ABSTRACT
The civil war that erupted in 1775 progressed into a war for independence. The separation from ties to the British government, evident from the creation of the extra-legal local committees, provincial conventions and assemblies, and a Continental Congress, necessitated a transformation of the colonies into states. As Thomas Paine's Common Sense stated, it was an absurdity for a people, three thousand miles distant, to give allegiance to a monarchy that made war upon them or seem to support what was perceived as a decadent, corrupt political system of the mother country.
