The Declaration of Independence, Lesson 6: Colony Charters and the First State Constitutions

Three Kinds of Colonial Charter

The thirteen colonies did not begin as a family of similar governments. They began as business ventures and personal gifts, and the paper that created each one decided who could make laws, who held the governor's office and what rights settlers could claim. By 1776 the colonies fell into three groups, and each group shaped the state constitutions that followed.

Royal colonies were governed by officials the Crown appointed. A governor and council answered to London, and an elected assembly spoke for the settlers. The standard textbook count in 1776 is eight royal colonies: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.¹ Most of them started as something else. New Hampshire became a royal province in 1679.² Virginia lost its company charter when the Crown revoked it on May 24, 1624.³ North Carolina became royal on July 25, 1729.⁴ New Jersey's proprietors surrendered their powers of government in 1702, and the Queen accepted the surrender in Council on April 17, 1702. The Avalon Project page for the acceptance prints the year as 1709, which is a typographical error, since Prince George of Denmark is listed as present and he died in 1708.⁵ Georgia's Trustees received a charter in 1732 that gave them lawmaking power for 21 years, and they gave up the colony early, at their last meeting on June 23, 1752.⁶⁷

Proprietary colonies were gifts of land and government to one person or family. The same count puts three in this group in 1776: Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware.¹ The Maryland charter of 1632 made Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, "true and absolute Lords and Proprietaries."⁸ The Pennsylvania charter of 1681 made William Penn "true and absolute Proprietarie."⁹ The word "absolute" describes the proprietor's title against other claimants. It did not remove the settlers from lawmaking. The Maryland grant said laws would be made "with the Advice, Assent, and Approbation of the Free-Men."⁸

Corporate (or charter) colonies were self-governing companies whose officers the settlers themselves chose. Only two survived to 1776: Connecticut and Rhode Island.¹ Their charters of 1662 and 1663 were so loosely drawn that, when the break with Britain came, they could keep working with a few words struck out.

This lesson could not confirm the exact count of colonies in each group in a source it opened, so treat the tally above as a convenient summary, not a finding. The point that matters is that settlers in 1776 had lived under every arrangement from tight royal supervision to near independence, and they drew on that experience when they wrote new governments.

The Charters as a Source of Rights

The earliest charters did more than create offices. The Virginia charter of April 10, 1606, promised that the king's subjects and their children born in the colonies "shall HAVE and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises, and Immunities" as if they had been "abiding and born, within this our Realm of England."¹⁰ The Connecticut charter of 1662 repeats the promise.¹¹ Settlers kept returning to it. On their own telling, the colonists in 1776 claimed old rights: rights written into royal grants and, they said, taken back.

Representative government grew in Virginia under pressure from the company that owned it. Instructions dated November 18, 1618, authorized a General Assembly, and the company's charters of 1606, 1609 and 1612 were the legal base for the colony until the Crown revoked them in 1624.³ The assembly outlived the company, and by the 1700s every royal colony had a lower house chosen by property-holding voters. This lesson could not confirm in a source it opened the exact date of the first Virginia assembly, so it does not give one.

The Massachusetts Bay charter of 1629 granted the colony to a "Governor and Company," a corporation whose members could meet and make rules for themselves.¹² The company moved its governing body across the Atlantic, which put real self-government in the hands of the settlers.

The charter Massachusetts received in 1691 contrasts with the 1629 grant. It kept an elected lower house and a council of 28. But the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary were "appointed and Commissionated" by the Crown, and laws the General Court passed could be disallowed by the Privy Council for three years after they were enacted.¹³ The charter also had a liberty of conscience clause.¹³

The Massachusetts constitution of 1780, covered below, was written by people who had lived under both charters.

Connecticut and Rhode Island: Charters That Became Constitutions

Connecticut's charter of 1662 provided one governor, one deputy governor and twelve assistants, chosen from among the freemen of the company.¹¹ Rhode Island's charter of 1663 provided one governor, one deputy governor and ten assistants, also elected.¹⁴ Neither charter had a royal veto or a royal governor. The people who held the vote picked the officers, and the king appeared mainly as the source of the grant.

Rhode Island's charter also carried a promise of religious freedom unusual for its time. No person was to be "molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinione in matters of religion," so long as he did not disturb the civil peace.¹⁴ Rhode Island's General Assembly passed an Act of Renunciation on May 4, 1776, which dropped allegiance to the Crown.¹⁵

After independence both states did something simple. They struck the king's name and kept going. In Connecticut the General Assembly dropped references to the King and carried on under the 1662 charter.¹⁶ Rhode Island used the 1663 charter as its working constitution for 180 years, until a new constitution took effect in 1843, after the Dorr Rebellion of 1841 and 1842.¹⁷ Rhode Island's naturalized citizens faced property rules that lasted until 1888.¹⁷ Connecticut adopted a written constitution only in 1818, covered below.

