There were constant petty disputes especially about constitutional rights in the West Indies, but there was a general acquiescence in the system as it had grown up. The Imperial government had such engrossing problems to handle in coping with rebellion and maintaining English interests in Europe, that no attempt could be made to systematize colonial government or do more than deal with practical problems as they arose. On several occasions during the first half of the eighteenth century, proposals were made for a systematization of the relations between the continental colonies, but they never obtained any considerable measure of support. The colonies recognized that they had many common interests and valued their association as members of the Empire, but they had not yet such a sense of community of danger from without as to be willing to relinquish any of their autonomy.

Serious danger to the continuance of the opportunist system arose after the victorious close of the Seven Years' War, when schemes of reorganisation were pushed forward from the centre in an attempt to cope with the new burdens of empire that had been assumed. The resulting agitation in the colonies provoked enquiry into the whole constitutional position. But the complex system that had gradually grown up defied explanation or justification according to old theories or precedents, and for ten years incessant constitutional wrangles went on in an attempt to find some formula that would reconcile the necessary exertion of imperial sovereignty for the common good with the claim of the colonists to all the indefeasible rights to self-government that the rest of the King's subjects possessed. Out of the welter of argument two sharply opposed theories ultimately emerged and held the field. The one commended itself to the dominant party in the colonies, the other to the majority in the British Parliament, but neither estimated accurately the practical system under which the colonies had been governed for nearly a century.

In the most extreme colonial view all sovereignty in a colony rested in the King in the elected assembly of that colony, and

nothing could legally be done without the concurrence of a majority of that assembly. It was admitted that as a matter of convenience the colonies had tacitly acquiesced in the regulation of certain affairs, and notably external trade, by the British Parliament, but it was held that this was no derogation of their rights, and that they might properly modify their acquiescence when circumstances changed. The continental colonies in fact maintained the doctrine expounded at an earlier date by Jamaica, that their legislatures held the same co-ordinate position towards Parliament as had belonged to the Scottish Parliament before the Act of Union of 1707.

The advocates of the opposite theory maintained that the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament was supreme throughout the King's realms, and that it was only for practical convenience that it did not often exercise its power to legislate for the internal affairs of the colonies. The colonial legislatures, according to this theory, were subordinate to the Imperial Parliament, as the Irish Parliament undoubtedly was, where the power of concurrent legislation from Westminster had frequently been exerted. Neither side appreciated fully the federalism of the old colonial system, though in both the rival constitutional theories there was some federal principle implicit. The differences separating them were, of course, much deeper seated than is revealed in the doctrines that are alone here considered, but when all the many combined causes led to the outbreak of armed revolt, constitutional grievances were placed in the forefront.

The Thirteen Continental Colonies solemnly abjured their allegiance to the Crown in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, and successfully vindicated their abjuration in six years of war. When by her signature of the Treaty of Versailles in 1783 Great Britain acknowledged that independence, constitutional growth began anew on either side of the Atlantic, but along sharply divergent lines. In the colonies that retained allegiance to the Crown there was no longer a doubt that supreme control

was vested in the King in the Imperial Parliament. Only such powers belonged to the colonial assemblies as were delegated to them; the colonies were really "dependencies" of Great Britain, as they were constantly called until far on into the nineteenth century. When new colonies received rights of representative government, their constitutions were embodied in Imperial Acts, though when at a later date the fuller powers of responsible government were first granted, this was effected by administrative action and sustained by constitutional convention. Such rights when once granted were indefeasible, and the colonies by acquiring them achieved practically full internal control of their affairs. In the course of time groups of such self-governing colonies would proceed to adapt to their circumstances the formal federal devices that were worked out in the United States. In the seceding political communities, however, the constitutional position was at first not at all clear. A critical question awaited solution which may be propounded in two opposite forms. Had each of thirteen separate colonies achieved its independence of its former sovereign and so become a sovereign state that was free to determine the conditions on which it would enter into a confederacy with its neighbours? Or, on the other hand, had the people of the United States abjured their allegiance as individuals and now must enter into a new social compact? The citizens in each of the separate States made the negotiation of such a social compact one of their earliest acts after the Declaration of Independence, and eleven States established new State Constitutions on popular votes within a very short time. But no clear decision was reached as to the nature of the Confederation that all admitted to be a practical necessity. The last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence apparently gave assent to the first form of the crucial constitutional question. "These United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states. All political connexion between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. As free and independent states they have full power to levy

war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do." The same theory was expressed in the Articles of Confederation that were prepared by the Continental Congress immediately after the Declaration and finally agreed upon on 15 November, 1777. "Each State retains its sovereignty freedom, and independence and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare." The Articles were signed by the delegates as representing the sovereign legislature in each State. They were ratified by the State governments on different conditions and at widely differing dates, but they were never based upon a popular vote. The system, therefore, was strictly parallel with the confederate pacts of the Swiss Cantons and the United Provinces. The Confederation was only a Staatenbund, though it was a great advance upon all previous confederations, for much more power was nominally placed in the hands of Congress, and there were more opportunities for real debate than in the semi-diplomatic procedure of the old Swiss Diets or the States-General of the Netherlands.

The pressure of more than ten years of the practical difficulties of government was needed to drive home to the minds of the people of the United States the essential unity of their interests, which far transcended any theoretical doctrines about the nature of the sovereignty of the States and their legislatures. The colonies had grown up and flourished under a system that was really federal though not republican; matters of common interest had been managed by an authority outside all the colonial governments, and, so long as its power was based upon the consent of the governed, the system worked. Between 1765 and 1782 the interest of opposition to the Imperial Government and the desire to achieve military success in the war were common

to all the colonies, and these interests were strong enough to ensure the transfer of external obedience from the Crown to the revolutionary leaders. General Washington had therefore sufficient popular consent behind him to act with vigour for the whole United States. But with the restoration of peace State particularism and the desire to escape common burdens became infinitely more powerful than the cumbrous and inefficient Confederation, which attracted no loyalty and could base itself on no direct popular suffrage. Things went from bad to worse. Public credit, obedience to authority and social order everywhere decayed, and it seemed as though the association of the States was certain to fall asunder.

As in other cases where forward steps towards federation have proved possible, the minds of the great majority of citizens were so disturbed by the pressure of political and economic evils that they were ripe to embark upon drastic change. The immediate troubles were of three kinds; first the external menace of a dreaded renewal of war with Great Britain and the dangers apprehended from Spanish encroachments in the Mississippi Valley; second, the dangers to public order that arose in various States from the outbreak of armed rebellion against the enforcement of taxation and the maintenance of justice; and third, the great economic distress caused by the depreciation of the currency, the lack of credit to restore foreign trade, and the general want of public confidence which hampered all enterprise. It became more and more evident to thinking men that the only hope lay in amending the Articles of Confederation so as to strengthen the central power. Matters at last came to a head in 1787, and advantage was taken of a partial conference at Annapolis on economic questions to arrange for a general Convention of delegates from all the States to meet at Philadelphia. There behind closed doors in the freest of discussion a new compact was hammered out that not only removed the dangers to the continued existence of the United States, but recorded an unprecedented advance in the application of political ideas to the machinery of government.