done, sooner or later, by each and every one of the thirteen revolted Colonies of Great Britain.
Each of these, like Virginia, became, in virtue of such acts, that free, sovereign, and independent body politic called a State; and becoming such, it took upon itself any corporate name it chose to adopt. But as all the governments then established were Representative Democracies, this corporate name, whether it was the Commonwealth or any other, was designed to denote the free people of that pre-existing and established society before known by the name of some of the revolted British Colonies.
If, then, we ask, who constituted at that time that great Corporation and Sovereign body politic which I have called The People, which is the Lord of all in these now United States, the answer is, not the People of all the revolted Colonies collectively, but the People of each of them respectively. All individuals, being members of any one of these separate, distinct, and independent masses, owed faith, and truth, and allegiance to that particular mass, which, under some selected corporate name, designed to distinguish it from all others, was then proclaimed as their only earthly sovereign.
Such were the People of these Colonies then. As individuals they were subjects, as a body politic and corporate they were the sovereign of these subjects.
Such sovereigns and such subjects these People have been ever since, and still are, unless (as I have said before) they have done or suffered some act, during the interval of time which has elapsed since they took upon themselves these characters, to change this, their moral and political condition. Have they done so? This is the question which I propose to examine in my next Number.
