With the ideas of revolution stirring the first continental congress was formed and met in 1774 and discussed their impending relationship with Great Britain. Revolution ended up being the relationship between the two, which promptly broke out as the Revolutionary War in 1775. The second continental congress met again in 1776 and wrote and signed the Declaration on Independence on the 4th of July that year marking its place in American history as a national holiday. Of course if arguments were finished after one side makes a bold declaration on a piece of paper that would be quite a different history but the war waged on until 1783. Since the Declaration many of the states adopted their own "constitutions", other maintained reliance on their colonial charters. But there no tangible form of national government, there was a start, the "Articles of Confederation" in 1781 but was fairly vague and referred to as a basic "league of friendship." Although basic it was a solid point for forming the American government, proving so by maintaining the previous congress and facilitating the treaty with Britain that occurred in 1783 in Paris. But the gaps needed to be addressed and were backburnered until shortly before 1787 when it was decided that a more comprehensive form of national government needed to be formalized on paper, which after much delegation and compromise (between plans proposed by Virginia and New Jersey) was manifested as the "Constitution of the United States of America" later that year, and signed September 17th, 1787. Between the time of signing and spring of 1790, there were many debates in order to get all the states to agree to the new document. Many people felt that the document didn't address their personal liberties, so soon after people of this thought (Anti-Federalists) weren't as supportive as they needed to be in order to get a national government to work.
