resources. The home government thought the time a good one to abandon the compromise theory and to enforce the British theory. In 1760 it sent out orders to the American custom houses to enforce the Navigation Acts. Parliament also began to levy internal taxes, as the stamp and tea taxes.

99. No TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.-The Colonies vigorously resented every form of internal taxation proposed by Parliament. This resistance was not made because the taxes were unnecessary, or because the amounts voted were excessive, but because Parliament had no right to impose them. The Colonies were still willing to contribute to the royal treasury; but their legislatures alone had the right to vote the supplies, because in them alone were they represented. The principle was expressed in the famous battle-cry: "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny."

In a speech delivered in the House of Commons in 1775, Mr. Burke connects the resistance of the Americans to British taxation with the old English struggles for freedom. He said those struggles, from the earliest times, were chiefly upon the question of taxing. It had been held, from the very nature of a house of commons, as an immediate representative of the people, that the power to tax resided in that body. It was a fundamental principle that, in all monarchies, the people must directly or indirectly grant their own money, or no shadow of liberty could exist. Said the orator: "The Colonies draw from you, as with their life blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this special point of taxing. Liberty might be safe or might be endangered in twenty other particulars, without their being much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they thought themselves sick or sound."

CHAPTER IV.

THE FORMATION OF THE UNION.

100. THE RELATIONS OF THE COLONIES.-At first, the colonies were wholly separate and distinct settlements, or groups of settlements, on the edge of a vast continent, often widely separated. But some bonds of union existed from the beginning. The Colonists were mainly of English blood; they had the same national history, the same political and civil institutions, the same general customs, the same language and literature. They had a common citizenship, since the inhabitants of any one colony enjoyed all the rights and privileges of the inhabitants in any other. They had common enemies and friends, common dangers, objects, and hopes. There was more or less emigration from one colony to another, which time and social and business connections multiplied. The name they bore marked them off from all the world as one society or people. The Declaration of Independence spoke of their constitution. So, while their only governmental bond was their common dependence upon England, they still formed a moral and social unity that continued to strengthen until events created a political unity.

101. THE UNITED STATES.-The declaration of independence must be considered under two aspects.

(1) It changed the Colonies into States, by severing the bonds that bound them to England. Their social and political identity was in no way affected by this severance, but their name, their powers, and their relations were changed. On the

one side of July 4, 1776, they are British Colonies; on the other, free and independent American States.

(2) It created the political unity, or the State, known since 1776 as the United States of America. While severing their connections with the other parts of the British Empire, this act materially strengthened those connections that constituted them one people. American independence was a concerted movement. The States used the Continental Congress to effect this purpose, not their local assemblies or congresses. There was one declaration of independence, not thirteen declarations. They did not act singly, but together. They did not become the nations of Massachusetts, Virginia, etc., but the United States of America. In this capacity they adopted the army at Boston, appointed Washington Commander-inchief, waged war, renounced their allegiance to England, and took their separate station among the nations of the earth.

Thus, the States as free commonwealths and the Union originated in the same act. Independence did not destroy dual government. Each State continued a society in itself, and also a part of a larger society. The American Union had come in the room of the King and Parliament. But the States were necessarily reorganized and adjusted to the new order of things.

102. THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS.-The State Constitutions now adopted preserved all the cardinal features of the colonial governments. The powers of government were defined more or less strictly, except those that had been tacitly delegated to the Union. So far were the States from being merged in one consolidated central government, they became more powerful than ever before. They retained the powers that had belonged to them as colonies, while some powers that the British Government had freely exercised, and some that it had claimed, also fell to them. They had exclusive control of taxation, commerce, and navigation. Practically, therefore, the

new constitutions both continued and strengthened the local governments already existing.

103. THE PROMINENT NEW FACT.-This was the American State, or Union, and the General Government, not the new position of the States. An intelligent foreigner visiting the country before and after independence, and noting the changes that had taken place, would have marked the Continental Congress above all other things. What the ultimate nature of the Union would be, had been by no means decided; but a union had been effected, a general government had been established, and a provisional distribution of powers between this government and the States had been made. There were still two loyalties and two patriotisms as before, but both were American.

104. FEATURES OF THE AMERICAN STATE.-Before its birth the largest features of the American State were determined. These features were now partly formulated in written constitutions, and partly based on common consent or an unwritten constitution. The State side of the system was much better developed than the National side. Since that day many important changes have been made in the constitution of the American State; and yet the States comprising the Union have never changed their essential nature; they have never possessed national sovereignty, and have never been states in the sense that England and France are states, or that the Union is a state.

The steps leading to the formation of the American Union must now be traced out.

105. THE CONSOLIDATION of COLONIES.-The original Connecti cut was formed by the union, in 1639, of the towns of Hartford, Weathersfield, and Windsor. The Colony of New Haven originated about the same time in the union of the towns on the Sound, the principal of which was New Haven. Furthermore, 1662 the two colonies were merged in the one Colony of Connecti

in

cut. Rhode Island had its origin in the union of the various plantations on Narragansett Bay. Plymouth was merged in Massachusetts Bay in 1691. Thus, the Colonists had had frequent examples of consolidated unions in their own history. Nor were examples of federal unions of a certain sort lacking.

106. THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND.-In 1643 the three principal New England Colonies entered into a league that is sometimes known by the above name, and sometimes by the name of the New England Confederation. This league was called into being by common dangers to which the three colonies were exposed from the Indians and the Dutch; it dealt with such subjects as war, peace, Indian affairs, and inter-colonial roads. For a time it played an important part in New England history; then became weak, and in 1684 ceased to exist.

107. PENN'S PLAN OF UNION.-In 1697 William Penn presented to the English Board of Trade a scheme for rendering the Colonies more useful to the Crown and to one another. It provided for a congress to be composed of two deputies from each colony, and to be presided over by a royal commissioner, who should also command the troops enrolled to meet a common enemy. Nothing came of this plan of union, but it was the first one proposed for all the colonies, and the first document relating to American affairs containing the word congress. It also contained the doctrine of taxation for which the Colonies contended in the next century.

108. THE WARS WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS.-The common dangers arising from these wars greatly stimulated union sentiment. The conferences of commissioners and governors, the concurrent action of legislatures, and the various joint military expeditions made necessary by the neighborhood of common foes, were the most practical of lessons in the value of union. The first of these conferences, held in New York, in 1690, by commissioners appointed by the New England Colonies and New York, amounted to but little, but it prepared the way for others more formidable and significant. The French and Indian War, 17551763, materially weakened the sense of dependence upon England, and developed the sentiment of common interest and power.