The West’s First Liberal State

12.8.1 From Locke to Jefferson

The former British colonies’ tradition of self-government justified the consolidation of a constitutional regime in which governmental power was severely limited, in accordance with the natural law and social contract theories propounded by John Locke, whose ideas were embraced by the leaders of the American Revolution, including Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the author of the Declaration of Inde­pendence and the nation’s third president, from 1801 to 1809.^[634]

John Locke (1632-1704) was not just a thinker and a theorist, but one willing to put his ideas into practice, as he demonstrated by drafting, as mentioned above, the “Fundamental Constitutions” (1669) for the colony of Carolina.

American colonists from the beginning embraced private enterprise and had a profound respect for private property.^[639] By adopting and formulating this concep­tion (Jensen 1943, 356-379) the new United States, arising as a nation in 1783, became the prototype of the liberal state which would eventually spread throughout Europe in the nineteenth century,^[640] a model of state based on constitutional limitations curtailing government’s actions in the pursuit of law and order and a rejection of absolutism. In no way was the state to intervene in matters of an economic, social or political nature.^[641]

12.8.2 The American Revolution as a Rupture with the Old Order

While European historians tend to view the colonists’ war against England mainly as a struggle for independence, American historians emphasize its “revolutionary” nature (Bonwick 1986, 355-373).

12.8.2.1 Congresses, Constitutions and Declarations of Rights

The very idea of a congress or a convention, as a meeting called to discuss issues of common interest, was in itself already profoundly novel (Wood 1998, 306-309). In the case of the United States, this assembly was fundamental because each colony featured its own system of government. In fact, the congress was the essential instrument of the process which would ultimately give rise to the new United States of America. The 13 colonies, having become independent states, followed the procedure of convening in a constituent assembly in which representatives of the fledgling states created and approved the texts for state constitutions. The English, as we have seen, had constitutional texts, such as the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights of 1689, but they never adopted a comprehensive legislative text governing the state’s functions. Therefore, by employing written constitutions the 13 new American states marked a new era in the history of western public law. Though the framers of these first constitutions talked about continuity and the need to preserve familiar governmental structures during a time of political unrest, they were committed to state governments (Kruman 1997, 4) based on the new model. Through constituent assemblies the states drafted their own constitutions setting down their organization and governmental principles (Greene 2011, 94-95).^[643]

It must be observed that each state’s constitutional process was very much affected by the precedent of each colonial charter, enabling each new state to draw up a constitution quickly by closely following the traditions of self­government they had observed during the colonial era (Wood 1998, 134).

The constitutions, in addition, also generally ended up including bills of rights which protected civil liberties against the powers of the new states. The first of these was George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of 1776, which had a major impact on all subsequent bills of rights,^[645] preceding both the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, approved by the French constituent assembly in 1789, and the US federal Bill of Rights of 1791 (McClellan 2000). It should be emphasized that the amendments contained in the latter, have constitutional status, making them inviolable by the government. The same, however, cannot be said of the French Declaration of 1789, which had merely declarative value.^[646]

12.8.2.2 The First Viable Western Republics of the Contemporary Era, Under the Representative Assembly System

In general the governments of the new United States incorporated many of the best aspects of the British constitutional system, including a respect for judicial prece­dent and the rejection of excessive power, principles which would prove crucial to the American legal system. The essential difference was that they did not recognize, of course, the authority of the British monarch, and they formed themselves into republics (Wood 1998, 91-92), a model of state in which the representative assembly took precedence over the governor and his executive power. This dem­ocratic tradition led directly to the framing of the first constitutions, which reflected the revolutionary principle that the people were America’s new “sovereign” (Fritz 2008, 1).

12.8.3 A Precarious “Union”: The Articles of Confederation

What is certainly confusing about the early structure of the United States of America is that it actually featured two overlapping constitutional processes: one involved each former colony’s conversion into an independent state, with its own constitution, bill of rights and government institutions, while the other dealt with the 13 colonies’ joint adoption of a union to more effectively and powerfully confront the British crown.^[647]

12.8.3.1 The “Continental Congresses”

From the very outset, beginning in 1774, the American rebels began to organize their revolt against England through a series of Continental Congresses, meetings at which representatives from each colony discussed their disputes with the English crown.

12.8.3.2 The Articles of Confederation: A “Constitution

of Constitutions”?

