The inhabitants of each of the Thirteen States had been accustomed to a large measure of self-government, and when they took matters into their own hands they were not disposed to make any radical changes in the forms to which they had become accustomed.

Accordingly the State Governments that were adopted simply continued a framework of government almost identical with that of colonial times.

To be sure, the Governor and other appointed officials were now elected either by the people or the legislature, and so were ultimately responsible to the electors instead of to the Crown; and other changes were made which in the long run might prove of far-reaching and even of vital significance; and yet the machinery of government seemed the same as that to which the people were already accustomed.

The average man was conscious of no difference at all in the working of the Government under the new order.
In fact, in Connecticut and Rhode Island, the most democratic of all the colonies, where the people had been privileged to elect their own governors, as well as legislatures, no change whatever was necessary and the old charters were continued as State Constitutions down to 1818 and 1842, respectively.
To one who has been accustomed to believe that the separation from a monarchical government meant the establishment of democracy, a reading of these first State Constitutions is likely to cause a rude shock.
A shrewd English observer, traveling a generation later in the United States, went to the root of the whole matter in remarking of the Americans that, "When their independence was achieved their mental condition was not instantly changed.

Their deference for rank and for judicial and legislative authority continued nearly unimpaired."* They might declare that "all men are created equal," and bills of rights might assert that government rested upon the consent of the governed; but these constitutions carefully provided that such consent should come from property owners, and, in many of the States, from religious believers and even followers of the Christian faith.