Among all the Colonies there was a common and interchangeable citizenship, or inter-citizenship.

The very rule of the Constitution then began, that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” Here was another element of nationality.

Thus in the earliest days, even before Independence, were the Colonists one people, with one sovereignty, afterwards renounced.

Though this experiment failed, it revealed the longing for one Cisatlantic government, and showed how under other auspices it might be accomplished.

Little more than ten years elapsed before the same yearning for common life appeared again in the Colonial Congress at New York, convened in 1765, on the recommendation of Massachusetts, to arrest the tyranny of the Stamp Act and assaults…

Nine Colonies, after deliberation, united in a Declaration of Rights common to all.

The mother country persisted; and in the same proportion the Colonies were aroused to the necessity of union.

Here, in a single brilliant flash, was revealed the image of National Unity, while the word “Commonwealth” denoted the common weal which all should share.

It was American liberty which Washington was commissioned to defend.

Here was an act which, from beginning to end, in every particular and all its inspirations, was National, stamping upon the whole people Unity in the support of Human Rights.

Here was that “American Commonwealth,” the image of National Unity, dedicated to Human Rights, which had enchanted the vision of the early patriot seeking new safeguards for Liberty.

The constituent authority was “the People.” The rights it promised and covenanted were the Equal Rights of All; not the rights of Englishmen, but the rights of Man.

On this account our Declaration has its great meaning in history; on this account our nation became at once a source of light to the world.

It was declared that the United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States.

The sovereignty anterior to Independence was in the mother country; afterwards it was in the people of the United States, who took the place of the mother country.

Not unnaturally, an opponent of the Declaration favored a system which forgot the constituent sovereignty of the people, and made haste to establish the pretensions of States.

Each State played the part of the feudal chieftain, selfishly absorbing power and denying it to the Nation.

National unity was impossible, and in its stead was a many-headed pretension.

In the prevailing darkness, two voices made themselves heard, both speaking for National Unity on the foundation of Human Rights.

The vast outlying territory, unsettled at the beginning of the war, and wrested from the British crown by the common blood and treasure, was claimed as a common property, subject to the disposition of Congress for the general good.

The cession of Virginia comprehended all that grand region northwest of the Ohio, fertile and rich beyond imagination, where are now prosperous States rejoicing in the Union.

The best men, in their longing for national unity, all concurred in the necessity of immediate action to save the country.

It was a memorable body, whose deliberations have made an epoch in the history of government.

The whole clause afterwards found a noble substitute in the Preamble to the Constitution, which is the annunciation of a National Government proceeding directly from the People, like the Declaration of Independence itself.

Amidst all difference in details, and above the persistent and sinister contest for the equal representation of the States, great and small, the sentiment of Unity found constant utterance.