Howe’s New York focus let state constitution-making proceed elsewhere unopposed.

Evidence

The ratification of new constitutions by most states during 1776 showed the depth and breadth of the movement for American independence. When the year began, patriot leaders from the Adamses to Washington hesitated to endorse independence for fear of backlash. By year’s end, even such prominent moderates as John Dickinson suffered political exile for opposing it. With the Rhode Island and Connecticut charters (which functioned free of king and Parliament) not requiring revision and Georgia wrapping up its constitutional convention in February, only New York and Massachusetts lacked formal republican constitutions by early 1777—and those two states had borne the brunt of battle during 1776. General Howe’s strategy for 1776 of concentrating British forces first in Boston and then around New York City, and the success of patriot troops in largely confining them there, allowed independent institutions to take root elsewhere. If not yet acknowledged outside the states, within them, independence had become a normal way of everyday life and political practice. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Supports the causal argument that military strategy shaped the pace and geography of institutional state-building.