The Fathers of the Constitution [14]
on officeholding and the exercise of the suffrage were lessened. Four States declared in their constitutions against the entailment of estates, and primogeniture was abolished in aristocratic Virginia. There was a fairly complete abolition of all vestiges of feudal tenure in the holding of land, so that it may be said that in this period full ownership of property was established. The further separation of church and state was also carried out. Certainly leveling influences were at work, and the people as a whole had moved one step farther in the direction of equality and democracy, and it was well that the Revolution was not any more radical and revolutionary than it was. The change was gradual and therefore more lasting. One finds readily enough contemporary statements to the effect that, "Although there are no nobles in America, there is a class of men denominated 'gentlemen,' who, by reason of their wealth, their talents, their education, their families, or the offices they hold, aspire to a preeminence," but, the same observer adds, this is something which "the people refuse to grant them." Another contemporary contributes the observation that there was not so much respect paid to gentlemen of rank as there should be, and that the lower orders of people behave as if they were on a footing of equality with them. Whether the State Constitutions are to be regarded as property-conserving, aristocratic instruments, or as progressive documents, depends upon the point of view. And so it is with the spirit of union or of nationality in the United States. One student emphasizes the fact of there being "thirteen independent republics differing . . . widely in climate, in soil, in occupation, in everything which makes up the social and economic life of the people"; while another sees "the United States a nation." There is something to be said for both sides, and doubtless the truth lies between them, for there were forces making for disintegration as well as for unification. To the student of the present day, however, the latter seem to have been the stronger and more important, although the possibility was never absent that the thirteen States would go their separate ways. There are few things so potent as a common danger to bring discordant elements into working harmony. Several times in the century and a half of their existence, when the colonies found themselves threatened by their enemies, they had united, or at least made an effort to unite, for mutual help. The New England Confederation of 1643 was organized primarily for protection against the Indians and incidentally against the Dutch and French. Whenever trouble threatened with any of the European powers or with the Indians--and that was frequently--a plan would be broached for getting the colonies to combine their efforts, sometimes for the immediate necessity and sometimes for a broader purpose. The best known of these plans was that presented to the Albany Congress of 1754, which had been called to make effective preparation for the inevitable struggle with the French and Indians. The beginning of the troubles which culminated in the final breach with Great Britain had quickly brought united action in the form of the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, in the Committees of Correspondence, and then in the Continental Congress. It was not merely that the leaven of the Revolution was already working to bring about the freer interchange of ideas; instinct and experience led the colonies to united action. The very day that the Continental Congress appointed a committee to frame a declaration of independence, another committee was ordered to prepare articles of union. A month later, as soon as the Declaration of Independence had been adopted, this second committee, of which John Dickinson of Pennsylvania was chairman, presented to Congress a report in the form of Articles of Confederation. Although the outbreak of fighting made some sort of united action imperative, this plan of union was subjected to debate intermittently for over sixteen months and even after being adopted by