THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. [To THE EDITOR OF TILE "SPECTATOR."]
Sie,—Section 75 of the Constitution of Virginia of 1902 provides that "Commissions and grants shall run in the name of Commonwealth of Virginia, and be attested by the Governor with the seal of the Commonwealth annexed," thus repeating in effect the language used in the Constitutions of 1776, 1830, 1850, 1864, and 1870. In all these Constitutions the sovereign State is so often mentioned as the "Commonwealth" that it would require several pages of the Spectator to quote the lan- guage of the sections in which the term occurs. It is, of course, possible that a later constitution than that of 1902 changes the term, but it would have to be quoted in order to convince the epigraphist of the Washington statue of an error. In none of the constitutions to which I have referred can I find that Virginia was called "the Dominion of Virgina," as the authority to whom you refer in "News of the Week" (July 9th) states. Massachusetts' Constitution of 1780 declares itself to be "the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts." Like Virginia, it has always used this term as its description. Pennsylvania has also been a " commonwealth " under its constitutions of 1776, 1790, 1838, and 1873, if the habitual use of that term in speaking of the State is sufficient to determine the fact. I cannot find that LILLY State has been
known as a "Dominion " in official documents, but in conver- sation I have occasionally heard of the "old Dominion." referring to Virginia. Perhaps this rather loose designation was due to the language used in the grant to Ralegh and his associates by the crown, under the terms of which they appear to have been the grantees of the whole Atlantic coast to a depth of 150 miles between the 34th and 45th parallels of north
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