Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/133

Rh portions of the United States, yet it was proposed that this rule should be applied only to &quot;the western boundaries of such States as claim to the Mississippi or the South Seas.&quot; In its general application it would have been resisted by every State, and even by Maryland itself. If it applied to the crown lands, it must equally apply to proprietary rights; yet Maryland confiscated the proprietary rights and quit rents, and never proposed that the United States should inherit them. If it applied to lands, it must apply to all other species of property. If it applied to property, it must apply to all other rights and powers of the crown, and a general government, as yet unborn, was heir to all the rights and powers of the British crown. If this doctrine prevailed, what was the use of framing articles of confederation? Why was unanimous consent required? There was already a nebulous sovereignty whom nobody could locate, inheritor of the crown, and king of America.

The sentiments of the people of the United States could be reconciled to no such doctrine, in whole or in part. The strong common sense of their representatives had declared, not that all political connection between the states and Great Britain has descended to an heir, but that it &quot;is totally dissolved.&quot; They inherited no general government, they created one, and took five years to frame one to suit them. After a discussion as to whether it were better to form a confederation before declaring independence, it was decided to declare independence first; in order that the free and independent States, and not the English colonies, might determine the conditions of permanent union. When this Confederation was established, it was vested with rights and powers conferred and defined by the States, and possessed not a trace of hereditary rights or powers descended from the British crown. The claim that Congress inherited from the British crown the right to limit the boundaries of the several States or to sequester lands, whether