[Footnote 1: Wilson, _The State_, Section 1232.]



CHAPTER IV.

Colonial Governments; Their Relation to Each Other, and to England.


To understand clearly the early history of our country; to appreciate
the reasons for the grievances of the colonists against their mother
country; and to gain an intelligent idea of the events of that most
critical period of our history, when the colonies, then free, were in
doubt as to the nature of the federal government they should adopt;
properly to understand all these facts, it is of essential importance
that we should gain a correct knowledge of the condition of the colonies
during those times, their relations to one another, their governmental
connection with and attitude towards England.

The thirteen American colonies, which in 1775 dared defy the might of
Great Britain, and which in a stubborn struggle were able to win their
independence, were settled at various times, and by colonists actuated
by widely different motives. At the time of the beginning of their
resistance to the oppressive acts of their mother country, they were, in
their governments, entirely separate from and independent of each other.
"Though the colonies had a common origin, and owed a common allegiance
to England, and the inhabitants of each were British subjects, they had
no direct political connection with each other. Each in a limited sense,
was sovereign within its own territory.... The assembly of one province
could not make laws for another.... As colonists they were also excluded