Proprietors, Trustees and Fundamental Constitutions

Several proprietary and trustee grants came with extra documents that tried to design a government in advance. The Carolina proprietors issued the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina in 1669 after their 1663 charter, an elaborate plan that shaped the colony's early politics but never worked as written.¹⁸

Pennsylvania produced a more durable document. William Penn's Charter of Privileges of 1701 set up a one-house assembly and protected liberty of conscience for people who confessed one God.¹⁹ That one-house habit stayed in Pennsylvania's tradition, and it comes back in the 1776 constitution below. The Delaware counties lived under the same Penn framework and kept their own assembly.

New York's path was rougher. The 1664 grant to the Duke of York gave the proprietor full control, and an October 1683 Charter of Liberties promised an assembly. When the Duke became James II in 1685 he rejected that charter, and in 1686 the assembly was abolished.²⁰ New Yorkers remembered the whole sequence in 1776.

Spring 1776: Governments Without Governors

By the winter of 1775 and 1776 royal authority had stopped working in much of America. Governors had fled, courts had closed and assemblies had been replaced by provincial congresses and committees. Two colonies acted first.

New Hampshire wrote its constitution at Exeter on January 5, 1776, the first state constitution of the period. It said it was for the duration of "the present unhappy and unnatural contest" with Britain. It created an assembly and a twelve-member council chosen by the House. It had no governor, and it was never submitted to the people.²¹

South Carolina followed on March 26, 1776. The provincial congress turned itself into a General Assembly, created a Legislative Council of 13 and had the Assembly and Council jointly choose a president and commander in chief. A privy council advised him. It too was framed without a popular vote.²² The South Carolina constitution lasted only two years. President John Rutledge vetoed its replacement on March 5, 1778, and resigned. Rawlins Lowndes signed the new constitution on March 19, 1778.²³ The 1778 text established a governor, a Senate and a House, and declared that "The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed" the established religion of the state. It was passed as an act of the assembly.²³

These first two documents were emergency measures. Neither claimed to rest on the consent of the whole people. Both assumed that the break would be temporary or that the document could be amended by the same legislature that wrote it.

The Resolutions of May 10 and May 15, 1776

Congress turned local improvisation into a continental recommendation in May. On May 10, 1776, it resolved "That it be recommended to the respective Assemblies and Conventions of the United Colonies, where no Government sufficient to the Exigencies of their Affairs, hath been hitherto established, to adopt such Government as shall in the Opinion of the Representatives of the People best conduce to the Happiness and Safety of their Constituents in particular, and America in general."²⁴ The same entry names a committee to draft a preamble: John Adams, Edward Rutledge and Richard Henry Lee.²⁴

The preamble came up on May 15. Adams wrote to James Warren that day that it was "necessary that the Exercise of every Kind of Authority under the Said Crown should be totally Suppressed" and that "all the Powers of Government" should be exercised "under the Authority of the People of the Colonies." He called the resolution "the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America."²⁵ That letter is a contemporary report, written the same day, so it carries more weight than the recollections Adams and Jefferson wrote decades afterward. The U.S. Code's note on the Declaration summarizes both actions and records the preamble as agreed to on May 15.²⁶

This lesson could not open the Journal of the Continental Congress text for May 15, because the Library of Congress site refused the request. The wording of the preamble above rests on Adams's letter and the U.S. Code note. Readers who need the exact words should check the Journal itself.

The resolutions did not declare independence. They told the colonies to build governments resting on the people and to treat the Crown's authority as ended. Many delegates, including some who favored the break, saw it as the real step. Once royal authority was "totally Suppressed" in each colony, a declaration of independence would only announce what already existed. For the vote on the Lee Resolution and the committee that wrote the Declaration, see the lesson on the Lee Resolution.

Virginia's Convention: Independence and a Constitution Together

Virginia's convention at Williamsburg moved on both tracks at once. On May 15, 1776, it "Resolved, unanimously" to instruct its delegates in Philadelphia to propose independence, and it also named a committee to prepare "a Declaration of Rights, and such a plan of Government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this Colony, and secure substantial and equal liberty to the people."²⁷ The committee was headed by Archibald Cary, and the original list of 28 included Patrick Henry and Edmund Randolph. George Mason was added after the list was made. James Madison is not on the Avalon list either, though he is generally reported to have served, and this lesson did not find the entry that added him.²⁷

The convention adopted the Declaration of Rights unanimously on June 12, 1776, and the Constitution on June 29.²⁸ (The Princeton Jefferson Papers exhibit gives June 11 for the Declaration. This lesson could not resolve the one-day difference.²⁸) The new government began on July 6, when Patrick Henry took the oath as governor.²⁸ Virginia's constitution was never put to the voters.

