came such at the moment when she "totally dissolved" the former government, and in establishing a new form of government for herself, thereby announcing her absolute independence. All these acts were done before the fourth day of July, 1776. By these acts she then became free, sovereign, and independent; and from the bottom of my heart do I unite with the President in the fervent prayer, "May the great Ruler of Nations grant that the signal blessings with which he has favoured us, may not, by the madness of party or personal ambition, be disregarded and lost." But what is this ideal being of which every Virginian then acknowledged, and every Virginian still acknowledges, himself to be a liege, and which we have called "The Commonwealth of Virginia." It is the People of Virginia. The members of that established society within this "Ancient Dominion," who renouncing all allegiance to a former Sovereign, incorporated themselves into a body politic, chose to bestow upon themselves this new Corporate name, in order to preserve and perpetuate the succession of the sovereign rights which they had then assumed.—Most of these patriots have sunk into the tomb, and the few who remain must follow them ere long; but long after the last of them shall be no more, that body politic and corporate styled "the Commonwealth of Virginia," will, by the blessing of God, still live; and while it does live, this name will denote the People of Virginia of any other day, as expressively and as justly as it did those by whom the name was first assumed.—That Commonwealth yet lives, and remains as sovereign now as then, unless it has done or suffered some act in the interim, to abrogate its powers or annul its rights.
The people of Virginia, in shaking off their former allegiance, establishing a new form of government for themselves, and so assuming sovereignty and independence, did no more than was
sneer; but let him remember, that it is not to learning, but to knowledge, we are indebted for our Liberty. Let him also remember, that in Virginia, we do not value highly that pedantry, which would amend the provisions of old instruments for the mere purpose of making their style more smooth, grammatical, or classical. Those who re-enacted this statute on the 28th of January, 1819, copied the rough parts of it from the old act of 1776, which was believed to be an accurate paraphrase of a very old English statute, written, I believe, in the Norman French.
