issue of the struggle would depend upon the political colour of the town
magistracies. Barneveld instinctively felt that Maurice, being now
resolved that the Synod should be held, would lose no time in making a
revolution in all the towns through the power he held or could plausibly
usurp. Such a course would, in his opinion, lead directly to an
unconstitutional and violent subversion of the sovereign rights of each
province, to the advantage of the central government. A religious creed
would be forced upon Holland and perhaps upon two other provinces which
was repugnant to a considerable majority of the people. And this would
be done by a majority vote of the States-General, on a matter over which,
by the 13th Article of the fundamental compact--the Union of Utrecht--
the States-General had no control, each province having reserved the
disposition of religious affairs to itself. For let it never be
forgotten that the Union of the Netherlands was a compact, a treaty, an
agreement between sovereign states. There was no pretence that it was an
incorporation, that the people had laid down a constitution, an organic
law. The people were never consulted, did not exist, had not for
political purposes been invented. It was the great primal defect of
their institutions, but the Netherlanders would have been centuries
before their age had they been able to remedy that defect. Yet the
Netherlanders would have been much behind even that age of bigotry had
they admitted the possibility in a free commonwealth, of that most sacred
and important of all subjects that concern humanity, religious creed--the
relation of man to his Maker--to be regulated by the party vote of a
political board.

It was with no thought of treason in his heart or his head therefore that
the Advocate now resolved that the States of Holland and the cities of
which that college was composed should protect their liberties and
privileges, the sum of which in his opinion made up the sovereignty of