"From the error of other nations, let us learn wisdom"
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
"What I find outstanding about the American War of Independence, sometimes referred to as the First American Revolution (though I would argue there was little revolutionary about it), is in the failure of the colonies to unify initially in a meaningful way. There were These United States, with a congress which one would assume to control the entire claimed country. It made treaties and fought wars, but if you look at the history, the United States were independent actors who could agree on some things, but there were armed conflicts between the states. Look at the Connecticut Land Wars, as well as smaller skirmishes like the Battle of Vorhees in New Jersey, or the White Oak Massacre in New Hampshire to name a few. The United States, as in the Congress put forth by the Articles of Confederation, was complicit in the execution of the war, even when Great Britain intervened on the side of Connecticut. It was the Treaty of New Hope (1789) which laid out the new internal borders which would create disaster further down the line.
Virginia was the major winner of the New Hope Order, arguably even moreso than Connecticut. Virginian Cotton provided the New England textile mills; with the Potomac Canal at Latrobe, Virginia's newfound control of the Youghiogheny River made it the only all-water route to the Trans-Appalachian frontier; its junior partner, Maryland, was dominant over the Delaware Bay states, and it dominated the US Congress, both in a demographic sense and also in the fact that the Senate in Fredericksburg is on Virginian soil, and reliant on a Virginian police force. In the New Hope Order, the mid-Atlantic states are too weak to do serious harm, and New England is distracted with other commercial ventures to care too much about Virginian powers. Early Post-colonial Virginia was a powerhouse on the continent, with almost three million people by the time of the Second Revolution. Still, it failed to unite the United States.
Some have pointed to the uniformity of the ruling classes in the Thirteen colonies as a way through which they could've united. Though the American Independence War was a bourgeoisie enterprise, the reality created by independence showed not all of their interests where aligned, enough to open a wedge between them. These were not necessarily homogeneous societies, with clear divisions by religion, class, and ancestry, and these differences only grew over time, and were often reaffirmed by political organizations and societal narratives. The Continental Army has always been a unifying factor on the continent, though its role would be a custodian of the Republic until the latter half of the 19th century. It would only be after the Tricolor Cross Movements and Second Revolution that a unifying American narrative would again emerge among the laymen. Even then, the unification wouldn't last forever or be as whole as George Washington might've imagined when he lay his sword to rest in 1783."
Martin Petain, on the American War of Independence