It is apparent, therefore, that, previously to the Declaration of Independence, the people of the several colonies had established a national government of a revolutionary character, which undertook to act, and did act, in the name and with the general consent of the inhabitants of the country. This government was established by the union, in one body, of delegates representing the people of each colony; who, after they had thus united for national purposes, proceeded, in their respective jurisdictions, by means of conventions and other temporary arrangements, to provide for their domestic concerns by the establishment of local governments, which should be the successors of that authority of the British crown which they had "everywhere suppressed." The fact that these local or state governments were not formed until a union of the people of the different colonies for national purposes had already taken place, and until the national power had authorized and recommended their establishment, is of great importance in the constitutional history of this country; for it shows that no colony, acting separately for itself, dissolved its own allegiance to the British crown, but that this allegiance was dissolved by the supreme authority of the people of all the colonies, acting through their general agent, the Congress, and not only declaring that the authority of Great Britain ought to be suppressed, but recommending that each colony should supplant that authority by a local government, to be framed by and for the people of the colony itself.