CONTENTS. I. Early Settlement of America II. Origin of Land Titles in the United States III. Common Law in the Colonies V. Causes of the American Revolution. VII. Articles of Confederation VIII. Peculiarities of the Confederation IX. Decline and Fall of the Confederation X. Leading Defects of the Confederation. XI. Origin of the Present Constitution XII. Ratification of the Constitution XIII. Amendments to the Constitution XIV. Departments of Government ANALYSIS OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER I. EARLY SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA. I. THE North American Colonies, over which the British Government maintained supremacy for more than a hundred years, were known as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Ever since the Declaration of Independence they have been called States. 2. They were settled chiefly by British subjects, except New York and Delaware, the former by emigrants from Holland, and the latter from Holland and Sweden. 3. The British claim to jurisdiction over these Colonies was founded on what Christian nations recognized as the right of discovery. Great Britain denied from the beginning the right of the Dutch to make settlements in America. That denial was based on the fact that John Cabot and his son Sebastian, British subjects, under commission from Henry the Seventh, sailed along the eastern coast of North America in 1497. The Cabots, however, made no attempt at settlement or conquest. |