The community, in a word, is reduced, — no, is elevated, — to a state of nature : — to a state of na ture, in a high and solemn sense, in which the feeling of a great im pending common danger and the consciousness of an exalted and reso lute common purpose, take the place, at once and with full efficacy, of all the machinery of constitutional government.
The powers, assumed by the commit tees of safety and supplies and by the provincial Congress, are obeyed, with a ready deference, never yielded, in the most loyal times, to the legal commands of the king's governors.  The community, in a word, is reduced, — no, is elevated, — to a state of nature : — to a state of na ture, in a high and solemn sense, in which the feeling of a great im pending common danger and the consciousness of an exalted and reso lute common purpose, take the place, at once and with full efficacy, of all the machinery of constitutional government.  It is thus that a peo ple, fit for freedom, may get the substance before^the forms of liberty.