Page:Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson.djvu/40

 that the delegates united in a general Congress, in some of their ordinary proceedings, and for brevity's sake, may perhaps have spoken of themselves as the delegates of the United Colonies, yet in all solemn acts they are differently described. Thus, in the most important paper which they could utter, the Commission to Gen. Washington as Commander-in-Chief, granted on the 17th June, 1775, they style themselves "The Delegates of the United Colonies of New Hampshire," etc., (naming each, as before), and by that name, and in that character, grant to him all the rights and authorities which he then acquired. Therefore, the President seems to have as little ground for bestowing this new name of the United Colonies of America upon all the revolted Colonies or Colonists of that day, as he has to bestow upon the Colonists any such aggregate character as that under which he is supposed to assert that they were then known.

Whether by the declaration of independence, uttered in 1776, either in the manner in which "that decisive and important step was taken," or in the language of that instrument, "we declared ourselves a Nation," and so annulled or prevented all the sovereign rights of the States, is a question I should have examined in this number, except for the reason I have before stated. But, Mr. Editor, I have already occupied so much of your space, that I must not intrude upon it at present, further than to say, that this declaration, being the first act which occurs in our history, that can be, or is supposed to annul any of the Sovereign rights of the States, its minute examination made a part of my original plan, which will be prosecuted in my next number.