The structure shows the pattern the other states copied. The General Assembly elected the governor each year, with a limit of three years in office followed by four out. An eight-member Privy Council, also called the Council of State, advised him. A Senate of 24, with one-fourth of its members replaced each year on a four-year rotation, sat beside an annual House of Delegates. Suffrage stayed under the 1736 law, which gave the vote to free white men holding 100 acres of unsettled land, or 25 acres with a house and plantation. The document had no amendment clause and ran about 3,450 words with the Declaration of Rights. It lasted until 1830.²⁸ Jefferson wrote the preamble, which lists the king's offenses much as the Declaration of Independence would.

The First State Constitutions at a Glance

Ten states wrote new constitutions in 1776 and early 1777. The table gives the date, the body that wrote it, the main features and what this lesson could confirm from the text.

The Other States, One at a Time

New Jersey, July 2, 1776

New Jersey's provincial congress adopted its constitution at Burlington on July 2, 1776, the same day Congress voted for independence, two days before the Declaration was approved. The Council and Assembly met jointly each year to elect a governor, who presided over the Council. Voters had to be "worth fifty pounds." Articles XVIII and XIX barred any establishment of religion and opened office to Protestants. Article XXII kept the common law and the jury. A closing proviso said that if "a reconciliation" with Britain took place, "this Charter shall be null and void."²⁹ The framers wrote an exit ramp into the document. The same text that assumed independence was still hedging against failure.

Delaware, September 1776

Delaware's convention, with George Read as president, adopted a Declaration of Rights on September 11 and a constitution on September 20, 1776, by the Institute for Justice's dating (see the date conflict noted above).³⁰ It called the state "The Delaware State." A House of Assembly with seven members per county and a Council of nine made the laws. A president chosen by joint ballot led the executive, with a four-member privy council. Article 22 was a Trinity declaration for office holders, article 26 barred holding in slavery any person imported from Africa, and article 29 forbade an establishment and kept clergy out of office. Article 30 entrenched some provisions against change by ordinary legislation.³⁰ According to Judge Dan Friedman, Delaware's declaration borrowed heavily from a draft prepared in Maryland.³⁰

Maryland, August to November 1776

Maryland's convention met on August 14 and finished on November 11, 1776. The committee released a draft on August 27 and a revision on September 17. The final Declaration of Rights ran to 42 articles, including a statement against monopolies (article 39), a separation of powers and protection for the tenure of judges. A Senate of 15, chosen by electors every five years, sat with a House of Delegates, and the governor was chosen annually by joint ballot. He had to own property worth 5,000 pounds. Article 35 of the Declaration required belief in the Christian religion for office holders. The convention did not submit the work to voters, and it lasted until 1851.³²

North Carolina, December 1776

North Carolina's Congress met at Halifax from November 12 to December 18, 1776, with Richard Caswell as president. It adopted a Declaration of Rights of 25 articles and a constitution with a Senate and a House of Commons. The governor was chosen annually by joint ballot, needed a freehold above 1,000 pounds, and could serve three years in six. A Council of State of seven advised him. Article 32 barred from office anyone who denied God, the Protestant religion or the Old or New Testament. Article 34 forbade an establishment, and clergy could not sit in the legislature.³³ The text lasted until 1835.

Georgia, February 1777

Georgia's convention sat from October 1, 1776, and adopted its constitution unanimously at Savannah on February 5, 1777, without a popular vote. A one-house Assembly was elected yearly, and a governor and executive council were chosen annually. The governor could serve one year in three. Article 9 gave the vote to "All male white inhabitants" holding ten pounds. The text bans titles of nobility (article 11) and protects free exercise (article 56), habeas corpus (article 60), the press and jury (article 61) and keeps clergy out of the legislature (article 62).³⁴

New York, April 1777

New York's convention began at White Plains on July 10, 1776, the day after it approved the Declaration, and finished at Kingston on April 20, 1777.²⁰ The vote was unanimous but for one dissent. John Jay is credited with the draft. The preamble quotes the Declaration of Independence in full and notes New York's approval of July 9, 1776.³⁵ Freeholders with 100 pounds elected the governor for three years (article 17). A Council of Revision reviewed bills (article 3), and a Council of Appointment chose officers (article 23). The Senate had 24 members and the Assembly at least 70. Article 35 kept the common law, article 38 protected worship, article 39 kept clergy out of office and article 40 excused Quakers from military service.³⁵ New York's convention was also the one that opened by copying the Declaration into its own text, which made the national document part of a state constitution within a year.