After the War of Independence broke out all of the former colonies, now states, met in a new congress—the third—to approve, in November of 1777, a joint constitu­tional accord called the Articles of Confederation, which granted a certain degree of authority, though limited, to a national Congress (Ellis 2013, 90-100). The Articles of Confederation did not actually go into effect until 1781, after a long, 4-year ratification procedure.^[649] The national Congress was henceforth established as the nation’s sole collective body authorized to make sovereign decisions binding upon all the states.^[650]

This instrument of union, though granting very limited powers to the national government,^[651] was fruitful to the extent that under Articles of Confederation system, the insurgents fought the Revolutionary War, which concluded with victory over England, leading to the emergence of a new nation through the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

12.8.3.3 The Weakness of the “Union” and the Crisis of the Democratic Republic

When the war had ended in 1783, despite the fact that legally the former English colonies had become 13 independent states, they decided to retain their ties and recognition of Congressional authority. However, the tenuous institutional ties that bound them together and the lack of a strong executive troubled the ruling classes, who believed it essential that both be reinforced. Thus began a debate which would lead to the drafting of what we know today as the United States Constitution (1787­1789), which called for a federal government featuring broader powers for Con­gress and a more powerful Executive, to replace the Articles of Confederation regime.^[652] As we will see in Chap. 13, the different states did not disappear, but fell under the authority of a robust national government granted authorities and pur­views previously assigned to the states.

TIMELINE

Fifteenth Century

1492 October 12. Columbus discovers America.

1494 Treaty of Tordesillas between Castile and Portugal.

Sixteenth Century

1500 Portugal’s Cabral discovers Brazil.

1502 Nicolas de Ovando becomes the first governor of La Espanola (modern-day Dominican Republic and Haiti).

1513 Basque sailor Nunez de Balboa discovers the South Sea (Pacific Ocean). 1519 Hernan Cortes takes the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico).

1522 After 8 months and 10 days of sailing Juan Sebastian Elcano completes the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

1524 Giovanni Verrazano’s first trip to North America, on behalf of France’s Francis I. He discovers New York Bay.

1533 Francisco Pizarro occupies the Incan capital of Cuzco.

1534 First voyage of Jacques Cartier to Canada. He founds Quebec in 1536.

1540 Francisco Vazquez de Coronado begins his first expedition through the south of the modern-day United States. His journey would last for 2 years.

1584 Sir Walter Raleigh discovers Virginia.

Seventeenth Century

1607 The first English settlers reach Virginia (John Smith and Pocahontas). 1609 English navigator Henry Hudson discovers the river that still bears his name. 1620 The Mayflower “pilgrims” land at Cape Cod. (On November 11 they sign the “Mayflower Compact”.) The first English religious colony is founded at Plymouth. Over time it would evolve into the colony and state of Massa­chusetts.

1626 Dutchman Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from the Indians and founds New Amsterdam.

1630 Boston is founded.

1634 The founding of Maryland, the first “proprietary colony”.

1682 William Penn, proprietor of Pennsylvania, founds Philadelphia. In 1701 he grants the colony a “Bill of Rights”.

Eighteenth Century

1733 The founding of Georgia, the last of England’s 13 colonies in America. 1754 War breaks out between France and England in North America.

1763 The Peace of Paris is signed. France loses its colonies in North America, which are occupied by England. Under the “Law of Quebec” (1774) the English allow the French colonists to conserve their language, religion and law.

1773 December 16. “Boston Tea Party”.

1774 September 5-October 26. The First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia.

1775 April 19. The first armed clash takes place between colonial militia and English regulars. On May 10 the meetings of the Second Continental Congress begin.

1776 July 4. The Declaration of Independence.

1777 October 17. First victory of the rebels at Saratoga. In November the members of the Second Continental Congress approve the Articles of Confederation.

1778 The government of Louis XIV signs a treat of Alliance with the rebels, represented by Benjamin Franklin.

1781 Surrender of England’s General Cornwallis at Yorktown.

1783 September 3. The Peace of Versailles.

1787 September 17. Approval of the federal Constitution by the Continental Congress. (Ratification pending by the states).

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Further Reading

Abrams, A. U. (1999). The Pilgrims and Pocahontas: Rival myths of American origin. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Ackerman, B., & Katyal, N. (1995). Our unconventional founding. The University of Chicago Law Review, 62(2), 475-573.

