The following page is dedicated to providing a timeline of important events in American History from the earliest Colonial era to present day and I will continue to add to it as events happen which positively or negatively affect the future of America. One of the main reasons I felt it necessary to provide a timeline is so that readers of this website can get a visual presentation of where we came from to exactly where we are now as a nation. The timeline is designed to highlight visually just how we have slipped from the glories of being a Republic to the falling darkness of Fascism.
1607 (May 14) - The first colony was founded in Jamestown, Virginia.
1774 (September 5) - Representatives of the colonies met in the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia and adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, to be presented to King George III of England.
1774 (May 10) - Representatives of the colonies met for a second meeting of the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia, and John Hancock of Massachusetts was chosen president.
1775 (July 3) - George Washington as Commander-in-Cheif of the Continental army officially takes command at Boston under the famous elm near Harvard University.
1776 (July 4) - Congress formally adopts the Declaration of Independence.
1777 (November 15) - Congress agrees to the Articles of Confederation with a view to permanent union "provided that the Articles should go into effect when they had received the assent of all the thirteen States."4
1781 (March 1) - The Articles of Confederation go into effect after ratification by Maryland. Meanwhile the Revolutionary War was nearing its end.
1782 (November 30) - A preliminary Treaty of Peace was signed with Great Britain.
1783 (February 16) - Pelatiah Webster of Lebanon, Connecticut issues his pamphlet entitled "A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the Thirteen United States of North America," outlining his plan for the new Constitution.
1783 (June) - General George Washington issues a circular letter to the governors of the several States, that declared "there should be lodged somewhere a supreme power to regulate the general concerns of the confederate republic, without which the Union cannot be of long duration."
1783 (September 3) - A final
Treaty of Peace was signed with Great Britain.
1785 (March 28) - General George Washington invites the joint commissioners of Virginia and Maryland to his home at Mount Vernon to arrange an agreement between the two States regarding rights of navigation in Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac. This meeting and its outcome firmed up the idea that there could not be effective regulation of commerce without the becoming a Union.
1785 (October 7) - General George Washington writes to James Warren: "The wheels of government are clogged, and...we are descending into a vale of confusion and darkness."
1785 (December 5) - A proposal is sent to the Virginia legislature, suggesting that commissioners representing all the States meet for the purpose of enacting trade regulations.
1786 (January 21) - The resolution was adopted inviting the States to appoint commissioners to meet for a Trade Regulations conference. The conditions throughout the States are continuing to grow worse.
1786 (August 1) - General George Washington writes to John Jay: "Your sentiments, that our affairs are drawing rapidly to a crisis, accord with my own...What, then is to be done?...Would to God, that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend."
1786 (September) - The Trade Regulation convention meets at Annapolis and it is during this meeting the way is cleared for the calling of a formal Constitutional Convention.
1786 (November 5) - General George Washington writes to James Madison: "No day was ever more clouded than the present...We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion...How melancholy is the reflection...What stronger evidence can be given of the want of energy in our government than these disorders?...A liberal and energetic constitution, well guarded and closely watched to prevent encroachments, might restore us."
1786 (December 26) - General George Washington writes to General Henry Knox: "I feel, my dear General Knox, infinitely more than i can express to you, for the disorders, which have arisen in these states. Good God! Who could have forseen, or predicted them?"
1787 (February 3) - General George Washington writes to General Henry Knox: "If...any person had told me that there would have been such formidable rebellion as exists, I would have thought him a bedlamite, a fit subject for a madhouse."
1787 (February 21) - Authorization for a Constitutional Convention is approved reading: "It is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigency of the government and the preservation of the Union."
1787 (May 14) - The first Constitutional Convention meets at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
1790 (June 3) - General George Washington writes to Marquis de La Fayette: "You have doubtless been informed, from time to time, of the happy progress of our affairs. The principle difficulties...seem in a great measure to have been surmounted...Our revenues have been considerably more productive than it was imagined they would be...I mentioned this to show the spirit of enterprise that prevails."
1791 (March 19) - General George Washington writes to Marquis de La Fayette: "Our country, my dear sir (and it is truly yours), is fast progressing in its political importance and social happiness."
1791 (July 19) - General George Washington writes to Catherine Macaulay Graham: "The United States enjoys a scene of prosperity and tranquility under the new government, that could hardly have been hoped for."
1791 (July 20) - General George Washington writes to David Humphreys: "Tranquility reigns among the people, with that disposition towards the general government, which is likely to preserve it...Our public credit stands on that high ground which three years ago it would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold."
As you are studying this first part of our Nation's timeline, I hope you are picking up on one particular aspect of what occurred during this time as revealed in General Washington's letters. In case you don't get it, I have taken the liberty to quote Harry Atwood in his work titled, "The Constitution Explained." With regard to Washington's letters, Mr. Atwood states the following insight, "Probably the history of the world reveals no other period of five years during which two sets of letters, describing two such totally different sets of conditions, could have truthfully been written. All historical evidence of that period confirms the description of conditions as set forth by Washington's letters. What was it that happened between the writing of these two extraordinary sets of letters? Just this: The leading men of the country were studying the governments of history from the standpoint of cause and effect, conscious of the great opportunity confronting them, and realizing the solemn responsibility of creating a new form of government that would be equal to the historic occasion and serve for all time as a basis for solving the problems of government. As a result of their labors they brought forth the document which was characterized a century later by Gladstone, who served fifty-five years in the public life of Great Britain, as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.""5
