and we have seen, even in democratic America, how the attempt to assert State sovereignty against confederated power was stifled in blood. … Before such schemes are further elaborated, may not we and the Australian colonies judiciously consider what claims the Imperial Government, representing the British nation, has upon those provinces? Colonial Ministers, acting under the Crown, have from time to time constituted small patches of society, excised from our own community, the absolute owners of property held in all moral and political honesty in trust for the people and Government of these islands; for it was won and maintained by our adventure and sacrifice. A slip of an imperial pen has unreservedly transferred whole provinces to those casual communities; but this has been done with the implied trust that they should be held and used only in harmony with Imperial interests. No Minister or Government had the power to confer more. These territories from which we might have drawn Imperial revenues are now administered solely in the interests of the settlers. We exact from them no direct pecuniary profit. They have been the gift by which we meant to reward the enterprise of our adventurous sons. But they must not suppose that they have the right to divest them of the Imperial dominion."
Every honest colonist will agree with these
