Page:Nature and Character of our Federal Government.djvu/39

 itself, and were the representatives of that colony alone, and not of any other colony, or any nation de facto or de jure. The assertion, therefore, that "the congress thus assembled exercised de facto and de jure a sovereign authority, not as the delegated agents of the government de facto of the colonies, but in virtue of the original powers derived from the people," is, to say the least of it, very bold, in one who had undoubtedly explored all the sources of information upon the subject. Until the adoption of the articles of confederation congress had no "original powers," except only for deliberation and advisement, and claimed no "sovereign authority " whatever. It was an occasional, and not a permanent body, or one renewable from time to time. Although they did, in many instances, "exercise de facto" a *power of legislation to a certain extent, yet they never held that power "de jure," by any grant from the colonies or the people; and their acts became valid only by subsequent confirmation of them, and not because they had any delegated authority to perform them. The whole history of the period proves this, and not a single instance can be cited to the contrary. The course of the revolutionary government throughout attests the fact, that, however the people may have occasionally acted, in pressing emergencies, without the intervention of the authorities of their respective colonial governments, they never lost sight of the fact that they were citizens of separate colonies, and never, even impliedly, surrendered that character, or acknowledged a different allegiance. In all the acts of congress, reference was had to the colonies, and never to the people. That body had no power to act directly upon the people, and could not execute its own resolves as to most purposes, except by the aid and intervention of the colonial authorities. Its measures were adopted by the votes of the colonies as such, and not by the rule, of mere numerical majority, which prevails in every legislative assembly of an entire nation. This fact alone is decisive to prove, that the members were not the representatives of the people of all the colonies, for the judgment of each colony was pronounced by its own members only, and no others had any right to mingle in their deliberations. What, then, was this "sovereign authority?" What was the nature, what the extent, of its "