Vermont, July 1777

Vermont stood outside the thirteen, yet its constitution of July 8, 1777, framed at Windsor between July 2 and 8, belongs in the story. Article I barred holding men as servants or slaves past age 21 and women past 18. The framers did not submit it to the people.³⁸

What the Constitutions Had in Common

Reading ten documents together, several patterns stand out. Where the text is clear this lesson says so, and where it is not it says that too.

Legislatures held the power

The colonists' complaint about royal governors showed up in the new designs. In Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and North Carolina the legislature chose the governor, and in Pennsylvania a twelve-member council with a president led the executive. Terms were short. Georgia limited the governor to one year in three, Virginia to three years in a row, and North Carolina to three years in six.²⁸³⁴³³ Only Pennsylvania and Georgia, for a time, did without two houses.²⁸ New York was the main exception to the legislature-picks-governor model, with the governor elected by freeholders with freeholds worth 100 pounds for a three-year term.³⁵

Voters had to own something

Every constitution in this lesson tied the vote or office to property or taxes. New Jersey wanted voters "worth fifty pounds."²⁹ Georgia required voters to be male white inhabitants possessing ten pounds.³⁴ Pennsylvania gave the vote to freemen aged 21 who paid public taxes, plus the sons of freeholders.³¹ Virginia kept its 1736 land rule.²⁸ Offices carried higher bars. Maryland's governor needed 5,000 pounds in property, and North Carolina's a freehold above 1,000 pounds.³²³³

New Jersey's text said "inhabitants," and women who held enough property voted there until the 1807 act ended it. Historians disagree about whether the wording was meant to include women.³⁹

Religion was a qualification and a liberty

Most of the documents protected worship and tied office to belief. Delaware's text had a Trinity declaration (article 22), no establishment (article 29) and no clergy in office.³⁰ Pennsylvania required a declaration of belief in God and in the Old and New Testament (section 10), with no other test.³¹ Maryland and North Carolina limited office to Christians or, in North Carolina, those who did not deny God, the Protestant religion or the Old or New Testament.³²³³ New Jersey protected worship but opened office to Protestants.²⁹ New York protected worship "without discrimination or preference," kept clergy out of office and required immigrants taking the naturalization oath to renounce foreign allegiance, "ecclesiastical as well as civil."³⁵ Georgia's text protected free exercise and kept clergy out of its legislature, and its article 6 required representatives to be "of the Protestent religion" (the spelling in the Avalon text) and to hold 250 acres or 250 pounds in property.³⁴

Rights mattered, but remedies were thin

Five states added a separate declaration of rights in 1776. The next lesson covers them. Georgia wrote rights directly into its frame, including habeas corpus, jury trial, a free press and a ban on titles of nobility.³⁴ New York kept the common law and protected Quakers from compulsory arms-bearing.³⁵ Sanders summarizes rights provisions in states that did not write a separate declaration.⁴⁰

Slavery was mostly left alone

The constitutions said little about slavery. Delaware's article 26 provided that no person imported from Africa could be held in slavery, which banned new importations but left existing slavery in place.³⁰ Vermont, which was not one of the thirteen, wrote in its constitution of July 8, 1777, that no man could be held as a servant or slave past the age of 21 or woman past 18.³⁸ That wording shows how a text could use the language of the Declaration against slavery in one place while neighboring states left the institution alone.

Pennsylvania: The Radical Experiment

Pennsylvania's convention met from July 15 to September 28, 1776, with Benjamin Franklin as its president, and wrote the most debated frame of the period.³¹ It had a Declaration of Rights of 16 articles and a Frame of Government of 47 sections. A one-house Assembly, elected annually, held the legislative power. A Supreme Executive Council of twelve, with a president, ran the executive branch.

Other provisions look modern. Section 13 opened legislative sessions to the public, and section 15 required bills to be printed "for the consideration of the people" before final passage. Section 44 called for schools. Section 47 created a Council of Censors, to meet every seventh year from 1783, which would check whether the constitution had been kept.³¹ The declaration protected assembly and the right to instruct representatives, speech and press, and the right to emigrate. Its article on arms spoke of bearing arms "for the defence of themselves and the state."³¹ The convention never put its work to a popular vote.

