Jefferson Davis Illustrates Original Relationships Of The States

"This is a passage from The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis. Here he describes the period between the ratification of the Constitution by 11 of the 13 States, when Rhode Island and North Carolina remained independent nations. The purpose of this passage and letter between the Governor of Rhode Island and President George Washington was to demonstrate how individual States did in fact consider themselves sovereign and independent at the time of the Ratification, and the Nationalist school of the founding of the country was a later distortion, and that the compact theory of the formation of the United States is most valid:"