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TJie Green Bag. THE COURT AND BAR OF COLONIAL VIRGINIA. BY BUSHROD C. WASHINGTON.

TO the antiquities and archives of " The Old Dominion," the Colony and Com monwealth of Virginia, surnamed " The Mother of States and Statesmen," the anti quarian and historian instinctively turn to discover the earliest facts concerning the first English settlement in the Western Hemisphere, and the incidents following, which brought to birth the American Re public. The needs of trade, which made desirable a northwestern route to India, incited the spirit of discovery which resulted in the great find of Christopher Columbus under the auspices of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. To the Spaniard, therefore, the world is indebted for that new lease upon its life acquired by the discovery of its other and as we think better half. It was for the Anglo-Saxon, however, to follow in his wake, and planting his standard upon the Northern Continent, to dominate it with that civilization, expressed in the general term, " British Institutions." Chief among these was that safeguard to the rights of humanity embodied in the stat utory and common laws of England, affirmed and secured in Afngna Charta. Accompanied as it was by the Christian religion, and that with the minimum of dogma at that time possible, this priceless inheritance of Englishmen was first trans ferred to the New World with the colony founded at Jamestown, Virginia. The principles of civil and religious lib erty, fettered for a time by the restraints of European surroundings, where still was rev erenced "the divine right of kings," intro duced to the pure environment of a new world, became an irresistible force in estab lishing and protecting the yet diviner rights of man.

But if to the Spaniard is accredited the discovery of the continent, and to the Eng lishman the introduction of Anglo-Saxon blood and civilization into it, it remained for the American, upon the soil of Virginia, to formulate and present to the world theyirr/ written constitution for a commonwealth of free people. ' It was this trinity of events that made possible our country and its unique social order. While the commonwealth of Virginia was imperial in the reaches of her domain, in variety of climate and soil, in wealth of for estry and mine, in rivers and harbors, and all that land and water yield as contributions to the material prosperity of a State, while from her ample bosom, as a largess to the Nation, she donated territory from which was created four great States and part of the District, the seat of the national govern ment, it is not in these that she laid claim to greatness. Her wealth and pride has ever been her people. It is not the elements of material wealth and power alone that constitute a State, but men, — " men who know their rights and knowing dare maintain." Of such were the statesmen, jurists and soldiers upon whom the ancient colony and the later Commonwealth relied in every emergency, and they never failed her. No table among them were those, who, learned in the principles of law, and conversant with the ancient charters, may be said to have composed the Bar of Colonial Virginia. Heredity and environment, those prime factors in the development of men, united 'The Declaration of Rights and Constitution of Vir ginia, which by unanimous vote passed the Virginia laration House ofofBurgesses, Independence June is29,said 1776, to have after been whichmodeled. the IJec-