Axtell, J. (1995). Rise and fall of the Powhatan Empire: Indians in seventeenth-century Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Baylin, B. (2011). The structure of colonial politics. In The origins of American politics (pp. 59­160). New York: Random House.

Bederman, D. J. (2008). The classical foundations of the American Constitution: Prevailing wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Belz, H. (1998). A living constitution or fundamental law? American constitutionalism in histor­ical perspective. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.

Bemis, S. M. (2009). The diplomacy of the American Revolution (Reprint). LaVergne, TN: Hesperides Press.

Bernstein, R., & Rice, K. S. (1987). Are we to be a nation? The making of the constitution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bessette, J. M. (1997). The mild voice of reason: Deliberative democracy and American national government. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bolton, H. E., & Marshall, T. M. (2005). The colonization of North America: 1492 to 1783. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. (Reprint from the original edition. New York: The Macmillan Company 1920.)

Carlisle, R. P., & Golson, J. G. (Eds.). (2007). Colonial America from settlement to the revolution. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Clemens, P. G. E. (2008). The Colonial era. Oxford: Blackwell.

Cogliano, F. D. (2009). Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A political history. London: Routledge.

Conway, S. (1995). The war of American independence, 1775-1783. London: E. Arnold.

Dickinson, H. T. (2008). British pamphlets on the American Revolution, 1763-1785. London: Pickering & Chatto.

Draper, T. A. (1996). Struggle for power: The American Revolution. Boston: Little Brown.

Dworkin, R. (2005). Freedom's law: The moral reading of the American Constitution (Reprint ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Egnal, M. (2010). A mighty empire: The origins of the American Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Fortescue, J. W., Sir. (2010). The war of independence: The British army in North America 1775­1783. London: Greenhill Books (2001). (Reprint from the edition first published in 1903 and revised in 1911.)

Fritz, C. G., & Baum, M. L. (2000). American constitution-making: The neglected state consti­tutional sources. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 27(2), 199-242.

Gammon, C. L. (2012). The story of the first continental congress. Savannah, GA: Union Camp Press.

Gerber, S. D. (1996). To secure these rights: The declaration of independence and constitutional interpretation. New York: The New York University Press.

Gerber, S. D. (2011). A distinct judicial power: The origins of an independent judiciary, 1606­1787. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gerstenberger, H. (2009). Impersonal power: History and theory of the bourgeois state. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Gordon-Reed, A. (2009). Thomas Jefferson. In The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (Reprinted ed., pp. 91-112). New York: W. W. Norton.

Hibbert, C. (2002). Redcoats and rebels: The American Revolution through British eyes. New York: W. W. Norton.

Hoffert, R. W. (1992). A politics of tensions: The articles of confederation and American political ideas. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado.

Horn, J., et al. (Eds.). (2002). The revolution of 1800: Democracy, race, and the new republic. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.

Jacobs, J. (2005). New Netherland: A Dutch colony in seventeenth-century America. Leiden: Brill.

Jensen, M., & Becker, R. A. (Eds.). (1976). The documentary history of the first Federal elections: 1788-1790. Madison, WS: University of Wisconsin Press.

Jensen, M. (1981). The new nation: A history of the United States during the confederation, 1781­1789. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.

Jensen, M. (2004). The founding of a nation: A history of the American Revolution 1763-1776. Indianapolis. IN: Hacket Publishing.

Jillson, C. (2009). American government: Political change and institutional development (5th ed.). New York: Routledge.

Johnson, G. R. (1991). The will of the people: The legacy of George Mason. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press.

Kamen, H. (2003). Spain's road to empire: The making of a world power, 1492-1763. London: Penguin.

Kaplan, L. (1980). Colonies into nation: American diplomacy, 1763-1801. New York: Macmillan.

Klaist, J., & Hazel, M. J. (Eds.). (1991). Liberty/liberte: The American and French experiences. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Kramer, L. (2004). The people themselves: Popular constitutionalism and judicial review. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lepore, J. (2012). The story of America: Essays on origins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Levinson, S. (2012). Constitutional faith. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Martello, R. (2000). Paul Revere’s last ride: The road to rolling Copper. Journal of the Early Republic, 20(2), 219-239.

McDonald, F. (1997). E Pluribus Unum: The formation of the American Republic, 1776-1790 (2nd ed., 5th repr.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.

