Page:Nature and Character of our Federal Government.djvu/48

 of the independence of all the colonies was the united act of all. It was 'a declaration by the representatives of the United States of America, in congress assembled;' 'by the delegates appointed by the good people of the colonies,' as, in a prior declaration of rights, they were called. It was not an act done by the State governments then organized, nor by persons chosen by them. It was emphatically the act of the whole people of the united colonies, by the instrumentality of their representatives, chosen for that, among other purposes. It was an act not competent to the State governments, or any of them, as organized under their charters, to adopt. Those charters neither contemplated the case nor provided for it. It was an act of original, inherent sovereignty by the people themselves, resulting from their right to change the form of government, and to institute a new government, whenever necessary for their safety and happiness. So the declaration of independence treats it. No State had presumed, of itself, to form a new government, or provide for the exigencies of the times, without consulting congress on the subject; and when they acted, it was in pursuance of the recommendation of congress. It was, therefore, the achievement of the whole, for the benefit of the whole. The people of the united colonies made the united colonies free and independent states, and absolved them from allegiance to the British crown. The declaration of independence has, accordingly, 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 connexion with, and allegiance to, Great Britain. And this, not merely as a practical fact, but in a legal and constitutional view of the matter by courts of justice."

The first question which this passage naturally suggests to the mind of the reader is this: if two or more nations or people, confessedly separate, distinct and independent, each having its own peculiar government, without any "direct political connexion with each other," yet owing the same allegiance to one common superior, should unite in a declaration of rights which they believed belonged to all of them alike, would that circumstance, alone, make them "one people?" Stripped of the circumstances with which the author has surrounded it, this is, at