assembled, by their deputies, empowered by the Paramount authority of each, to make it. The Declaration was not that they were to be one State, as New Hampshire had instructed her representatives to make it,* but, in their own language, "thirteen free, Sovereign and Independent States." This was in strict accordance with the instructions of their constituents. The people of the several Colonies would not consent for a Declaration to be made in any other way. This appears from the instructions of all the Colonies or States except New Hampshire. In their several instructions and powers for the Declaration of Independence, were instructions and powers for forming a Confederation of Independent States. So universal was this sentiment, that Richard Henry Lee's first motion for the Declaration of Independence, early in June, was not only for Independence, but farther-for "a plan of Confederation, to be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation."

The plan for a Confederation of separate Independent Sovereign States, was moved in the very resolution which

* Bancroft, vol. viii, p. 438. † Bancroft, vol. viii, pp. 378, 437. ‡ Bancroft, vol. viii, p. 389.

The following contains the instructions and powers given by Maryland to her deputies in Congress :

"We, the Delegates of Maryland, in Convention assembled, do declare that the King of Great Britain has violated his compact with this people, and that they owe no allegiance to him. We have, therefore, thought it just and necessary to empower our Deputies in Congress to join with a majority of the United Colonies in declaring them free and independent States, in framing such further Confederation between them, in.making foreign alliances, and in adopting such other measures as shall be judged necessary for the preservation of their liberties :

“Provided, the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal polity and government of this Colony be reserved to the people thereof.

We have also thought proper to call a new Convention for the purpose of establishing a Government in this Colony.”

proposed the Declaration of their Independence. And subsequently, on the 24th of June, 1776, the Congress declared, by resolution, that "all persons abiding within any of the United Colonies and deriving protection from the laws of the same, owed allegiance to the said laws, and were members of such Colony; and that all persons passing through, or making a temporary stay in any of the Colonies being entitled to the protection of the laws, during the time of such passage, visitation, or temporary stay, owed, during the same, allegiance thereto.*

Hence, with these views and objects, after enumerating the causes which induced the people of each Colony, as a separate political body, or one people, to take the course they did, this unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States, was in these words: "We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled (that is of the States thus united in Congress assembled), appealing to the Supreme Judge of all the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

And for the support of

this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

* Journals, ii. 216; Curtis's History of the Constitution, vol. i, p. 52.

The Declaration was then signed by the delegates from each Colony or State, separately, each delegation acting in behalf and by the Paramount authority of each State severally and respectively.

Judge Story says that this Declaration has always been treated as an act of Paramount and Sovereign authority, complete and perfect per se, and ipso facto, working an entire dissolution of all political connection with and allegiance to Great Britain. This is certainly true to the letter. He very cautiously, however, abstains from stating, by whose Paramount and Sovereign authority it was done, and to what Paramount authority allegiance under it was due, and declared to be due, by the States themselves in Congress assembled. We have seen that it was done by the authority of each State severally and respectively, and that the allegiance of the citizens of each was declared to be due to each severally and respectively.

Strange, indeed, is it, that Judge Story should assert, as he does, "that we have seen that the power to do this act was not derived from the State Governments, nor was it done generally with their co-operation." This language is exceedingly ambiguous. If he meant that it had been seen that the act was not done by the authority, nor with the co-operation of the Royal Charter Governments, no fact is more readily admitted; and none could be stated, less relevant, or less pertinent; but, if he meant to say that it was not done entirely by the authority of the new Revolutionary Governments, erected in each State by virtue of the asserted Sovereignty of the People thereof, respectively, then, his statement is utterly unsustained by the record itself, as well as in direct conflict with the whole history of the times. The Delegates themselves say, in the paper signed by them, that it was

done in the name, and by the authority, of the People of the Colonies. That is, the Sovereign authority of the People of each Colony, respectively. For not one of them had any authority to speak for the People of any Colony, except the one he was delegated to represent; nor did any one assume or presume to speak for his own Colony, until empowered to do so. The object of Judge Story seems to have been to produce the impression, without positively stating the fact so in truth to be, that the Declaration of Independence was a National act. That it was not made by the States, as States, but by an assembly of men, assuming to speak for the American Colonists as one People or Nation; and that, too, without any authority whatever, except their own assumed powers. This is clearly the purport of the concluding part of what you read from him. The language used by him is most remarkable, coming from such a source. "The question," says he, "then naturally presents itself, if it is to be considered a National act [he does not affirm that it was, but says if it is to be considered so], in what manner did the Colonies become a Nation, and in what manner did Congress become possessed of this National power? The true answer [that is, if it is to be considered so, he goes on to say] must be that, as soon as Congress assumed powers and passed measures which were National, to that extent, the people, from whose acquiescence and consent they took effect, must be considered as agreeing to form a Nation!"

Such an argument and such a conclusion, founded upon such an IF, you must allow me to say, require all Judge Story's reputation, to entitle them to even a moment's notice, or to elevate them to the dignity of serious consideration.

You will please excuse me, Judge, for speaking so of an

argument presented by the founder of your school of Politics. I mean no detraction from his real merits. He was, truly, a very great man, in many respects. I knew him well, and esteemed him highly. He was a man of most charming manners, and of extraordinary attainments in many departments of learning; he was an accomplished lawyer and a profound Jurist. He was an ornament to the Supreme Court Bench, and an honor to the country and the age in which he lived. He had, however, little to do with Politics. He was, in no sense, a Statesman. The science of Government was not the one in which his abilities shone to advantage; and hard pressed, indeed, must he have been in his efforts to prove that the whole People of the United States now constitute one Nation, when he was compelled to resort to such logic, to establish so great and so important an historical fact! He was, however, lawyer enough to know that, if it could not be thus established, it could not be established at all. He knew that, if it be once admitted that the States severally were ever Sovereign, they are so still, or were up to the beginning of this war which was waged against the assertion of this right. He so frankly asserts in a subsequent part of his treatise, as we shall see as we advance. It was exceedingly important, therefore, for the establishment of his theory of a unity of the people now as one Nation, to get a conclusion somehow, that the States were never separately Sovereign. But nothing is easier to be done, than to show that his conclusion, so drawn, from premises of the imagination entirely, has not a solitary fact to stand

upon.

Our history at this period rests not upon legends or fables. That Congress itself did not regard their act as the result of assumed, or unauthorized powers, their acts