The American Revolution was very disruptive to the Episcopal churches in the United States. There had been no Anglican dioceses or bishops in the 13 colonies before the Revolution, thus when the American congregations were separated from the Church of England, "the chain which held them together broken". In 1782, William White, the father of the Episcopal Church, wrote in his pamphlet "The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered", "it would seem, that their future continuance can be provided for only by voluntary associations for union and good government". In America, the central unit of the church would be the congregation, rather than the diocese. White, a disciple of John Locke, believed that the church, like the state, should be a democracy. He proposed that congregations in each state should unite to form an annual convention (as opposed to a "convocation" or "synod", terms which denote a body called together by a bishop) of clergy and lay representatives of the congregations. In White's plan, the state conventions would send representatives to three provincial conventions which would elect representatives to the General Convention every three years.