The general congress of the estates of the various provinces forming the Netherlands. Its chief business was financial, as through it alone could the Sovereign legally obtain supplies.
States’ Rights.
A political doctrine in the United States, which maintains that the Federal State is not a sovereign state, but that its acts require ratification by the individual States forming the Union, who are thus at liberty to disregard its enactments if they consider them unconstitutional. Thus South Carolina, in 1832, “nullified” an Act of Congress relating to import duties, and the doctrine was held in 1860 to justify the secession of the Southern States.
Status quo ante.
A term used to express the return after a war to the position occupied by the belligerents before the war broke out.
Statutes.
See Apparel, Apprentices, Carlisle, Donis, Drogheda, Fines, Hæretico, Kilkenny, Labourers, Liveries, Mercatoribus, Præmunire, Provisors, Quia Emptores, Rhudlann, Stabbing, Stamford, Staples, Submission, Tallagio, Treason, Uses, Wales, Westminster, Wills, Winchester.
Steelboys.
An Irish agrarian society, formed in 1772 in Down and Antrim, chiefly on the estates of the Marquis of Donegal, where there had been wholesale evictions. Very serious outrages were perpetrated, and it was found necessary to try prisoners in Dublin.