with, each other, yet all subject to the mother country, Great Britain. Each Colony had its own government, its governor, and its House of Assembly, — very much as Canada now has — by which all its internal affairs were regulated, subject, however, to the veto of the Government at home. At the commencement of the War of Independence, the thirteen Colonies united in a league or Confederacy, for purposes of mutual aid and defence. They appointed a general body, called a Congress, composed of representatives from the different Colonies, to regulate the general concerns of the Confederacy, each Colony, however, reserving to itself the management of its own internal affairs, as before. After their independence was attained, the present Constitution of the United States was adopted, in 17 89, which retains still nearly all the general features of the original Confederacy. The Congress, composed like the British Parliament of an upper and a lower house, called a Senate and a House of Representatives, has power over matters of a general or national character, such as questions of peace and war, intercourse with foreign nations, regulation of import duties, and so forth; but it is provided, in the Constitution, that each State shall have the exclusive regulation of all its internal concerns, precisely as in former Colonial times: over these, therefore, the national Congress has no control whatever. Each State has its own Legislative Assembly, which enacts all laws and regulates all matters within its own confines.
Now, some of the States have slavery existing within their borders, and some have not. At present a majority of the States, namely eighteen out of the
