Creating a New Government

When on July 4, 1776, Americans declared independence from the monarchy of Great Britain, they were faced with the formidable task of creating new republican governments. Their immediate focus was not on any central authority but on their individual state governments. Today we are apt to forget that the federal government under which we now live was a decade away in 1776. Indeed, the strong national government that was created in 1787 was beyond anyone’s imagination at the time of the Declaration of Independence. Having just thrown off a far-removed and powerful central government, Americans in 1776 were in no mood to even consider the kind of strong central government framed by the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. More »