partial and metaphorical manner; some thought that the Colonies had
always been not only free states, but also free and independent
states, and that the political connection between them and the State
of Great Britain was, and always had been, by consent, that is, by
implied treaty. Upon careful examination, all these theories were
found to be untenable. The Colonial Charters clearly did not intend to
recognize the Colonies as free states, much less as free and
independent states; the doctrine of the extension to them of the
British Constitution was inconsistent with their statehood in any
sense; and there was not a vestige of anything which could be regarded
as a treaty between the Colonies and Great Britain. Finally,
therefore, all were apparently brought to see that there was nothing
on which to base the American claim that the Colonies were and always
had been states, free or free and independent, except "the law of
nature and of nations," and not even the law of nature and of nations
as it was understood by the Governments of Europe, but a law of nature
and of nations which was based on the broadest principles of the
Reformation. Free statehood for the American Colonies was apparently
asserted as a universal right of all communities, states and nations,
because free statehood was considered by the framers of the
Declaration to be the universal and only means of forming and
expressing a just public sentiment, and therefore to be the universal
and only means of securing the universal and unalienable rights of
individuals. The ultimate meaning of the expression "that to secure
these rights Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed," seems therefore to be that
by the law of nature and of nations there is a universal right of free
statehood of all communities on the face of the earth within
territorial limits of suitable size for the development and operation
of a just public sentiment.