CONSTITUTIONS OF THE SEVERAL INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA; THE Declaration of Independence; THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION THE TREATIES between HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY IN CONGRESS. DECEMBER 29, 1780. RESOLVED, THAT a Committee of three be appointed to collect, and cause to be published, two hundred correct copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, the Alliances between these United States and his Most Christian Majesty, with the Constitutions or Forms of Government of the several States, to be bound together in boards. The members chofen, Mr. Bee, Mr. Witherspoon, and Mr. Wolcott. Extract from the Minutes, CHARLES THOMPSON, Secretary. THE EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. FTER the Colonies of North America had to the Mother-Country, by their solemn Declaration of Independence, in the month of July, 1776, each of the States into which they were then divided, adopted different forms of independent governments, besides entering into a general treaty of confederation and union. These plans of new governments were completed at different times by the different States; a final fanction having been given sooner by some to that form which they chose to adopt, and later by others: thus, the constitution of the Colony of Massachusetts was not finally fettled till the month of March, 1780. The fame difference in point of time also took place in regard to the respective accessions of the new American States to the general treaty of confederation; the Colony of Maryland, for instance, having only acceded to it in the same month of March, 1780, that is, about four years after the Declaration of Independence. To these circumstances it is very probably owing, that no Collection containing the above new Constitutions, together, with the general treaty between the United States of North America, was for a long time published. At last, on the 29th of December, 1780, |