Pennsylvania's frame gave later reformers a model of a legislature without a second house. Its one-house Assembly lasted until the state replaced the constitution in 1790.

Massachusetts, 1780: The People Approve the Frame

The first constitution approved by the people came from Massachusetts. A convention met at Cambridge on September 1, 1779, and John Adams drafted the text that autumn. Town meetings voted on it in 1780, and according to Mass Moments more than two-thirds approved. The convention declared it ratified in mid-June 1780 (the sources give June 15 or 16), and it took effect on October 25, 1780.³⁷ Mass Moments puts the number of voters at about 16,000. A State Court Report article mentions an earlier 1778 draft that voters rejected, which this lesson could not confirm elsewhere.³⁷

The original text opens with a declaration of rights of 30 articles. Article I said "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights." Article II made worship a duty, and article III authorized public Protestant teachers of religion. Article XXX required the separation of powers in a phrase that became famous: "a government of laws and not of men."³⁶ Part II set up a Senate of 40 and a governor with a veto. The governor needed seven years of residence, a freehold of 1,000 pounds and a declaration of the Christian religion. Several of those requirements have since been amended away. Article I now says "All people," after Amendment CVI in 1976.³⁶

The slavery question came to court soon after. The Quock Walker cases of 1781 to 1783 tested whether the "free and equal" clause ended slavery, and Chief Justice William Cushing's 1783 charge to a jury is usually read as the decision that it did.³⁷ The wording of article I gave judges a hook, and that is how a rights clause drawn from the same sources as the Declaration became a working legal rule.

Connecticut in 1818: A Written Constitution at Last

Connecticut ran on the 1662 charter until 1818. The constitution that replaced it was written by a convention that approved it on September 15, 1818, by 134 to 61. The voters ratified it on October 5, by 13,918 to 12,364, and Governor Oliver Wolcott proclaimed it on October 12.⁴¹ It ended the established status of the Congregational church and opened with a Declaration of Rights. The vote was close, about 53 percent in favor by this lesson's arithmetic, and the proclamation came with open objections from opponents.⁴¹

The charter had worked for 156 years because it had always been a grant of self-government. The 1818 document shows how late some of the work of 1776 was finished. In several states the move from charter to constitution took a generation or more.

What This Lesson Could Not Confirm

Several details above come from a single source or from sources that disagree, and the checklist below should help anyone repeating them.

• The count of eight royal, three proprietary and two corporate colonies.
• The exact date of the first Virginia House of Burgesses.
• The text of the Journal of the Continental Congress for May 15, 1776.
• The date of Virginia's Declaration of Rights (June 11 or 12) and of Delaware's constitution (September 20 against the Avalon text's September 10 and 21).
• The signing date of the Georgia charter (April 21 or June 9, 1732).
• The existence of a rejected Massachusetts draft in 1778.
• The replacement dates for the Georgia and New Hampshire frames.

None of these changes the main story, but each should be checked in the official record before it is quoted in a news story or a speech.

Key Documents

The table lists the documents this lesson relies on, with dates and the main thing each established. Every date was checked against the text or source cited in the footnotes, except where the footnotes say otherwise.

Idaho's Link to the Founding Constitutions

Idaho's own constitution speaks in the voice of the 1776 documents. Article I, section 1 says: "All men are by nature free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; pursuing happiness and securing safety." Section 2 says political power is inherent in the people, who have the right "to alter, reform or abolish" their government.⁴² The sentence echoes the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Massachusetts article I of 1780 discussed in this lesson. Idaho voters ratified their constitution on November 5, 1889, and the state joined the Union on July 3, 1890.⁴³

State law also names these documents. Idaho Code section 33-1602 describes what public school students are to learn about the founding, and its list of key documents includes the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, the Northwest Ordinance, the Federalist papers and the Idaho Constitution.⁴⁴ The statute has been amended repeatedly, most recently in 2025 and 2026, and the subsection numbers have changed, so anyone citing it should read the current text on the Legislature's site.⁴⁴ This lesson reports what the statute says and takes no position on how it is taught.

The practical point for an Idaho reader is simple. Anyone who wants to read the Massachusetts 1780 constitution or the Virginia declaration can use this lesson as a guide to where the language came from, and to which parts of it later changed. The next lesson takes up Virginia's declaration in detail.

Using this in reporting and civic life

The reporter checking a "founders wrote it" claim

Reporter Dana Whitlock covers a county commission meeting where a speaker says the first constitutions "all" protected free speech. She checks. Pennsylvania's declaration protected speech and press, and Georgia's text protected the press and jury. But only five states had a separate declaration of rights in 1776.³¹³⁴⁴⁰ She writes "several" and links the sources, instead of repeating the sweeping claim.

