The Englishmen who originally settled the American colonies were confident in their possession of traditional rights— the "liberties, franchises and immunities" guaranteed in their charters. Their goal in governing their new communities was to retain the laws and customs by which their families had lived for generations. Yet their experiences in the colonies made fundamental changes in their lifestyle, in their relationship to the English crown, and in the way they saw their world.

The first need was for survival, and the second need was for adjustment to the constant changes brought by successive waves of immigrants and by the rapid growth of the colonial economy. By the mid-eighteenth century the colonists had met and surmounted these imperatives and, in the process, developed a distinct national character. Independent and self-reliant, some colonists foresaw a change in their relationship to...