The defective part of the Netherland constitutions could not be better
illustrated. The minority of the States of Holland refused to be bound
by a majority of the provincial assembly. The minority of the States-
General refused to be bound by the majority of the united assembly.

This was reducing politics to an absurdity and making all government
impossible. It is however quite certain that in the municipal
governments a majority had always governed, and that a majority vote in
the provincial assemblies had always prevailed. The present innovation
was to govern the States-General by a majority.

Yet viewed by the light of experience and of common sense, it would be
difficult to conceive of a more preposterous proceeding than thus to cram
a religious creed down the throats of half the population of a country by
the vote of a political assembly. But it was the seventeenth and not the
nineteenth century.

Moreover, if there were any meaning in words, the 13th Article of Union,
reserving especially the disposition over religious matters to each
province, had been wisely intended to prevent the possibility of such
tyranny.

When the letters of invitation to the separate states and to others were
drawing up in the general assembly, the representatives of the three
states left the chamber. A solitary individual from Holland remained
however, a burgomaster of Amsterdam.

Uytenbogaert, conversing with Barneveld directly afterwards, advised him
to accept the vote. Yielding to the decision of the majority, it would