The school board member reading the statute

Board member Luis Ortega is asked to approve a civics unit under Idaho Code section 33-1602. He reads the list of key documents and finds the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 on it.⁴⁴ He asks the teacher to include the original text, including article III on public Protestant teachers, and the later amendments that changed it, so students see how a founding text changes.³⁶

The city clerk answering a records question

Clerk Priya Nand gets a request for "the original charter" of her city. She explains that a charter is a document that creates a government, and shows the difference between a colonial charter, which a king granted, and a state constitution, which the people later adopted. She gives the requester a link to the Idaho Legislature's site for the state constitution.⁴²

The editor choosing a date

Editor Marcus Hale needs a date for the first state constitution. He sees January 5, 1776 for New Hampshire and July 2 for New Jersey. He notes that New Hampshire's text called itself temporary, writes "first," and links the source.²¹ He avoids a date for Delaware until a source settles the September 10 or 20 conflict.³⁰

Related lessons: The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five; Declarations of Rights.

Related Lessons

Lesson 1, The Road to Independence; Lesson 2, The Lee Resolution and the Committee; Lesson 7, Declarations of Rights; Lesson 9, The Declaration and the Constitution. For the national frame that followed, see drafting and ratification of the Articles of Confederation, and for later state-federal questions, Federalism and the States and Amending the Constitution.

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• Avalon Project, Colonial charters (Virginia 1606, Massachusetts 1629 and 1691, Maryland 1632, Connecticut 1662, Rhode Island 1663, Pennsylvania 1681)
• Avalon Project, State constitutions of 1776 to 1777
• Founders Online, Adams to Warren, May 15, 1776
• Massachusetts Legislature, Constitution of the Commonwealth
• Idaho Legislature, Idaho Constitution article I
• Idaho Legislature, Idaho Code 33-1602

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• Encyclopedia Virginia, The Virginia Constitution of 1776
• Institute for Justice, Maryland
• Institute for Justice, Delaware
• Institute for Justice, North Carolina
• Mass Moments, Massachusetts approves state constitution
• State Court Report, Massachusetts Constitution
• CT Explored, The Constitution of 1818
• State Court Report, Rhode Island constitution

