Page:The general principles of constitutional law in the United States of America.djvu/68

on the credit of the Union.^[1] The governments of the several States were also at first revolutionary, but their previous organization was such that the war disturbed them but little, and modified forms more than substance. All of them had local governments and the common law, which remained undisturbed; all of them had legislative bodies, which continued to perform their functions, but without the recognition of the pre-existing executive authority. The States, however, soon proceeded to adopt formal constitutions, apportioning, defining, and limiting the powers of the several departments of government, and with two exceptions they had completed this work before independence was acknowledged by Great Britain.^[2] The liberal charter granted to Rhode Island by Charles II. in 1663 was found sufficient for the purposes of a free commonwealth, and was tacitly adopted as the constitution of the State, and remained such for two thirds of a century.^[3] The charter of Connecticut was not superseded by a constitution until 1818.

But a merely revolutionary government could not long answer the purposes of the Union. The powers of the Continental Congress having never been formally conferred, or indeed agreed upon, by the States, that body was regarded by the people and by the State authorities as an advisory body rather than as a government, and the pressure of external necessity determined the degree of obedience its commands or advice should receive. In most important matters they were often disregarded, and the Confederation seemed at the point of falling to pieces for the want of a legal bond of union and of legal power to

1. Curtis, Hist, of Const., ch. 1, 2.
2. See Mr. Bancroft's admirable chapter on "The Rise of Free Commonwealths," Hist, of U. S., vol. x. ch. 10; Centennial ed., vol. vi. ch. 46.
3. Of the original States, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia adopted constitutions in 1776, Georgia and New York in 1777, Massachusetts in 1780, and Rhode Island in 1842.