UNITED STATES SOVEREIGNTY. 129 



mother comitry; second, that the union wliicli thej' forraerl for pur- 

 poses of resistiince professed to be nothing but a voluntary, incom- 

 plete and temporary associntion, with only limited and temporary 

 aim.^, possessin,!^ none of the essentials of a permanent government, 

 capable, it is true, of developinjj into a com.plete sovereignly, but in 

 all its act, and words app.iaring as not itself an orgnnij body, 

 but the representative of certain organic bodies. "The United 

 States in Congress assembled," made no claim to individual or in- 

 dependent existence, but acted avowedly as a mere intermediary or 

 instrument of joint action for organisms which did possess individ- 

 nal existence. And this practical independence accrued to the se- 

 veral colonies simply from the fact that, upon the severance of the 

 tie which connected them severally to the mother country, each was 

 left standing legally alone; and, standing alone, having no legal supe- 

 rior, buc possessing a complete and adequate orgfanization of its own, 

 each colony passed into the undisputed enjoyment of sovereignty. 

 Neither bef )re nor after the commencement of the revolution, 

 therefore, did there exist any united organic body which could 

 supersede the several colonies, and assert a claim to the lapsed sov- 

 ereignty of Great Britain. And if this is true for the p^r'od of in- 

 choate nutionaliiy which intervened between the first acts of resist- 

 ance and the praclical estal^lishment of independence, still more is 

 it true for the ensuing period of the Confederation. It needs no 

 argument to show that the States were at this time recognized as 

 fully and exclusively sovereign; its Articles explicitly provide 

 ''that eacdi state retains its sovereignty and power which is not by 

 this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Con- 

 gress assembled." AH that can be said in opposition to this view is 

 that this was a''palp;ible usur[)ation,*" set on foot during this 

 '"embryonic or intdioate periodf"; and their arguments plainly 

 imply that they understand the Article? of Confederation 

 to represent a different phase of national life from the Dec- 

 laration of Indefendence, and as requiring therefore to be 

 construed from a different point of view; they were adopted 

 by Congress sixt^'en months lat r than the other r.c*", (Xov. 

 15, 1777.) and in this period of time, it is hinted, the "flow 

 of pnthu=?iasm." under which the united act of independ Mice had 



*l'oinei(»y, p. 48. fMr. Maisb, in the Nation, Ko. 1. 



9 W A S 



