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more and more interfered. The Constitution was always free, but not always exactly in the same manner. By the feudal law, all navigable rivers and havens were computed among the regalia, and were subject to the Sovereign of the State. And in England it has always been held, that the King is lord of the whole shore, and particularly is guardian of the ports and havens, which are the inlets and gates of the Realm; and therefore, so early as the reign of King John, we find ships seized by the King's officers, for putting in at a place that was not a legal port. These legal ports were undoubtedly at first assigned by the Crown; since to each of them a court of portmote is incident, the jurisdiction of which must flow from the royal authority. The erection of beacons, lighthouses, and sea-marks is also a branch of the royal prerogative. The powers of establishing public marts, regulating of weights and measures, and the giving authority to, or making current, money, the medium of commerce, belong to the Crown. By making peace or war, leagues and treaties, the King may open or stop trade as he pleases. The admiralty courts are grounded on the necessity of supporting a jurisdiction so extensive, though opposite to the usual doctrines of the common law. The laws of Oleron were made by Richard the First, and are still used in those courts. In the "Mare Clausum " are several regulations made by Kings. Time forbids a more exact inquiry into this point: but such it is apprehended, will on inquiry be found to have been the power of the Crown, that our argument may gain, but cannot lose. We will proceed on a concession that the power of regulating trade is vested in Parliament.

A power of regulating our trade involves not in it the idea of a Supreme Legislature over us. The first is a power of a preserving, "protecting" nature. The last, as applied to America, is such a power as Mr. Justice Blackstone describes in these words, whose enormous weight spreads horror and destruction on all inferior movements."

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The power of regulation was the only band that could have held us together; formed on one of those "original contracts," -which only can be a foundation of just authority. Without

such a band, our general commerce with foreign nations might have been injurious and destructive to her. Reason and duty reject such a license. Thus our duty resembles that of children to a parent. The parent has a power over them: but they have rights, which the parent cannot take away.

It seems as if the power of regulation might not inaptly be compared to the prerogative of making peace, war, treaties, or alliances, whereby "the whole nation are bound, against their consent": and yet the prerogative by no means implies a Supreme Legislature. The language held in "the Commentaries" on this point is very remarkable: "With regard to foreign concerns, the King is the delegate or representative of the people; and in him, as in a center, all the rays of his people are united; and the sovereign power quoad hoc is vested in his person." Will any Englishman say these expressions are descriptive of the King's authority within the Realm ? Is the sovereign power within that vested in his person? He is styled Sovereign indeed. "His Realm is declared by many Acts of Parliament an Empire, and his crown Imperial." But do these splendid appellations, the highest known in Europe, signify that sovereign power is vested in his person within the Realm? We have a full answer in the Commentaries. "The meaning of the Legislature, when it uses these terms 'Empire' and ' Imperial,' and applies them to the Realm and Crown of England, is only to assert, that our King is equally sovereign and independent within these his dominions; and owes no kind of subjection to any potentate upon earth."

Thus we maintain that with regard to foreign affairs, the parent original State is the delegate or representative of the entire dominions: the sovereign power quoad hoc is vested in her. Her acts under this power irrevocably bind the whole nation. But yet this power by no means implies a Supreme Legislature.

The exercise of this power by statutes was absolutely necessary: because it was, and could only be lodged, as the laws of the parent State stand, in the Supreme Legislature of that State, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons; and statutes are the modes by which these united sentiments and resolutions are expressed.

The power of the Imperial State, therefore, according to Dickinson's final opinion, was:

A power of enforcing the observance of "the common law" in the Colonies, "abridged by the peculiar circumstances" of the Colonies;

A power exercised by the Imperial State as "the only judge' between itself and its dependencies “which the nature of the case admitted";

A power, therefore, which, if exercised at all by Parliament, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons, was exercised only in substitution for the King, so that Parliament could not exceed the power exercised by the King by virtue of his "prerogative "-that is, by virtue of his constitutional right. As the reason why the British Constitution vested in the Crown the powers enumerated by Dickinson was, plainly, so that they might be exercised expertly, and not submitted to the decision of a large non-expert body, the proposition that the powers of Parliament over the dependencies were measured by the powers of the Crown, was essentially a proposition that the dependencies were entitled to a central expert government and administration;

A power exercised by the whole Central Government of the Imperial State, and ultimately by statutes enacted by Parliament-the Imperial State being "the delegate or representative of the entire dominions," and "the exercise of this power by statutes" being "absolutely necessary";

A power "such as may be necessary to preserve the connection" between the Imperial State and its dependencies;

A power, therefore, by which the State of Great Britain. was, under some circumstances, authorized to bind the individual inhabitants of the Colonies without their individual consent expressed by natural persons elected by them as their representatives, because the Colonies, as political

persons, were so related to the State of Great Britain, that that State, as a political person, was their delegate and representative for managing the common concerns of the great political organism composed of the State of Great Britain and the Colonies, constituting the British Empire, under a condition that the power should be exercised through some expert instrumentality, and that in extent and sphere it should be limited by the necessity growing out of the common interests of the whole organism.

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By the statement of Dickinson's that Great Britain was "the delegate or representative of the entire dominions,' in whom the sovereign power" for the purposes of the agency was "vested," whose "acts under this power irrevocably bind the whole nation,"-whose power was, nevertheless, a power to "judge" between itself and the Colonies in those matters in respect to which its interests necessarily conflicted with those of the Colonies, because it was "the only judge which the nature of the case admitted," the Federal Empire may be said to have emerged. The instant it was declared that Great Britain, as a State, was "the delegate or representative" of the Colonies, the Colonies were declared to be Member-States of the British Federal Empire.

CHAPTER XVI

AMERICA'S ULTIMATUM, 1774

7HEN the Congress met at Philadelphia for its first session, on September 4, 1774, the sentiment of

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the delegates was unanimous that the Colonies were States, and that they were in a relationship of voluntary union with the State of Great Britain under an unwritten Treaty or Compact of Union. Concerning the character of the Union, however, there was a decided difference of opinion. Dickinson refused to become a delegate until it should appear what position the Congress would take; but, residing, as he did, in Philadelphia, his great reputation doubtless gave him as much influence as if he had been a delegate. John Adams and Dickinson represented the extremes of sentiment.

Adams regarded the Union as a Union on terms of equality, and the Compact of Union as a mere Treaty of Alliance and Commerce between equal and independent States. A clear expression of his views on this subject is found in the pamphlet entitled Novanglus and Massachusettensis, which was a reprint of letters printed in newspapers, during the latter part of 1774 and the early part of 1775, written by Adams, under the name of Novanglus, and by William Leonard, under the name of Massachusettensis. In a letter of March 6, 1775, Adams

said:

Distinct States may be united under one King. And those States may be further cemented and united together by a treaty of commerce. This is the case. We have, by our own

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