The power of the Imperial State, therefore, according to Dickinson's final opinion, was:

A power of enforcing the observance of " the common law" in the Colonies, "abridged by the peculiar circumstances" of the Colonies;

A power exercised by the Imperial State as "the only judge' between itself and its dependencies "which the nature of the case admitted";

A power, therefore, which, if exercised at all by Parlia ment, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons, was exercised only in substitution for the King, so that Parliament could not exceed the power exercised by the King by virtue of his "prerogative"-that is, by virtue of his constitutional right. As the reason why the British Constitution vested in the Crown the powers enumerated by Dickinson was, plainly, so that they might be exercised expertly, and not submitted to the decision of a large non-expert body, the proposition that the powers of Parliament over the dependencies were measured by the powers of the Crown, was essentially a proposition that the dependencies were entitled to a central expert government and administration;

A power exercised by the whole Central Government of the Imperial State, and ultimately by statutes enacted by Parliament-the Imperial State being "the delegate or representative of the entire dominions," and "the exercise of this power by statutes" being "absolutely necessary";

A power" such as may be necessary to preserve the connection" between the Imperial State and its dependencies;

A power, therefore, by which the State of Great Britain was, under some circumstances, authorized to bind the individual inhabitants of the Colonies without their individual consent expressed by natural persons elected by them as their representatives, because the Colonies, as political

persons, were so related to the State of Great Britain, that that State, as a political person, was their delegate and representative for managing the common concerns of the great political organism composed of the State of Great Britain and the Colonies, constituting the British Empire, under a condition that the power should be exercised through some expert instrumentality, and that in extent and sphere it should be limited by the necessity growing out of the common interests of the whole organism.

By the statement of Dickinson's that Great Britain was "the delegate or representative of the entire dominions," in whom "the sovereign power" for the purposes of the agency was "vested," whose "acts under this power irrevocably bind the whole nation, "-whose power was, nevertheless, a power to "judge" between itself and the Colonies in those matters in respect to which its interests necessarily conflicted with those of the Colonies, because it was "the only judge which the nature of the case admitted," the Federal Empire may be said to have emerged. The instant it was declared that Great Britain, as a State, was "the delegate or representative" of the Colonies, the Colonies were declared to be Member-States of the British Federal Empire.

CHAPTER XVI

AMERICA'S ULTIMATUM, 1774

WHEN the Congress met at Philadelphia for its first

WHE session, on September 4, 1774, the sentiment of

the delegates was unanimous that the Colonies were States, and that they were in a relationship of voluntary union with the State of Great Britain under an unwritten Treaty or Compact of Union. Concerning the character of the Union, however, there was a decided difference of opinion. Dickinson refused to become a delegate until it should appear what position the Congress would take; but, residing, as he did, in Philadelphia, his great reputation doubtless gave him as much influence as if he had been a delegate. John Adams and Dickinson represented the extremes of sentiment.

Adams regarded the Union as a Union on terms of equality, and the Compact of Union as a mere Treaty of Alliance and Commerce between equal and independent States. A clear expression of his views on this subject is found in the pamphlet entitled Novanglus and Massachusettensis, which was a reprint of letters printed in newspapers, during the latter part of 1774 and the early part of 1775, written by Adams, under the name of Novanglus, and by William Leonard, under the name of Massachusettensis. In a letter of March 6, 1775, Adams

said:

Distinct States may be united under one King. And those States may be further cemented and united together by a treaty of commerce. This is the case. We have, by our own

express consent, contracted to observe the Navigation Act, and by our implied consent, by long usage and uninterrupted acquiescence, have submitted to the other Acts of Trade, however grievous some of them may be. This may be compared to a treaty of commerce, by which these distinct States are cemented together in perpetual league and amity. And if any further ratifications of this pact or treaty are necessary, the Colonies would readily enter into them, provided their other liberties were inviolate.

In this view, Acts of Parliament were merely propositions to change the terms of the Treaty or Compact of Alliance and Commerce, which were of no effect until assented to by the Houses of Representatives of the respective Colonies, representing the people of the Colonies, when they became amendments to the Treaty or Compact. Such a Union was merely temporary and inorganic. The King was the Chief Executive of a number of separate States, exercising inconsistent functions in his various official capacities. The Union was through the

King as a natural person, not through the King in his official capacity. One man was simply exercising the functions which would usually be committed to several men on account of the inconsistency between the functions so exercised. In this view, any State of the Union had the right, in case of dissatisfaction, to withdraw from the partnership or voluntary association (or, to express it technically in the language of the public law, to secede from the Union), and there was no British Empire. The advocates of this view were anti-Imperialists.

Dickinson, on the other hand, starting with the same proposition that the Colonies were originally States (and hence originally independent and equal with the State of Great Britain), contended that, simultaneously with the origin of the Colonies as States, the people of the Colonies had entered into a compact with the people of Great Britain, evidenced by the Charters authenticated by the

signature of the King, that the Colonies, though States, should be and remain in a permanent and organic Union of subordination to the State of Great Britain on terms just to both parties. In this view, this whole original Treaty or Compact of Union had the effect to form the people of Great Britain and the people of the Colonies into a single political organism or State, composed of Great Britain, as the Imperial State, and of the Colonies, as subordinate Member-States, and called the British Federal Empire. The Treaty or Compact was the supreme law, or, in other words, the Constitution of the Empire, supreme over every governmental action of the States of the Empire, whether legislative or executive, and hence supreme over Acts of Parliament. In this view, no State of the Empire had any right to secede from the Empire. A change from member-statehood to independent statehood could result only from a dissolution and dismemberment of the State known as the British Federal Empire. The advocates of this theory were Federal-Imperialists.

Jefferson and Hamilton, neither of whom were members of the Continental Congress at its first session, expressed views in pamphlets which placed the former in the antiImperialist and the latter in the Federal-Imperialist party, though neither took an extreme view. Jefferson, in his Summary View of the Rights of British America, while taking generally the anti-Imperialist view, regarded the King as "the only mediatory power between the States of the British Empire.'

On September 24, it was voted "that the Congress do confine themselves, at present, to the consideration of such rights as have been infringed by Acts of the British Parliament since the year 1763." This was a declaration that it was the purpose of Congress to demand only a restoration of the Constitution of the British Federal Empire as it existed at the close of the war in 1763.