side prior to the Revolution.
Figures indicate that about 20% of the population in America were set against independence. "About 40 to 45 percent of the colonial population supported the struggle for independence, and were known as "Patriots" (or 'Whigs')" (Wikepedia 2005 2). While we tend to think of these Americans as "aptriots" in the modern sense of the word, at the tiome it merely defined their political leanings- opposing the status qu9o and therefore beginning both a political and military revolution to declare the united States a free and sovereign nation. The fact that the Loyalists remained faithful to the land of their origin does not, in retrospect, make them any lkess patriotic. It is merely a loaylty to a different cause- one which the American Revolution defeated and which ended up in turning thirteen separate colonies into a single unified federal government.
Morison, S.E.: Oxford History of the American People
Oxford UK: Oxford University Press (1965)
Wikepedia Online Encyclopedia "American Revolution" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
2. The Articles of Confederation were an ongoing attempt to figure out just what the new American government should be, and how it should function. Compared to the eventual Constitution it was imperfect, and more or less the idea to find a starting point that all the colonies could agree to support. "The Articles of Confederationà.were an attemptà.to grapple with this central problem of governmentàThe Articles would have secured American union for many years but for certain unfavorable circumstances and certain defects, which could not be removed because only a unanimous vote of the member states could carry an amendment" (Morison 1965 277).
Perhaps the major difference between the Articles of
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