ing to end. It had no likeness whatever to the
terrible popular convulsion which soon after took place in France. The
mischievous doctrines of Rousseau had found few readers and fewer
admirers among the Americans. The principles upon which their revolution
was conducted were those of Sidney, Harrington, and Locke. In
remodelling the state governments, as in planning the union of the
states, the precedents followed and the principles applied were almost
purely English. We must now pass in review the principal changes wrought
in the several states, and we shall then be ready to consider the
general structure of the Confederation, and to describe the remarkable
series of events which led to the adoption of our Federal Constitution.

[Sidenote: State governments remodelled; assemblies continued from
colonial times.]

It will be remembered that at the time of the Declaration of
Independence there were three kinds of government in the colonies.
Connecticut and Rhode Island had always been true republics, with
governors and legislative assemblies elected by the people.
Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland presented the appearance of limited
hereditary monarchies. Their assemblies were chosen by the people, but
the lords proprietary appointed their governors, or in some instances
acted as governors themselves. In Maryland the office of lord
proprietary was hereditary in the Calvert family; in Delaware and
Pennsylvania, which, though distinct commonwealths with separate
legislatures, had the same executive head, it was hereditary in the Penn
family. The other eight colonies were viceroyalties, with governors
appointed by the king, while in all alike the people elected the
legislatures. Accordingly in Connecticut and Rhode Island no change was
made necessary by the Revolution, beyond the mere omission of the king's
name from legal documents; and their charters, which dated from the
middle of the seventeenth century, continued to do duty as state
constitutions till far into the nineteenth. During the Revolutionary War
all the other states framed new constitutions, but in most essential
respects they took the old colonial charters for their model. The
popular legislative body remained unchanged even in its name. In North
Carolina its supreme dignity was vindicated in its title of the House of
Commons; in Virginia it was called the House of Burgesses; in most of
the states the House of Representatives. The members were chosen each