In the original draft, the first sentence began thus:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, etc.

The change, in Jefferson's handwriting, made it read, as it finally read:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, etc.

For Jefferson's words, "reject and renounce," as applied to the allegiance of the colonists to the King of Great Britain, Congress substituted the words "are absolved from," and for the words "dissolve and break off," as applied to the political connection, the words "is dissolved."

As Jefferson originally wrote the last clause of the Declaration, it read:

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, do . . . reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the Kings of Great Britain and all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them, and utterly dissolve and break off all political connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us and the people or Parliament of Great Britain, and finally we do assert and declare these Colonies to be free and independent States.

This language was rejected by the Congress, and they substituted the following:

do

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States in Congress assembled solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are ab

solved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

By changing Jefferson's words "the political connection between the representatives of the United States in Congress assembled and the people and Parliament of Great Britain" to "the political connection between these United Colonies and the State of Great Britain," Congress, in effect, declared that the British Empire in America, as it had formerly existed, had been a Federal Empire.

The blame for the whole situation was placed by the Declaration wholly on the King. He was recognized as the representative of Great Britain ultimately responsible for the performance of its functions as the Imperial State, and he was declared to have abdicated his functions, with the consent of the people of Great Britain; from whence it was concluded that the State of Great Britain had abdicated, as the Imperial State.

The Declaration of Independence was, therefore, a Declaration concerning Dependence. It opposed the Federal Empire, as the ideal of America, to the Unitary State, as the ideal of Great Britain. The British Declaration of Unconditional Dependence of 1766 was answered in 1776 by an American Declaration of Federal Dependence. The Declaration of Independence did not announce the proposition that all States are free and equal. It merely announced that all States are born free and equal, and hence not only capable of contracting, but incapable of entering into any relationship which is not contractual--that is, federal.

It was based on the theory that States, like individuals, may rightfully, and, under some circumstances, ought voluntarily to enter into a contract to submit to such judicious leadership and control, under proper conditions

and limitations, of a State qualified by its mental and physical endowment to lead and control, as may result in the general good of the States immediately concerned, and of the world at large.

It is interesting, as possibly showing how and when the word "disposition" came to be adopted in the American public law to express the function of the Imperial State in a Federal Empire, to notice that in the Proclamation of Congress of June 12, 1775, appointing Thursday, July 20, 1775, as a day of humiliation and prayer, issued shortly after Lord Chatham's Bill and Burke's and Hartley's resolutions must have reached America, the power of the Deity was described as a 'supreme, universal, and superintending providence," and He is called "the Disposer of all events."

The Proclamation read in part:

As the great Governor of the world, by His supreme and universal providence, not only conducts the course of nature with unerring wisdom and rectitude, but frequently influences the minds of men to serve His wise and gracious purposes by His providential government; and it being at all times our indispensable duty devoutly to acknowledge His superintending providence ;...

This Congress therefore, considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state of these Colonies, do earnestly recommend that Thursday, the 20th day of July next, be observed by the inhabitants of all the English Colonies on this Continent, as a day of public humiliation and prayer, that we may offer up our joint supplications to the all-wise, omnipotent and merciful Disposer of all events. that all America may soon behold a gracious interposition of Heaven for the redress of her many grievances, the restoration of her invaded rights [and] a reconciliation with the Parent State on terms constitutional and honorable to both.

In the Address to the People of Ireland of July 28, 1775, the Deity was spoken of as "the Supreme Disposer of all human events."'

As William Hooper, of North Carolina, was chairman of the Committee which framed this Proclamation and also of that which framed this Address, the honor of having restored to the public law the word "dispose" as signifying the power to adjudicate and execute the judg ment, seems to belong to him.

The final issue between Great Britain and the Colonies was, therefore, generally, whether or not the British Empire was a Federal Empire, and specifically whether or not there was a Constitution of the British Empire, and a law of the British Empire in execution thereof, which were supreme, for Imperial purposes, over the Constitutions and laws of the Imperial State and of all its dependencies.

The Colonies claimed that there was such an Imperial Constitution, and, as it was unwritten, they claimed that it necessarily followed as a corollary, that it was to be adjudicated and declared by the King of Great Britain, as ex officio the Supreme Disposer of the Empire, and was also to be executed by him, in the same capacity, by means of rules and regulations made by him and administrative acts done by and under him; and that the British Parliament, as ex officio the Chief Legislature of the Empire, had also the power, within the sphere allotted to it by the Constitution as so adjudicated and declared, to make rules and regulations, in the form of statutes, in execution of the Constitution.

As Great Britain did not admit that the British Empire was a Federal Empire, and hence did not admit that there was a Constitution of the Empire supreme, for Imperial purposes, over the Constitution of Great Britain, it did not admit the corollary.

CHAPTER XIX

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE PLANNED, 1776

WHE

WHEN it is recalled that it was Franklin who made the first draft of Articles of Confederation which was considered by the Congress, it is not surprising to find that it contained provisions establishing an American Empire, in which the American Confederation was to be the Imperial State. It was Franklin who made the original draft of the Plan of Union, which, as has been already noticed, provided for the establishment of an American Empire much more completely and distinctly than it did for the establishment of an American State. He was the foremost expansionist of his times. He published a Plan for Settling Two Colonies West of the Allegheny Mountains, in 1757, and by his Canada Pamphlet in 1762 saved Canada to Great Britain, when men of experience and influence in England, alarmed by the spirit of expansion in America shown by the Plan of Union, were advising that it should be yielded back to France in return for the diminutive, but highly cultivated and productive island of Guadaloupe.

In this first draft, presented to Congress on August 20, 1775, Franklin inserted Articles securing to the Indian tribes the rights of uncivilized States dependent on the Confederation, and providing for the "planting of new colonies, when proper," by the Confederation. By another Article, which showed his remarkable faith in the possibility of the unlimited extension of a Confederation of States acting by a Congress of elected delegates, he provided for receiving into the Confederation, not only all the other British Colonies on the American Continent