Plans of American Colonial Union, 1643-1754

Government sufficiently localized to minister to a restricted community interest was the only government that the average English-American of the mid-seventeenth century saw any need of, and the only one of which he was not suspicious. Individualism was rampant and intolerant of its true kind. Every man sought to settle his problems according to his own conscience but was unwilling to allow others a similar right. Such a highly unsocial attitude did not tend to develop large units for social and political action except where economic or other social forces were strong enough to compel tolerance. The men who dared migrate from the land of their fathers to seek better economic, political, or religious adjustments were men self assertive and positive in their views.Colonization occurred at a time when it could transplant into the congenial American soil the seed of local government from the home land before it had there been so largely replaced with centralization. The rigorous pioneer conditions, the total lack of ready means of inter-colonial transportation and communication, the strongly assertive type of individuals who composed the colonies, all pointed to a prolonged period of isolated provincialism, and warned careful observers that the steps towards uniting them into a larger unit of government would be hesitating and uncertain and could only be a result of strong external pressure.