One profound way in which the 24 years had changed Americans resided in seeing their nation move from being a colony of England to its own independent nation.  Americans themselves had changed from supporting England as a colony to demanding its own notion of freedom and independence.  In 1763, the Treaty of Paris effectively ended the French and Indian War.  This was a conflict in which the Colonists willingly supported the British in their battles through money, military support, and through political unity.  From this point, the relationship between both nations deteriorated.  This entropy in relations enabled Americans to develop their own identity and their own sense of autonomy to directly challenge British rule.  In the forms of protests, writings, speeches, uprisings, and violence, the Colonists changed to Americans.  Petitions against the Stamp Act, protests in the form of the Boston Massacre, uprisings such as the Boston Tea Party, writings such as the the Declaration of Independence, and engaging in conflict such as the American Revolution all fundamentally changed Americans. They were now able to stand on their own against the British. They saw themselves as fundamentally different than the way they were before 1763.   Being able to defeat the mighty British armed forces catapulted Americans to believe that they could be their own nation and their own people.  

Another way in which Americans changed from 1763 to 1787 was in the form of political governance.  Being able to see themselves as more than mere extensions of the British Empire to actual and independent states to a nation guided by the Constitution involved significant change in self- perception.  Americans had seen the dangers in a government that was not limited by individual rights and checks and balances in the form of King George.  They had also seen the results of a political system that became "a loose confederation of states" in the Articles of Confederation.  Through debate and discourse at the Constitutional Convention, Americans formed a new government that lasts to this day.  In being able to see political change in the form of institutional evolution, the political self- identity of Americans changed in 24 years.