Peyton Randolph, Virginia 5th Sept., 1774 Henry Middleton, South Carolina 22d Oct., 1774 Peyton Randolph, Virginia 10th May, 1775 John Hancock, Massachusetts 24th May, 1775 Henry Laurens, South Carolina 1st Nov., 1777 John Jay, New York 10th Dec., 1778 Samuel Huntingdon, Connecticut 28th Sept., 1779 Thomas McKean, Delaware 10th July, 1781 John Hanson, Maryland 5th Nov., 1781 Elias Boudinot, New Jersey 4th ” 1782 Thomas Mifflin, Pennsylvania 3d ” 1783 Richard Henry Lee, Virginia 30th ” 1784 Nathaniel Gorham, Massachusetts 6th Jan., 1786 Arthur St. Clair, Pennsylvania 2d Feb., 1787 Cyrus Griffin, Virginia 22d Jan., 1788 The seat of government was established as follows: At Philadelphia, Pa., commencing September 5th, 1774, and May 10th, 1775; at Baltimore, Md., December 20th, 1776; at Philadelphia, Pa., March 4th, 1777; at Lancaster, Pa., September 27th, 1777; at York, Pa., September 30th, 1777; at Philadelphia, Pa., July 2d, 1778; at Princeton, N. J., June 30th, 1783; at Annapolis, Md., November 26th, 1783; at Trenton, N. J., November 1st, 1784; and at New York City, N. Y., January 11th, 1785. On the 4th of March, 1789, the present Constitution, which had been adopted by a convention and ratified by the requisite number of States, went into operation. PART SECOND. THE GOVERNMENT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. The plan of this part of our work requires us to give a complete view of the government of the United States, and in such detail as to be adequate to all the purposes of the citizen and the student who wish to understand its structure and modes of working. It will be found, we think, a clear, concise, and complete account of what it is indispensable to the American to know. There are three branches, each independent, having its sphere of general action entirely distinct, and clearly defined by the Constitution; yet working in harmony with the others, and locking in, so to speak, with them at special points, like the cogs of a system of wheels. The adjustment was more perfect than the authors of the Constitution themselves believed; probably because the spirit of the whole was in harmony with the people whose interests it was designed to guard. These three branches are the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial. All the institutions or general subdivisions of each are given in connection, with such explanations and data as they seem to require. We commence with the Executive, as being most immediately in contact with the people at large, having a wider field, and a larger number of distinct organizations and agents. This branch exhausted, we present the Legislative, and finally the Judicial, closing with such matters as belong to the government as a whole.