of a national idea, and especially
averse from it when embodied in the repulsive form of religious
uniformity, he did not shrink from a contest which he had not provoked,
but had done his utmost to avert. But even then he did not anticipate
civil war. The enrolling of the Waartgelders was an armed protest, a
symbol of legal conviction rather than a serious effort to resist the
general government. And this is the chief justification of his course
from a political point of view. It was ridiculous to suppose that with a
few hundred soldiers hastily enlisted--and there were less than 1800
Waartgelders levied throughout the Provinces and under the orders of
civil magistrates--a serious contest was intended against a splendidly
disciplined army of veteran troops, commanded by the first general of the
age.

From a legal point of view Barneveld considered his position impregnable.

The controversy is curious, especially for Americans, and for all who are
interested in the analysis of federal institutions and of republican
principles, whether aristocratic or democratic. The States of Utrecht
replied in decorous but firm language to the committee of the
States-General that they had raised the six companies in accordance with
their sovereign right so to do, and that they were resolved to maintain
them. They could not wait as they had been obliged to do in the time of
the Earl of Leicester and more recently in 1610 until they had been
surprised and overwhelmed by the enemy before the States-General and his
Excellency the Prince could come to their rescue. They could not suffer
all the evils of tumults, conspiracies, and foreign invasion, without
defending themselves.

Making use, they said, of the right of sovereignty which in their
province belonged to them alone, they thought it better to prevent in
time and by convenient means such fire and mischief than to look on while
it kindled and spread into a conflagration, and to go about imploring aid
from their fellow confederates who, God better it, had enough in these
times to do at home. This would only be to bring them as well as this
province into trouble, disquiet, and expense. "My Lords the States of
Utrecht have conserved and continually exercised this right of
sovereignty in its entireness ever since renouncing the King of Spain.
Every contract, ordinance, and instruction of the States-General has been
in conformity with it, and the States of Utrecht are convinced that the