the
Scriptures. The new Massachusetts constitution provided that laws
against plays, extravagance in dress, diet, etc., should be passed.
Property qualifications continued to limit suffrage. Virginia and
Georgia changed their land laws, abolishing entails and primogeniture.

The sole momentous novelty was that everyone of the new constitutions
proceeded upon the theory of popular sovereignty. The new governments
derived their authority solely and directly from the people. And this
authority, too, was not surrendered to the government, but simply--and
this only in part--intrusted to it as the temporary agent of the
sovereign people, who remained throughout the exclusive source of
political power.

The new instruments of government were necessarily faulty and imperfect.
All have since been amended, and several entirely remodelled. But they
rescued the colonies from impending anarchy and carried them safely
through the throes of the Revolution.

CHAPTER IV.

OUTBREAK OF WAR: WASHINGTON'S MOVEMENTS

[1775]

By the spring of 1775 Massachusetts was practically in rebellion. Every
village green was a drill-ground, every church a town arsenal. General
Gage occupied Boston with 3,000 British regulars. The flames were
smouldering; at the slightest puff they would flash out into open war.

On the night of April 18th people along the road from Boston to Concord
were roused from sleep by the cry of flying couriers--"To arms! The
redcoats are coming!" When the British advance reached Lexington at
early dawn, it found sixty or seventy minute-men drawn up on the green.
"Disperse, ye rebels!" shouted the British officer. A volley was fired,
and seven Americans fell dead. The king's troops, with a shout, pushed
on to Concord. Most of the military stores, however, which they had come
to destroy had been removed. A British detachment advanced to Concord
Bridge, and in the skirmish here the Americans returned the British
fire.

[Illustration: Map from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, Great Lakes to
the Gulf of Mexico.]
Map of the United Colonies at the Beginning of the Revolution.

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world."

[Footnote: From R. W. Emerson's Concord Hymn, sung at the completion of
the Battle Monument near Concord North Bridge, April 19, 1836.]

[Illustration: Sketch of Bunker