Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/142

126 of his reign. The colonies were taxed internally and externally; their essential interests sacrificed to individuals in Great Britain; their Legislatures suspended; charters annulled; trials by juries taken away; their persons subjected to transportation across the Atlantic, and to trial before foreign judicatories; their supplications for redress thought beneath answer; themselves published as cowards in the councils of their mother country and courts of Europe; armed troops sent among them to enforce submission to these violences; and actual hostilities commenced against them. No alternative was presented but resistance, or unconditional submission. Between these could be no hesitation. They closed in the appeal to arms. They declared themselves independent States. They confederated together into one great Republic; thus securing to every State the benefit of an union of their whole force. In each State separately a new form of government was established. Of ours particularly the following are the outlines. The Executive powers are lodged in the hands of a Governor, chosen annually, and incapable of acting more than three years in seven. He is assisted by a Council of eight members. The judiciary powers are divided among several courts, as will be hereafter explained. Legislation is exercised by two houses of assembly, the one called the House of Delegates, composed of two members from each county, chosen annually by the citizens possessing an estate for life in 100 acres of uninhabited land, or 25 acres with a house on it, or in a house or lot in some town: the other called the Senate, consisting of 24 members, chosen quadrennially by the same electors, who for this purpose are distributed into 24 districts. The concurrence of both houses is necessary to the passage of a law. They have the appointment of the Governor and Council, the Judges of the Superior Courts, Auditors, Attorney General, Treasurer, Register of the Land Office, and Delegates to Congress. As the dismemberment of the State had never had its confirmation, but, on the contrary, had always been the subject of