54 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



other litigation of small consequence. The Assembly 

 deputies from those counties lying on the Ohio and 

 Kentucky feel it burdensome to come 600 miles to this 

 place, although they draw their day-money allowances ; 

 how much more of a burden must it be to private 

 persons from that country, if their own affairs call 

 them to this one seat of justice and government? They 

 not only feel this, but are already talking of the neces- 

 sity of establishing a separate government for those 

 remote parts, or at least of having a Governor of their 

 own : as indeed is the case in the province of New 

 York, where besides one Governor at New York, on 

 account of the distance and for the better keeping of 

 order there is another at Albany, 160 miles from the 

 capital. From the present form of government and 

 the opinions prevailing, it seems highly probable that 

 if those frontier regions of Virginia once get a Gov- 

 ernor of their own, they will easily go a step farther 

 and undertake to be independent of eastern Virginia; 

 they think themselves warranted in some measure, be- 

 cause Nature itself has, by broad and impracticable 

 mountains, placed a barrier between the two regions. 

 Besides, their political and commercial interests will 

 after a time make this necessary but the most impor- 

 tant item is that they hold themselves quite as much 

 warranted as any of the other provinces in asking and 

 asserting an independence, so soon as they feel them- 

 selves strong enough and find it to their profit to de- 

 clare independence. 



The law-making power of .the state of Virginia is 

 reposed in the Senate and the House of Delegates, or 

 Assembly. The members of the Assembly are new- 

 elected every year from among the qualified land- 



