The Fathers further considered, if my understanding of their belief is
correct, that, inasmuch as both the Legislative Assembly and the Chief
Executive of the Justiciar State, in exercising its power over the free
states connected and united with it, and throughout the Justiciary
Union, have as their function the ascertainment of facts and the
application of the principles of the law of nature and of nations to
those facts, they ought to exercise this function by the advice of a
permanent Administrative Tribunal, properly constituted so as to advise
them intelligently and wisely. As I have said above, the Revolutionary
statesmen considered, as it would seem, that the Committee of the Privy
Council for Plantation Affairs, assisted by the Board of Commissioners
for Trade and Plantations, had, up to 1763, constituted such an
Administrative Tribunal. They considered also, it would seem, that
neither the Chief Executive nor the Legislative Assembly was bound by
the action of this Administrative Tribunal, its action being wholly
advisory, but that the Chief Executive was bound to take its advice
before making his dispositions; and that the Chief Executive, when
acting as an Administrative Tribunal for disposing and regulating the
common affairs of the free states of the Justiciary Union, after taking
the advice of this permanent Administrative Tribunal, was a tribunal of
first instance. They further considered, as it would seem, that the
Legislative Assembly, when acting as an Administrative Tribunal for
adjudicating and regulating the common affairs of the Justiciary Union,
was a tribunal of final instance, whose dispositions and regulations
superseded those of the Chief Executive in so far as they conflicted
with them. It was, as I understand it, because the situation of affairs
in the British-American Union from 1700 to 1763 conformed to the
theoretical ideas of the Americans as to the true nature of the
relationship between the American Free States and the State of Great