_Delegatus non potest
delegare_--the delegate cannot delegate. But the representatives of
the United Kingdom are delegates for the people of the United Kingdom.
They have a right to govern it, but they cannot hand over their power of
government to some other body. My contention is triumphantly supported
by what happened during the attempt, happily unsuccessful, to break up
the United States of America. When Virginia seceded from the Union, the
people of what might be called the Ulster Virginia, a group of counties
in the west of Virginia, declared that the Richmond Legislature had no
right to deprive them of their inalienable right of citizenship in the
American Republic. Therefore they not only refused to secede, but, as
they were physically unable to control Virginia as a whole, they formed
themselves into the Loyal State of West Virginia, just as the Ulster
people were prepared, if they had been forced out of the Union by Mr.
Asquith's Bill, to set up a State for themselves.
At the end of the Civil War, the legal pedants of Washington were
inclined to say that, right or wrong on the merits, the people of West
Virginia had not acted legally in setting up their State, and that
therefore, when the Peace came, they must be put back into Virginia and
under the Richmond Government.
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