Footnotes

1. The count of eight royal, three proprietary and two corporate colonies in 1776 is the standard textbook tally. This lesson could not confirm it in a source it opened (a Britannica page it read said only that royal colonies grew "from one in 1650 to eight in 1760"), so treat the count as general knowledge to be checked against a colonial-history reference.
2. State of New Hampshire, New Hampshire History, https://www.nh.gov/almanac/history.htm. Gives 1679 as the year New Hampshire became a royal province.
3. Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Company of London, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/virginia-company-of-london/. Gives the charters of April 10, 1606, May 23, 1609 and March 12, 1612, the November 18, 1618 instructions authorizing a General Assembly, and the revocation of May 24, 1624. This lesson could not confirm the July 30, 1619 date of the first meeting of the House of Burgesses in a source it opened, so it does not state it.
4. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, North Carolina Became a Royal Colony, https://www.dncr.nc.gov/blog/2016/07/25/north-carolina-became-royal-colony. Gives July 25, 1729.
5. Avalon Project, Surrender of the Government of East and West New Jersey, 1702, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nj13.asp. The accompanying note gives April 17, 1709 as the date the Queen accepted.
6. Avalon Project, The Charter of Georgia, 1732, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ga01.asp. The charter gives the Trustees lawmaking power for twenty-one years. The Avalon header gives June 9, while the Georgia Encyclopedia gives April 21, 1732 as the signing date, so this lesson cites the year only.
7. New Georgia Encyclopedia, Trustee Georgia, 1732-1752, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/trustee-georgia-1732-1752. Gives the first elected assembly of January 14, 1751 and the Trustees' last meeting of June 23, 1752.
8. Avalon Project, The Charter of Maryland, 1632, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ma01.asp. Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, is made "true and absolute Lords and Proprietaries," with laws to be made "with the Advice, Assent, and Approbation of the Free-Men."
9. Avalon Project, The Charter of Pennsylvania, 1681, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa01.asp. William Penn is made "true and absolute Proprietarie."
10. Avalon Project, The First Charter of Virginia, April 10, 1606, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va01.asp. The clause quoted says the king's subjects and their children born in the colonies "shall HAVE and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises, and Immunities" as if "abiding and born, within this our Realm of England."
11. Avalon Project, Charter of Connecticut, 1662, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ct03.asp. The text provides one governor, one deputy governor and twelve assistants chosen from the freemen of the Company, and confirms that colonists keep the liberties of subjects born in England.
12. Avalon Project, The Charter of Massachusetts Bay, 1629, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass03.asp. The grant is to a "Governor and Company."
13. Avalon Project, The Charter of Massachusetts Bay, 1691, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass07.asp. The text has the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary "appointed and Commissionated" by the Crown, a council of 28, laws subject to disallowance by the Privy Council within three years, and a liberty of conscience clause.
14. Avalon Project, Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1663, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ri04.asp. The text provides one governor, one deputy governor and ten assistants chosen from the freemen, and says no person shall be "molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinione in matters of religion" if he does not disturb the civil peace.
15. Rhode Island Secretary of State, Rhode Island Timeline 1600-1800, https://docs.sos.ri.gov/documents/civicsandeducation/Rhode-Island-Timeline-1600-1800.pdf. Gives the Act of Renunciation of May 4, 1776.
16. Connecticut History, An Orderly, Decent Government: A New State, a New Constitution, 1776-1818, https://connecticuthistory.org/an-orderly-decent-government-a-new-state-a-new-constitution-1776-1818/.
17. State Court Report, Rhode Island's Constitution, https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/rhode-island-constitution-royal-charter-and-modern-constitutional. Source for the use of the 1663 charter until the 1843 constitution, the Dorr Rebellion of 1841 and 1842, and the property rules for naturalized citizens that lasted until 1888.
18. Avalon Project, Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, 1669, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nc05.asp, and Charter of Carolina, 1663, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nc01.asp.
19. Avalon Project, Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 1701, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa07.asp.
20. New York State Senate, Historical Timeline, https://www.nysenate.gov/historical-timeline. Gives the 1664 grant to the Duke of York, the October 1683 Charter of Liberties, its rejection after the Duke became James II in 1685, the abolition of the Assembly in 1686, the provincial congress action of July 1776 and the April 20, 1777 constitution.
21. Avalon Project, New Hampshire Constitution, January 5, 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nh09.asp. The text describes itself as a government for "the present unhappy and unnatural contest."
22. Avalon Project, South Carolina Constitution, March 26, 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/sc01.asp.
23. Avalon Project, South Carolina Constitution, 1778, %s18th_century/sc02.asp; and the South Carolina chronology of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution, https://csac.history.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/281/2023/12/DC9-08-00-02_S.C.-Chronology.pdf. The chronology records that President John Rutledge vetoed the new constitution and resigned on March 5, 1778 and that Rawlins Lowndes signed it on March 19, 1778.
24. Founders Online, John Adams, Autobiography, note on the resolutions of May 10, 1776, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/01-03-02-0016-0116. The resolution is quoted from that page, which also names the committee of Adams, Edward Rutledge and Richard Henry Lee. This lesson could not open the Library of Congress text of the Journal of the Continental Congress (the site returned an access error), so the wording of the May 15 preamble rests on Adams's letter and the U.S. Code note below.
25. Founders Online, John Adams to James Warren, May 15, 1776, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0079. Adams quotes the preamble's phrases about authority "under the Said Crown" being "totally Suppressed" and powers of government under the authority of the people, and calls the day's vote "the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America." A letter written the same day, not a recollection from years later.
