| Peyton Randolph, Virginia | 5th Sept., | 1774 |
| Henry Middleton, South Carolina | 22d Oct., | 1774 |
| Peyton Randolph, Virginia | 10th May, | 1775 |
| John Hancock, Massachusetts | 24th May, | 1775 |
| Henry Laurens, South Carolina | 1st Nov., | 1777 |
| John Jay, New York | 10th Dec., | 1778 |
| Samuel Huntingdon, Connecticut | 28th Sept., | 1779 |
| Thomas McKean, Delaware | 10th July, | 1781 |
| John Hanson, Maryland | 5th Nov., | 1781 |
| Elias Boudinot, New Jersey | 4th ” | 1782 |
| Thomas Mifflin, Pennsylvania | 3d ” | 1783 |
| Richard Henry Lee, Virginia | 30th ” | 1784 |
| Nathaniel Gorham, Massachusetts | 6th Jan., | 1786 |
| Arthur St. Clair, Pennsylvania | 2d Feb., | 1787 |
| Cyrus Griffin, Virginia | 22d Jan., | 1788 |
The seat of government was established as follows: At Philadelphia, Pa., commencing September 5th, 1774, and May 10th, 1775; at Baltimore, Md., December 20th, 1776; at Philadelphia, Pa., March 4th, 1777; at Lancaster, Pa., September 27th, 1777; at York, Pa., September 30th, 1777; at Philadelphia, Pa., July 2d, 1778; at Princeton, N. J., June 30th, 1783; at Annapolis, Md., November 26th, 1783; at Trenton, N. J., November 1st, 1784; and at New York City, N. Y., January 11th, 1785.
On the 4th of March, 1789, the present Constitution, which had been adopted by a convention and ratified by the requisite number of States, went into operation.
PART SECOND.
THE GOVERNMENT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.
The plan of this part of our work requires us to give a complete view of the government of the United States, and in such detail as to be adequate to all the purposes of the citizen and the student who wish to understand its structure and modes of working. It will be found, we think, a clear, concise, and complete account of what it is indispensable to the American to know.
There are three branches, each independent, having its sphere of general action entirely distinct, and clearly defined by the Constitution; yet working in harmony with the others, and locking in, so to speak, with them at special points, like the cogs of a system of wheels. The adjustment was more perfect than the authors of the Constitution themselves believed; probably because the spirit of the whole was in harmony with the people whose interests it was designed to guard.
These three branches are the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial. All the institutions or general subdivisions of each are given in connection, with such explanations and data as they seem to require. We commence with the Executive, as being most immediately in contact with the people at large, having a wider field, and a larger number of distinct organizations and agents. This branch exhausted, we present the Legislative, and finally the Judicial, closing with such matters as belong to the government as a whole.
No human government is perfect, neither can exact and equal justice be done in every case by human laws. But the scope and design of our legislation and jurisprudence is to dispense justice to all, to place all on an equality before the laws, and to give the same rights to the rich and to the poor. No privileged class is known to our laws, and the lowest may aspire to the highest places of distinction and honor; many have done so, and have reached the most exalted positions. The fullest religious liberty is granted to all; every man may worship as he pleases, when and where he pleases, without molestation or fear. He is not, as in many other countries, taxed to support a church established by law. He may pay for religious purposes as much or as little as he pleases, and to any church he prefers, or he may pay nothing, and no one can call him to account or use any compulsion whatever in this matter.