Apostolic Prefecture of the United States Apostolic Prefecture of the United States The Apostolic Prefecture of the United States () was the earliest Roman Catholic ecclesiastical jurisdiction to be officially recognized after the United States declared independence in 1776. Before and during the American Revolutionary War, the Catholics in the Thirteen Colonies (not including Canada) were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of the London District in England. The war was formally ended by the Treaty of Paris, which was signed on September 3, 1783, and was ratified by the Congress of the Confederation (of the newly independent United States of
Republicanism in the United Kingdom more important than independence. However, the circumstances forced the American revolutionaries to give up any hope of reconciliation with Britain, and reforming its 'corrupt' monarchial government, that so often dragged the American colonies in its European wars, from within. He and other British republican writers saw in the Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776) a legitimate struggle against the Crown, that violated people's freedom and rights, and denied them representation in politics. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, debates started in the British Isles on how to respond. Soon a pro-Revolutionary republican and anti-Revolutionary monarchist camp had established