The state constitutions adopted in the colonies did not in general make any provision for union under a federal government. In legal effect each colony, when its relations with the parent government were severed, became an independent state, and for the time being a sovereign state; and the earliest attempts at any concerted action among the states were based on the mutual consent to the exercise by a body of delegates appointed from the different states of authority to act for the states in matters of common interest. The Continental Congress, which adopted the Declaration of Independence, and under whose authority the War of Independence was inaugurated and carried on, was made up of delegates chosen by the state legislatures, and was therefore a body without power to control the action of the states, except so far as they saw fit to abide by and conform to its recommendations. It was practically an advisory body.

As a matter of fact, however, the states, although theoretically independent, and each in itself a complete sovereign, did not attempt to exercise all the powers of independent sovereignties. No one of them made war on its own account, sent ambassadors to any foreign government, or received representatives of such government. Nor did they have with one another the relations which usually exist among states independent of and foreign to each other. While it is true that the states are still regarded in law as foreign to each other, so far as their jurisdictions, laws, and affairs are concerned (see below, § 188), they do not occupy towards one another, nor towards foreign nations, the relations of sovereign and independent states. Their relations towards each other are now determined by the fact that their people are bound together under a common federal government; but during the transition period from independence to the establishment of the federal government they were in the anomalous position of theoretically possessing, but not practically exercising, all the powers of independent sovereignty.