McMichael, F. A. (2008). Atlantic loyalties: Americans in Spanish West Florida, 1785-1810. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Middlekauff, R. (2005). The Glorious cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (Revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morgan, E. S. (2013). The birth of the Republic, 1763-89 (4th ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Morgan, E. S., & Oats, L. (2008). Accounting for the Stamp Act crisis. Accounting Historians Journal, 35(2), 101-143.

Morgan, T. (1993). Wilderness at dawn. The settling of the North American continent. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Morris, R. B. (1970). The peacemakers: The great powers and American independence. New York: Harper and Row.

Morris, R. B. (1987). The forging of the Union, 1781-1789. New York: Harper and Row.

Mulder, P. N. (2007). Colonial America and the early republic. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Nash, G. B. (2006). The unknown American Revolution: The unruly birth of democracy and the struggle to create America. London: Jonathan Cape.

Panetta. R. G. (2009). Dutch New York: The roots of Hudson valley culture. New York: Fordham University Press.

Philbrick, N. (2013). Bunker Hill: A city, a siege, a revolution. New York: Viking.

Pickett, M. F., & Pickett, D. W. (2011). The European struggle to settle North America: Colonizing attempts by England, France and Spain, 1521-1608. North Carolina: McFarland.

Purcell, E. A. (2008). Originalism, federalism, and the American constitutional enterprise: A historical inquiry. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Rakove, J. N. (1982). The beginnings of national politics: An interpretive history of the continental congress. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

Rakove, J. N. (1996). Original meanings: Politics and ideas in the making of the constitution. New York: Knopf.

Raphael, R. (2012). A people's history of the American Revolution: How common people shaped the fight for independence. New York: The New Press.

Richter, D. K. (2003). Facing East from Indian country: A native history of early America. Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press.

Roper, L. H. (2009). The English Empire in America, 1602-1658: Beyond Jamestown. London: Pickering and Chatto.

Rowland, K. (2004). Mason. The life of George Mason, 1725-1792: Including his speeches, public papers, and correspondence. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale. (Reproduction of original edition. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1892.)

Rutland, R. A. (Ed.). (1970). Mason's papers: The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792 (3 Vols). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Rutland, R. A. (2009). George Mason: Reluctant statesman (13th printing). Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.

Schlesinger, A. M. (1935). The colonial newspapers and the Stamp Act. The New England Quarterly, 8(1), 63-83.

Shannon, T. J., & Gellmann, D. N. (2013). American odysseys: A history of colonial North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Smith, J. (1988). To the most high and vertuous Princesse Queene Anne of Great Brittanie (letter, 1617). In K. O. Kupperman (Ed.), Captain John Smith: A select edition of his writings (pp. 67­71). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Taylor, A. (2013). Colonial America: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thomas, P. D. G. (1975). British politics and the Stamp Act crisis: The first phase of the American Revolution, 1763-1767. Oxford: Clarendon.

Townsend, C. (2004). Pocahontas and the Powhatan dilemma. New York: Hill and Wang.

Triber, J. E. (1998). A true republican: The life of Paul Revere. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Truxillo, C. A. (2001). By the sword and the cross: The historical evolution of the Catholic world monarchy in Spain and the New World, 1492-1825. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Urofsky, M. I., & Finkelman, P. (2001-2002). A march of liberty: A constitutional history of the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wilentz, S. (2006). The rise of American democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. New York: W. W. Norton.

Wilson, T. D. (2012). The Oglethorpe plan: Enlightenment design in Savannah and beyond. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.

Wood, G. S. (1992). Democracy and the American Revolution. In J. Dunn (Ed.), Democracy: The unfinished journey, 508 BC to AD 1993 (pp. 91-106). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wood, G. S. (2010). Founding amateurs? The New York Times Upfront, 143, A25.

Wood, G. S. (2010). The articles of confederation and the constitution: A lecture. El Paso, TX: The University of Texas Press.

Wood, W. J. (2003). Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775-1781. Chapel Hill, NC: Da Capo Press.

Woodard, C. (2011). American nations: A history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America. New York: Viking.

Woolley, B. (2007). A savage kingdom: Virginia and the founding of English America. London: Harper Press.

Woolley, B. (2007). Savage kingdom: The true story of Jamestown, 1607, and the settlement of America. New York: HarperCollins Pub.