The deputies were not representatives of the people, but of the states; for the people of the United States of the Netherlands never assembled--as did the people of the United States of America two centuries later--to lay down a constitution, by which they granted a generous amount of power to the union, while they reserved enough of sovereign attributes to secure that local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty.
The Union of Utrecht; narrowed as it was to the nether portion of that country which, as a whole, might have formed a commonwealth so much more powerful, was in origin a proof of this lamentable want of patriotism.
Could the jealousy of great nobles, the rancour of religious differences, the Catholic bigotry of the Walloon population, on the one side, contending with the democratic insanity of the Ghent populace on the other, have been restrained within bounds by the moderate counsels of William of Orange, it would have been possible to unite seventeen provinces instead of seven, and to save many long and blighting years of civil war.
The Utrecht Union was, however, of inestimable value.

It was time for some step to be taken, if anarchy were not to reign until the inquisition and absolutism were restored.

Already, out of Chaos and Night, the coming Republic was assuming substance and form.

The union, if it created nothing else, at least constructed a league against a foreign foe whose armed masses were pouring faster and faster into the territory of the provinces.

Farther than this it did not propose to go.