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Brownson, Orestes Augustus, 1803-1876

"The American Republic : constitution, tendencies and destiny"

This the facts
and reasonings adduced fully establish.
But this one sovereign people that exists only as organized into
States, does not necessarily include the whole population or
territory included within the jurisdiction of the United States.
It is restricted to the people and territory or domain organized
into States in the Union, as in ancient Rome the ruling people
were restricted to the tenants of the sacred territory, which had
been surveyed, and its boundaries marked by the god Terminus, and
which by no means included all the territory held by the city,
and of which she was both the private proprietor and the public
sovereign. The city had vast possessions acquired by
confiscation, by purchase, by treaty, or by conquest, and in
reference to which her celebrated agrarian laws were enacted, and
which have their counterpart in our homestead and kindred laws.
In this class of territory, of which the city was the private
owner, was the territory of all the Roman provinces, which was
held to be only leased to its occupants, who were often
dispossessed, and their lands given as a recompense by the consul
or imperator to his disbanded legionaries. The provincials were
subjects of Rome, but formed no part of the Roman people, and had
no share in the political power of the state, till at a late
period the privileges of Roman citizens were extended to them,
and the Roman people became coextensive with the Roman empire.


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