essential features remains unchanged to-day.

The new state constitutions in their broad outlines followed colonial
models. For the royal governor was substituted a governor or president
chosen usually by the legislature; but in two instances, New York and
Massachusetts, by popular vote. For the provincial council there was
substituted, except in Georgia, a senate; while the lower house, or
assembly, was continued virtually without change. The old property
restriction on the suffrage, though lowered slightly in some states, was
continued in full force to the great discontent of the mechanics thus
deprived of the ballot. The special qualifications, laid down in several
constitutions, for governors, senators, and representatives, indicated
that the revolutionary leaders were not prepared for any radical
experiments in democracy. The protests of a few women, like Mrs. John
Adams of Massachusetts and Mrs. Henry Corbin of Virginia, against a
government which excluded them from political rights were treated as
mild curiosities of no significance, although in New Jersey women were
allowed to vote for many years on the same terms as men.

By the new state constitutions the signs and symbols of royal power, of
authority derived from any source save "the people," were swept aside
and republican governments on an imposing scale presented for the first
time to the modern world. Copies of these remarkable documents prepared
by plain citizens were translated into French and widely circulated in
Europe. There they were destined to serve as a guide and inspiration to
a generation of constitution-makers whose mission it was to begin the
democratic revolution in the Old World.

=The Articles of Confederation.=--The formation of state constitutions
was an easy task for the revolutionary leaders. They had only to build
on foundations already laid. The establishment of a national system of
government was another matter. There had always been, it must be
remembered, a system of central control over the colonies, but Americans
had had little experience in its operation. When the supervision of the
crown of Great Britain was suddenly broken, the patriot leaders,
accustomed merely to provincial statesmanship, were poorly trained for
action on a national stage.

Many forces worked against those who, like Franklin, had a vision of
national destiny. There were differences in economic interest--commerce
and industry in the North and the planti