The idea of union: From the revolutionary covenants of the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution and the 1781 Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union to the nationalist compacts of the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution and the 1787 Constitution of the United States.

摘要

This thesis investigates the dynamics that occurred from the revolutionary democratic impulse at the provincial, or state, level to the adoption of a continental, or nationalist, vision of America's future. This story has not been clearly told to students resulting in confusion as to just what did occur during the American founding. One central example is the popular notion of the Articles of Confederation as a weak document necessitating the national elites to replace it with the United States Constitution. This thesis juxtaposes the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution and the 1781 Articles of Confederation with the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution and the United States Constitution as an analytical framework. This investigation reveals that the notion of legislative supremacy inherent in provincial control was rejected and the structural device of the separation of powers was found to best preserve individual liberties through the primacy of the rule of law.