certain forms as the best security for their liberties. The Provincial and Proprietary systems, as far as they depended for sanction upon the King, fell of themselves when the King declared the Colonies out of his protection, and they accepted the position; but this was merely a falling of the scaffolding, the foundations of the great edifice, which a century and a half had been consolidating, remained unshaken. The power returned to whence it came, the people; and the people were prepared to build up a stronger and more harmonious edifice upon the original foundations. In the Charter governments the change was even less; for the charters were virtually written constitutions, and so much in harmony with public opinion that it was only some twenty years ago that Rhode Island dropped from her statute-book the charter of Charles the Second.

There was, indeed, a critical moment in the passage from the old forms to the new. "O Mr. Adams!" said one of the eager statesman's former clients, a notorious horse-jockey, "what great things have you and your colleagues done for us! We can never be grateful enough to you. There are no courts of justice now in this Province, and I hope there never will be another." John Adams looked grave. It was an interpretation of his iconoclastic labors which had not occurred to him. Other men looked grave, and felt anxious too. They saw that the hour of pulling down was past,

and that, if they would build up again, they must begin quickly.

Massachusetts was the first to ask Congress what she should put in the place of the charter which the King and his ministers had tried to force upon her. It was an inconvenient question, for Congress was still talking about loyalty and filial love; and to advise Massachusetts to set up a government of her own would be neither loyal nor filial. But it was a question that must be met. To hesitate would be like casting doubts on its own authority. To refuse an answer would be exposing an important Colony to the perils of anarchy, when circumstances imperiously required the concentrated energy of organized government. She was advised, therefore, to go back as nearly as possible to her old charter.

In October of the same year (1775), New Hampshire came to Congress with the same question. Meanwhile, events had been quickening their motion; the whole fleet, dullest and swiftest alike, were within signal distance, moving fairly cn with a wind that promised to blow, like that propitious wind which Apollo sent the Greeks, "full in the middle of their sails." And accordingly Congress spoke out more directly than ever before, advising them, by its resolve of the 3d of November, "to call a full and free representation of the people, and that the representatives, if they think it necessary, establish such a form of government

as, in their judgment, will best produce the happiness of the people, and most effectually secure peace and good order in the Province during the continuance of the present dispute between Great Britain and the Colonies."

In January the resolve was acted upon, and a new constitution hastily formed. South Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey also gave themselves, through their conventions, new constitutions before independence was declared; all of them bearing evident marks of haste. North Carolina was busy early in 1776 with the same questions. All felt alike the necessity of a regular, effective, and legitimate government.

In some of these constitutions grave defects soon became apparent. Massachusetts tired early of her resuscitated charter, and, calling a convention, formed a new constitution in 1780. South

Carolina revised hers in 1778.

New York, chiefly Jay, was far more

through the counsels of John successful in her first effort. Maryland, also, went carefully and deliberately to the work. And thus, with more or less haste, with more or less skill, but all equally earnest and equally bent upon establishing all their rights upon a solid foundation, the thirteen dependent Provinces prepared themselves to enter upon a new career of progress and development as independent States.

And now, in bringing these constitutions together for a collective view, the first circumstance

which strikes us is their explicit recognition of the sovereignty of the people. As the Declaration of Independence derived all its authority from the consent of the people, expressed by their acceptance of the new position in which it placed them, so the new constitutions derived all their authority from the consent of the people as expressed by a direct vote of ratification. They accepted them, they chose the representatives who framed them, they named the officers who carried them into execution. In all cases the decision lay with them. The arguments were addressed to their understandings; the appeal was made to their feelings. Familiarity with these things has blunted our sense of their magnitude. History in all her annals has no brighter page, no record so full of promise for every lover of humanity, as that which tells us how, without discord or anarchy, these thirteen Provinces passed through a revolution, and laid anew the foundations of their political existence on the broad basis of the rights, the interest, and the happiness of all.

Another common feature is the preservation in all but two-Pennsylvania and Georgia — of a legislature composed of two Houses, and invested with extensive authority, -an authority reaching in some even to the power of revising the constitution. Thus far we see the influence of English ideas and early associations. But nowhere did the body which took the place of the Colonial Coun

cils come nearer to the House of Lords than by a longer term of office in some instances; and in some instances, also, a different mode of election. They were still the representatives of the people, invested for a stated term with specific powers, which, when that term expired, returned again to the people. The idea of hereditary rights to make laws, like that of hereditary rights to enforce them, took no root in American soil.

If we

Another common feature was the jealousy with which they all looked upon the third element in their government, the Governor, or, as he was called in some Provinces, the President. are to take this as a result of experience, it is a bitter satire upon the Colonial Governors whom they received from the King; if as a speculative conclusion, it shows more circumspection than confidence, a keen perception of possible dangers rather than a just sense of the degree of power which is essential to the usefulness as well as to the dignity of a chief magistrate. Everywhere his hands were tied by a Council, and sometimes tied so tight that it seems wonderful any one should have cared for so powerless a symbol of power.

In their views of religious toleration, also, there were some general features indicative of the point which the struggle between the rights of conscience and the responsibilities of religious conviction had generally reached. The old laws for the keeping of Sunday were retained in every constitution. In