Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/203

 CH. XVII.] afterwards surrendered her opposition. But Connecticut continued it to a later period. In a practical sense, however, the appellate jurisdiction of the king in council was in full and undisturbed exercise throughout the colonies at the time of the American Revolution; and was deemed rather a protection, than a grievance. § 177. (6.) Though the colonies had a common origin, and owed a common allegiance, and the inhabitants of each were British subjects, they had no direct political connexion with each other. Each was independent of all the others; each, in a limited sense, was sovereign within its own territory. There was neither alliance nor confederacy between them. The assembly of one province could not make laws for another; nor confer privileges, which were to be enjoyed or exercised in another, farther than they could be in any independent foreign state. As colonies, they were also excluded from all connexions with foreign states. They were known only as dependencies; and they followed the fate of the parent country both in peace and war, without having assigned to them, in the intercourse or diplomacy of nations, any distinct or independent existence.