confederation went into operation did it possess the power to enforce its measures. The only instrument for this was the states; as Washington said, Congress could "merely recommend and leave it to the States afterwards to do as they please, which . . . is in many cases to do nothing at all." This was an almost fatal weakness but it was not an unnatural condition. Originally the colonies probably had no further idea of union than such common action as would

force respect for the rights of the several colonies under British suzerainty. Circumstances alter cases, and experience teaches.

Independence was not an element of the antebellum struggle. Circumstances literally forced it upon the attention of the leaders and then it was reluctantly incorporated into their policy. They were proud of being Englishmen so long as they were permitted to be such with full recognition of what they claimed as their rights. The Declaration was made inevitable by armed conflict. Independence of thirteen little nations engaged in a common war would have been an absurdity; but localism was still too powerful to permit a union stronger than the minimum necessary to give it status in the family of nations, especially after the need of united military effort had ceased. It was only when it was realized that a nation without a backbone could not remain a nation even in name, that events compelled the "more perfect Union"; and the ratification struggle showed how difficult it was even then to get public opinion to support measures deemed necessary for this by the farsighted men who drafted the Constitution. The evolution did not end there, or the strife between localism, or state rights, and national power.

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

WHEN the Second Continental Congress met, hostilities had begun and the Minute Men of New England were besieging the British forces in Boston. The delegates were much the same as in the earlier Congress, and they realized the need of assuming the war power necessary to carry on the conflict. It was an entirely extra-legal action, acquiesced in because the control of the colonies was in the hands of those who sympathized with the measures, even though they often became reluctant to assume the burden essential to carrying them out.

Independence, national standing, confederation, and state rights were conjoined speedily. The resolution of the Virginia convention, May 15, 1776, instructing the colony's delegates to propose independence, also gave assent to "whatever measures may be thought proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliances, and a Confederation of the Colonies, .. Provided, That the power of forming Government for, and the regulation of the internal concerns of each Colony, be left to the respective Colonial Legislatures." Also the resolves which Richard Henry Lee introduced under the above directions, and which were adopted by Congress on July 2, 1776, included: "That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted

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