and distrust of all officials, even
those chosen by and dependent upon themselves. Their political ideals
contemplated {130} the government of each colony chiefly by the elected
representatives of the voters, who should meet annually to legislate
and tax, and then, having defined the duties of the few permanent
officers in such a way as to leave them little or no discretion, should
dissolve, leaving the community to run itself until the next annual
session. Authority of any kind was to them an object of traditional
dread, even when exercised by their own agents. The early State
constitutions concentrated all power in the legislature, leaving the
executive and judicial officials little to do but execute the laws.
The only discretionary powers enjoyed by governors were in connection
with military affairs.

In establishing the Articles of Confederation the statesmen of the
Continental Congress had no intention of creating in any sense a
governing body. All that the Congress could do was to decide upon war
and peace, make treaties, decide upon a common military establishment,
and determine the sums to be contributed to the common treasury. These
matters, moreover, called for an affirmative vote of nine States in
each case. There was no federal executive or judiciary, nor any
provision for enforcing the votes of the Congress. To carry out any
single thing committed by the Articles to the Congress, and duly voted,
required the {131} positive co-operation of the State legislatures, who
were under no other compulsion than their sense of what the situation
called for and of what they could afford to do.

Things were, in short, just where the colonists would have been glad to
have them before the Revolution--with the objectionable provincial
executives removed, all coercive authority in the central government
abolished, and the legislatures left to their own absolute discretion.
In other words, the average American farmer or trader of the day felt
that the Revolution had been fought to get rid of all government but
one directly under the control of the individual voters of the States.
Typical of such were men like Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and Patrick
Henry of Virginia. They had learned their politics in the period
before the Revolution, and clung to the old colonial spirit, which
regarded normal politics as essentially defensive and anti-governmental.

On the other hand, there were a good many individuals in the c