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America’s First Constitutions and Declarations of Rights
zens. The government was exceedingly weak, however, consisting of a
unicameral Congress that lacked the power even to regulate commerce
or levy a tax. No provision was made for an executive or judiciary and
the Confederation government was forced to rely upon the States for the
enforcement of its laws. Because the unanimous vote of all of the States
was required to amend the Articles, it was virtually impossible to
change the document even when its faults were generally acknowledged. Only by circumventing Congress were the nation’s leaders able
to reform the system and establish a new Constitution.
Colonial Governments
T
he seeds of liberty were planted on American soil in 1607,
when the first English settlers landed in Virginia and founded Jamestown. They were not the first Englishmen to attempt to establish a colony
in Virginia, but they were the first to win a permanent foothold. Lured by
tales of great wealth, they were destined to suffer months and even years
of hunger, fever, and death in a hostile wilderness. It was the destiny of
their children and succeeding generations to develop the richest and
most powerful colony in British America.
The plan to colonize Virginia was not a part of any government scheme
but an effort by London merchants to discover gold and silver, as the
Spanish had done a century before in Mexico and farther south, and to
explore for a northwest passage. The Virginia colony was thus established under the auspices of a private corporation known as the London
Company, by virtue of a charter granted by James I. In the charter the
King guaranteed that the colonists and any children born to them ‘‘shall
have and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises, and Immunities . . . as if they had
been abiding and born within this, our Realm of England.’’ In other
words, Englishmen in the colonies were to enjoy the same rights granted
to Englishmen at home—such as trial by jury and the right to be taxed
by representatives of their own choosing. Freedom was actually planted
in Virginia, then, even before the forebears of today