usurpations evinces a design on the part of the Government to reduce a people under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government. In support of these declarations, the people of that day, in the persons of their representatives, pledging themselves, their fortunes, and their sacred honour, went to war, and in the support of their cause appealed to Divine Providence for protection. Under these doctrines, we and our fathers grew up; we were taught to regard them with a reverence almost holy, and to believe in them with quite a religious belief.
In the war that ensued, the Colonies triumphed; and in the treaty of peace, Great Britain acknowledged each one of her revolted Colonies to be a nation, endowed with all the attributes of sovereignty, independent of her, of each other, and of all temporal powers whatsoever. These new-born nations were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia—thirteen in all.
At that time, all the country west of the Alleghany Mountains was a wilderness. All that part of it which lies north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi, called the North-West Territory, and out of which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota, have since been carved, belonged to Virginia. She exercised dominion over it, and in her resided the rights of undisputed sovereignty. These thirteen powers—which were then as independent of each other as France is of Spain, or Brazil is of Peru, or as any one nation can be of another—concluded to unite, and form a compact called the Constitution, the main objects of which were to establish justice, secure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, and promote the general welfare. To this end they established a vicarious Government, and named it the United States. The compact had for its corner-stone the aforementioned inalienable rights. With the assertion of-these precious rights—which are so dear to the hearts of all true Virginians—fresh upon their lips, each one of these thirteen States signatories to this compact, delegated to this new Government so much of her own foreign powers as were deemed necessary for the accomplishment of its objects, reserving to herself all the powers, prerogatives, and attri-
