contract for them, if the fact be conceded that Leagues were formed by this great community, it establishes beyond doubt, not only the actual existence of such a community, but of its government, too. But mark the caution displayed in this assertion, also. The President does not say, in terms, at least, that these Leagues were so formed, but most sedulously avoids to state by whom, or with whom, they were formed. The cause of this studied obscurity is not difficult to be explained. If it had been asserted as an historical fact, that in their colonial state, the Colonists being connected together as one community, had, in that character, entered into any League whatever, this fact could not have been proved, simply because it neither is, or could be, true. But if it had been said, that these Leagues were formed by the different colonies with each other, as separate and independent communities, in asserting this well-known historical truth easily to be proved by a reference to the Leagues themselves, the President would have dissolved completely his imaginary great community, and with it the government to regulate the affairs of this supposed Nation.
Nay, he then would have established, beyond doubt, the separate and independent existence of the colonies, as acknowledged by themselves, in such Leagues.
To avoid this dilemma, the author of this Proclamation most cautiously suppresses the fact by whom and with whom these Leagues were made. Yet, as they were certainly made for "common defence," all those who may be disposed to believe that "we" in the first sentence denoted the Colonists as individuals, and not the colonies as communities, will of course conclude, that these Leagues were made by the same "we," with some community foreign to themselves. While those who understand "we" in a different sense, will arrive at a conclusion diametrically opposed to this,—so much for the second member of this argument, which, like the first, is either true or false, according to the meaning intended to be annexed by its author, to the words, "we" and "our."
Having inferred the existence of a supposed community, and also inferred a government for it, in the mode I have stated, the next thing needful was to bestow a name upon this infant Nation. But, as it would have been difficult to infer a name which could
