There actually was a debate over this in Virginia at the time. Some said Virginia was in a state of nature (Patrick Henry was among them), and some said it wasn’t (this was Jefferson’s position). In general, the states kept their colonial systems, merely substituting loyalty to the state for loyalty to the king. This was what Jefferson had forecast in A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which was built on the foundation of his cousin Richard Bland’s account of the settlement of the North American colonies; key was the claim of a natural right to emigrate.
