The condition of Virginia for the period immediately preceding the Revolution was one which well merits the consideration of political philosophers.  For many years the extent of the territory of the Old Dominion was undecided, no lines being fixed between that State and Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Virginia claimed a large part of both these States as hers; and, indeed, there seems to be in that State an hereditary unconsciousness of the limits of her dominion.  The question of jurisdiction superseded every other for the time, and the formal administration of the law itself ceased.  There is a period lasting through a whole generation in which society in the western part of the State went on without courts or authorities.  There was no court but of public opinion, no administration but of the mob.  Judges were ermined and juries impanelled by the community when occasion demanded.  Kercheval, who grew from that vicinity and state of things, and whose authority is excellent, says,—­“They had no civil, military, or ecclesiastical laws,—­at least, none were enforced; yet we look in vain for any period, before or since, when property, life, and morals were any better protected.”  A statement worth pondering by those who tell us that man is nought, government all.  The tongue-lynchings and other punishments inflicted by the community upon evil-doers were adapted to the reformation of the culprit or his banishment from the community.  The punishment for idleness, lying, dishonesty, and ill-fame generally, was that of “hating the offender out,” as they expressed it.  This was about equivalent to the [Greek:  atimia] among the Greeks.  It was a public expression, in various ways, of the general indignation against any transgressor, and commonly resulted either in the profound repentance or the voluntary exile of the person against whom it was directed:  it was generally the fixing of any epithet which was proclaimed by each tongue when the sinner appeared,—­e.g., Foultongue, Lawrence, Snakefang.  The name of Extra-Billy Smith is a quite recent case of this “tongue-lynching.”  It was in these days of no laws, however, that the practice of duelling was imported into Virginia.  With this exception, the State can trace no evil results to the period when society was resolved into its simplest elements.  Indeed, it was at this time that there began to appear there signs of a sturdy and noble race of Americanized Englishmen.  The average size of the European Englishman was surpassed.  A woman was equal to an Indian.  A young Virginian one day killed a buffalo on the Alleghany Mountains, stretched its skin over ribs of wood, and on the boat so made sailed the full length of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  But this development was checked by the influx of “English gentry,” who brought laws and fashions from London.  The old books are full of the conflicts which these fastidious gentlemen and ladies had with the rude pioneer customs and laws.  The fine ladies found that there was an old statute