tion was referred to a committee of the whole, and was debated until the 10th, when it was adopted in committee. On the same day, a committee, consisting of five members,1 was instructed to prepare a declaration "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved." The resolution introduced by Mr. Lee on

plan of the Continental Congress. In 1774, he was elected one of the delegates from Virginia to the Congress, in which body, from his known ability as a political writer and his services in the popular cause, he was placed on the committees to prepare the addresses to the King, to the People of Great Britain, and to the People of the Colonies, the last of which he wrote. In the second Congress, he was selected to move the resolution of Independence ; and besides serving on other very important committees, he furnished, as chairman of the committee instructed to prepare them, the commission and instructions to General Washington. As mover of the resolution of Independence, he would, according to the usual practice, have been made chairman of the committee to prepare the Declaration; but on the 10th of June, the day when the subject was postponed, he was obliged to leave Congress, and return home for a short time, on ac

count of the illness of some member of his family. He came back to Congress and remained a member until June, 1777, when he went home on account of ill health. In August, 1778, he was again elected a member, and continued to serve until 1780; but from feeble health was compelled to take a less active part than he had taken in former years. He was out of Congress from 1780 until 1784, when he was elected its President, but retired at the end of the year. He was opposed to the Constitution of the United States, but voted in Congress to submit it to the people. After its adoption, he was elected one of the first Senators under it from Virginia, and in that capacity moved and carried several amendments. In 1792, his continued ill health obliged him to retire from public life. He died June 19, 1794.

1 Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and R. R. Livingston.

the 7th was postponed until the 1st of July, to give time for greater unanimity among the members, and to enable the people of the colonies to instruct and influence their delegates.

The postponement was immediately followed by proceedings in the colonies, in most of which the delegates in Congress were either instructed or authorized to vote for the resolution of Independence; and on the 2d of July that resolution received the assent in Congress of all the colonies, excepting Pennsylvania and Delaware. The Declaration of Independence was reported by the committee, who had been instructed to prepare it, on the 28th of June, and on the 4th of July it received the vote of every colony, and was published to the world.1

It

This celebrated instrument, regarded as a legislative proceeding, was the solemn enactment, by the representatives of all the colonies, of a complete dissolution of their allegiance to the British crown. severed the political connection between the people of this country and the people of England, and at once erected the different colonies into free and independent states. The body by which this step was taken constituted the actual government of the nation, at the time, and its members had been directly invested with competent legislative power to take it, and had also been specially instructed to do so. The consequences flowing from its adoption were, that the local allegiance of the inhabitants of each

1 See note at the end of the chapter.

colony became transferred and due to the colony itself, or, as it was expressed by the Congress, became due to the laws of the colony, from which they derived protection; that the people of the country became thenceforth the rightful sovereign of the country; that they became united in a national corporate capacity, as one people; that they could thereafter enter into treaties and contract alliances with foreign nations, could levy war and conclude peace, and do all other acts pertaining to the exercise of a national sovereignty; and finally, that, in their national corporate capacity, they became known and designated as the United States of America. This Declaration was the first national state paper in which these words were used as the style and title of the nation. In the enacting part of the instrument, the Congress styled themselves "the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled"; and from that period, the previously "United Colonies" have been known as a political community, both within their own borders and by the other nations of the world, by the title which they then assumed.2

1 On the 24th of June, 1776, the Congress declared, by resolution, that "all persons abiding within any of the United Colonies, and deriving protection from the laws of the same, owed allegiance to the said laws, and were members of such colony; and that all persons passing through or making a temporary stay in any of the colo

nies, being entitled to the protection of the laws, during the time of such passage, visitation, or temporary stay, owed, during the same, allegiance thereto." Journals, II. 216.

2 The title of "The United States of America" was formally assumed in the Articles of Confederation, when they came to be

On the same day on which the committee for preparing the Declaration of Independence was appointed, another committee, consisting of one member from each colony, was directed "to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these colonies." This committee reported a draft of Articles of Confederation, on the 12th of July, which were debated in Congress on several occasions between that day and the 20th of August of the same year, at which time a new draft was reported, and ordered to be printed. The subject was not again resumed, until the 8th of April, 1777; but, between that date and the 15th of the following November, sundry amendments were discussed and adopted, and the whole of the articles, as amended, were printed for the use of the Congress and the State Legislatures. On the 17th of November, a circular letter was reported and adopted, to be addressed to the Legislatures of the thirteen States, recommending to them "to invest the delegates of the State with competent powers, ultimately, in the name and behalf of the State, to subscribe Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union of the United States, and to attend Congress for that purpose on or before the 10th day of March next.”1

adopted. But it was in use, without formal enactment, from the date of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. On the 9th of September, 1776, it was ordered that in all continental commissions and other instruments,

where the words "United Colonics" had been used, the style should be altered to the "United States." Journals, II. 349.

1 Journals, II. 263, 320; III. 123, 502, 513.

A year and five months had thus elapsed, between the agitation of the subject of a new form of national government, and the adoption and recommendation of a form, by the Congress, for the consideration of the States. During this interval, the affairs of the country were administered by the Revolutionary Congress, which had been instituted, originally, for the purpose of obtaining redress peaceably from the British ministry, but which afterwards became de facto the government of the country, for all the purposes of revolution and independence. In order to appreciate the objects of the Confederation, the obstacles which it had to encounter, and the mode in which those obstacles were finally overcome, it is necessary here to take a brief survey of the national affairs during the period beginning with the commencement of the war and the Declaration of Independence, and extending to the date of the submission of the Articles of Confederation to the State Legislatures. From no point of view can so much instruction be derived, as from the position in which Washington stood, during this period. By following the fortunes and appreciating the exertions of him who had been charged with the great military duty of achieving the liberties of the country, and especially by observing his relations with the government that had undertaken the war, we can best understand the fitness of that government for the great task to which it had been called.

1 From June 11, 1776, to November 17, 1777.