Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/386

366 366 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. dependence being declared, as the thirteen colonies became the thirteen States, the term was of course changed to "United States." In the Declaration of Independence both terms are used.^ When the Articles of Confederation were framed, "United States of America" was declared to be the name and style of the confedera- tion created by those articles.^ This, however, had no other effect than to confirm the existing practice, and to increase the use of the term in the sense which it had already acquired; and accordingly, during the whole period of the Confederation, "United States" meant the same as "the thirteen United States," and the primary reason for using either term was to save the necessity of enumerating the thirteen States by name. Indeed, the Articles of Confederation were merely an agreement between the thirteen States in their corporate capacity, or, more correctly, an agreement by each of the thirteen States with all the others. There were, therefore, thirteen parties to the confederation, and no more, and the people of the different States as individuals had directly no relations with it. Accordingly, it was the States in their corporate capacity that voted in the Continental Congress, and not the individual members of the Congress; and hence the voting power of a State did not at all depend upon the number of its dele- gates in Congress, and in fact each State was left to determine for itself, within certain limits, how many delegates it would send.' Hence also each State had the same voting power.* Even the style of the Continental Congress was "The United States in (pp. 143, 145). Sometimes the number of United Colonies was specified, and some- times it was not. The colony of Georgia did not unite with the other twelve, and so was not represented by delegates in Congress, until the thirteenth of September, 1775 (p. 197). Prior to that date, therefore, the term used was either the United Colonies, or the twelve United Colonies, while after that date it was either the United Colonies, or the thirteen United Colonies. While this term was making its way to the front, it had a competitor (which was even earlier in the field), in the term "Continent" or "Continental," which was also much used during the war of the Revolution. Perhaps an attentive study of the Jour- nal of Congress would show that "Continent" or "Continental" was not precisely synonymous with United Colonies or United States, but it certainly was very nearly so. ^ "United Colonies" is used once, namely, in the concluding paragraph, and "United States" is used twice, namely, in the title and in the concluding paragraph. » Art. I. two delegates, nor by more than seven.
 * By the fifth article of Confederation, no State was to be represented by less than
 * Namely, each State had one vote. (Fifth Article of Confederation.)