United States or Solomon Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This committee had finished its work by the 12th of July, but the articles were not adopted by Congress until the autumn of 1777, and they were not finally put into operation until the spring of 1781. During this inchoate period of union the action of the United States was that of a confederation in which some portion of the several sovereignties was understood to be surrendered to the whole.
Amid all this conflict of testimony there is the undoubted fact that out of the Roman municipal institutions had risen the establishment of separate sovereignties, as Procopius relates. Britain, according to St. Jerome, was "a province fertile in tyrants." The Roman municipal government was kept compact and uniform under a great centralizing power.
Nor did he consider the argument "that the people had already surrendered all their powers to the State Sovereignties and had nothing more to give," a persuasive one, for "surely, the question whether they may resume and modify the power granted to the government does not remain to be settled in this country.
The dismemberment of the duchies of Swabia and Franconia , and at an earlier day of Saxony, created a multitude of petty sovereignties. The great vassals of the empire, the kings of Denmark, of Poland, of Hungary, etc., broke away from its suzerainty. There was a reign of violence. The barons sallied out of their strongholds to rob merchants and travelers.
But that is not enough, because, apart from the aristocracy of rank, there are other aristocracies which the Constituent Assembly has left untouched, especially the aristocracy of wealth. Of all the sovereignties, that of the rich man over the poor one is the most burdensome.
Who can wonder if the daring and haughty spirit of Catharine scoffed at the remonstrances, and despised the interests of a country, whose cabinet adopted language so unfitting the dignity and real power of the mighty British empire? The expressions of this dialogue would have been humiliating to the smallest of the "square-league" sovereignties of the Continent.
Had peace been concluded before the settlement of this confederation, the States would probably have broken down into so many independent governments, and the strength of the Union been lost in a number of petty sovereignties. It is not hazarding much to say that, considering all the circumstances, it was the best form of government which could have been framed at that time.
What could all Arabia do for this man; with the crown of Greek Heraclius, of Persian Chosroes, and all crowns in the Earth; what could they all do for him? It was not of the Earth he wanted to hear tell; it was of the Heaven above and of the Hell beneath. All crowns and sovereignties whatsoever, where would they in a few brief years be?
"The terms union, federal, united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of States. The sovereignty is in the several States, and our system is a union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a constitutional compact, and not of a divided sovereignty between the States severally and the United States."
A state, single towards the rest of the world, a unit in its external relations, while permitting internally a variety of sovereignties and institutions in many respects the prototype of our own much more extensive and powerful union was destined to spring from the act thus signed by the envoys of five provinces.
Word Of The Day