26. U.S. House Office of the Law Revision Counsel, The Organic Laws of the United States, note on the Declaration of Independence, https://uscode.house.gov/static/independence.pdf. Summarizes the resolutions of May 10 and the preamble agreed to on May 15, 1776.
27. Avalon Project, Virginia Resolutions for Independence, May 15, 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/const02.asp. The convention "Resolved, unanimously" to instruct its delegates, and named a committee to prepare "a Declaration of Rights, and such a plan of Government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this Colony, and secure substantial and equal liberty to the people."
28. Encyclopedia Virginia, The Virginia Constitution of 1776, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/the-virginia-constitution-of-1776/. Source for the dates (Declaration of Rights June 12, constitution June 29, Henry's oath July 6), the structure, the suffrage rule, the length of about 3,450 words, and the observation that only Pennsylvania and Georgia briefly dispensed with two houses. The Princeton Jefferson Papers exhibit on the Declaration of Rights gives June 11 for the vote on the Declaration, a one-day discrepancy this lesson could not resolve.
29. Avalon Project, New Jersey Constitution, July 2, 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nj15.asp. Source for the Council and Assembly, the annual election of the governor by joint ballot, the "fifty pounds" voter qualification, the religion articles, the common law and jury article, and the closing clause that the charter would be "null and void" if reconciliation took place.
30. Avalon Project, Delaware Constitution of 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/de02.asp; and Institute for Justice, Delaware: Inviolate Rights in a Violate Time, https://ij.org/cje-post/delaware-inviolate-rights-in-a-violate-time/. The Institute gives September 11 for the Declaration of Rights and September 20, 1776 for the constitution. The Avalon text prints "Friday, September 10" and a proclamation on September 21, which cannot both be right because September 20, 1776 fell on a Friday. This lesson uses September 20.
31. Avalon Project, Constitution of Pennsylvania, September 28, 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/pa08.asp. Source for the sixteen-article Declaration of Rights, the forty-seven sections of the Frame, the one-house Assembly, the Supreme Executive Council, the franchise (section 6), the religious declaration (section 10), open doors (section 13), publication of bills (section 15), schools (section 44) and the Council of Censors (section 47).
32. Avalon Project, Maryland Constitution of 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ma02.asp; and Institute for Justice, Maryland: You Want Rights, We've Got Rights, https://ij.org/cje-post/maryland-you-want-rights-weve-got-rights/. Source for the convention dates of August 14 to November 11, 1776, the 42 articles of the Declaration, the Senate of 15 chosen by electors, the governor's property qualification and the religious qualification for office.
33. Avalon Project, North Carolina Constitution of 1776, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nc07.asp; and Institute for Justice, North Carolina: Waiting Until Rights Are Right, https://ij.org/cje-post/north-carolina-waiting-until-rights-are-right/.
34. Avalon Project, Constitution of Georgia, 1777, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ga02.asp. The text requires representatives to be "of the Protestent religion" (art. 6), and the voter rule is in art. 9. This lesson did not verify the year the constitution was replaced.
35. Avalon Project, Constitution of New York, 1777, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ny01.asp. The preamble recites the Declaration of Independence and the convention's approval of July 9, 1776.
36. Massachusetts Legislature, Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution. The original wording of Articles I, II, III and XXX and of Part II is quoted from this page. Article I was changed from "All men" to "All people" by Amendment CVI (1976).
37. Mass Moments, Massachusetts Approves State Constitution, https://massmoments.org/moment-details/massachusetts-approves-state-constitution.html; and State Court Report, The Massachusetts Constitution, https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/massachusetts-constitution-oldest-united-states-and-often-ahead-its-time. Sources for the convention of September 1, 1779, Adams's drafting, the town votes, the ratification of June 1780, the October 25, 1780 start, the Quock Walker cases and Chief Justice Cushing's 1783 charge. The sources give June 15 or 16 for the declaration of ratification. The State Court Report page also mentions a rejected 1778 draft, which this lesson could not confirm elsewhere.
38. Avalon Project, Constitution of Vermont, July 8, 1777, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/vt01.asp.
39. Rutgers Center for Civic Education, New Jersey's First Constitution, 1776, https://civiced.rutgers.edu/nj-lessons/secondary/secondary-article/512-new-jerseys-first-constitution-1776; and JSTOR Daily, New Jersey Let Some Women Vote from 1776 to 1807, https://daily.jstor.org/new-jersey-let-some-women-vote-from-1776-to-1807. Historians disagree on whether the wording was meant to include women.
40. Anthony Sanders, Institute for Justice, Rights in 1776 Without Declarations, April 7, 2026, https://ij.org/cje-post/rights-in-1776-without-declarations-declarations-of-rights-after-1776/. A summary of rights provisions in states whose 1776 constitutions had no separate declaration.
41. CT Explored, What We Got in the Constitution of 1818, https://www.ctexplored.org/what-we-got-in-the-constitution-of-1818/; and Today in Connecticut History, October 12, https://todayincthistory.com/2025/10/12/october-12-connecticuts-1st-written-constitution-goes-into-effect-opponents-cry-foul/. Source for the convention vote of 134 to 61 on September 15, the popular vote of 13,918 to 12,364 on October 5 and the proclamation of October 12, 1818.
42. Idaho Legislature, Idaho Constitution art. I, sec. 1, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtI/Sect1; and sec. 2, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtI/Sect2.
43. Idaho State Historical Society, Constitutional Convention and Ratification, https://history.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/0476_Constitutional-Convention-and-Ratification.pdf. Gives November 5, 1889 for ratification and July 3, 1890 for statehood.
44. Idaho Legislature, Idaho Code sec. 33-1602, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title33/T33CH16/SECT33-1602. The history line on the page ends "am. 2025, ch. 279" and "am. 2026, ch. 317." Check the current text before relying on a subsection number.