overeign state and without any exaggeration
of the imperious circumstances of the case.

Nor did the States-General and the Stadholder at that moment affect to
dispute the rights of Utrecht, nor raise a doubt as to the legality of
the proceedings. The committee sent thither by the States-General, the
Prince, and the council of state in their written answer to the letter of
the Utrecht government declared the reasons given for the enrolment of
the six companies to be insufficient and the measure itself highly
dangerous. They complained, but in very courteous language, that the
soldiers had been levied without giving the least notice thereof to the
general government, without asking its advice, or waiting for any
communication from it, and they reminded the States of Utrecht that they
might always rely upon the States-General and his Excellency, who were
still ready, as they had been seven years before (1610), to protect them
against every enemy and any danger.

The conflict between a single province of the confederacy and the
authority of the general government had thus been brought to a direct
issue; to the test of arms. For, notwithstanding the preamble to the
resolution of the Utrecht Assembly just cited, there could be little
question that the resolve itself was a natural corollary of the famous
"Sharp Resolution," passed by the States of Holland three weeks before.
Utrecht was in arms to prevent, among other things at least, the forcing
upon them by a majority of the States-General of the National Synod to
which they were opposed, the seizure of churches by the
Contra-Remonstrants, and the destruction of life and property by inflamed
mobs.

There is no doubt that Barneveld deeply deplored the issue, but that he
felt himself bound to accept it. The innate absurdity of a constitutional
system under which each of the seven members was sovereign and
independent and the head was at the mercy of the members could not be
more flagrantly illustrated. In the bloody battles which seemed impending
in the streets of Utrecht and in all the principal cities of the
Netherlands between the soldiers of sovereign states and soldiers of a
general government which was not sovereign, the letter of the law and the
records of history were unquestionably on the aide of the provincial and
against the general authority. Yet to nullify the authority of the
States-General by force of arms at this supreme moment was to stultify
all governmen