History of the United States Constitution. George Ticknor Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ relation to the people, were, in many instances, the bodies which took the initiatory steps for the organization of the first national or Continental Congress, when it became necessary for the colonies to unite in the common purpose of resistance to the mother country. But it should be again stated, before we attend to the steps thus taken, that the colonies had no direct political connection with each other before the Revolution commenced, but that each was a distinct community, with its own separate political organization, and without any power of legislation for any but its own inhabitants; that, as political communities, and upon the principles of their organizations, they possessed no power of forming any union among themselves, for any purpose whatever, without the sanction of the Crown or Parliament of England.3 But the free and independent power of forming a union among themselves, for objects and purposes common to them all, which was denied to their colonial condition by the principles of the English Constitution, was one of the chief powers asserted and developed by the Revolution; and they were enabled to effect this union, as a revolutionary right and measure, by the fortunate circumstances of their origin, which made the people of the different colonies, in several important senses, one people. They were, in the first place, chiefly the descendants of Englishmen, governed by the laws, inheriting the blood, and speaking the language of the people of England. As British subjects, they had enjoyed the right of dwelling in any of the colonies, without restraint, and of carrying on trade from one colony to another, under the regulation of the general laws of the empire, without restriction by colonial legislation. They had, moreover, common grievances to be redressed, and a common independence to establish, if redress could not be obtained: for although the precise grounds of dispute with the Crown or the Parliament of England had not always been the same in all the colonies, yet when the Revolution actually broke out, they all stood in the same attitude of resistance to the same oppressor, making common cause with each other, and resting upon certain great principles of liberty, which had been violated with regard to many of them, and with the further violation of which all were threatened.

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      It was while the controversies between the mother country and the colonies were drawing towards a crisis, that Dr. Franklin, then in England as the political agent of Pennsylvania, of Massachusetts, and of Georgia, in an official letter to the Massachusetts Assembly, dated July 7th, 1773, recommended the assembling of a general congress of all the colonies. "As the strength of an empire," said he, "depends not only on the union of its parts, but on their readiness for united exertion of their common force; and as the discussion of rights may seem unseasonable in the commencement of actual war, and the delay it might occasion be prejudicial to the common welfare; as likewise the refusal of one or a few colonies would not be so much regarded, if the others granted liberally, which perhaps by various artifices and motives they might be prevailed on to do; and as this want of concert would defeat the expectation of general redress, that might otherwise be justly formed; perhaps it would be best and fairest for the colonies, in a general congress now in peace to be assembled, or by means of the correspondence lately proposed, after a full and solemn assertion and declaration of their rights, to engage firmly with each other, that they will never grant aids to the crown in any general war, till those rights are recognized by the King and both houses of Parliament; communicating at the same time to the crown this their resolution. Such a step I imagine will bring the dispute to a crisis."4

      The first actual step towards this measure was taken in Virginia. A new House of Burgesses had been summoned by the royal Governor to meet in May, 1774. Soon after the members had assembled at Williamsburg, they received the news that, by an act of Parliament, the port of Boston was to be closed on the first day of the succeeding June, and that other disabilities were to be inflicted on the town. They immediately passed an order, setting apart the first day of June as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, "to implore the Divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights." Thereupon, the Governor dissolved the House. But the members immediately assembled at another place of meeting, and, having organized themselves as a committee, drew up and subscribed an Association, in which they declared that the interests of all the colonies were equally concerned in the late doings of Parliament, and advised the local Committee of Correspondence to consult with the committees of the other colonies on the expediency of holding a general Continental Congress. Pursuant to these recommendations, a popular convention was holden at Williamsburg, on the 1st of August, which appointed seven persons as delegates to represent the people of Virginia in a general Congress to be held at Philadelphia in the September following.5

      The Massachusetts Assembly met on the last of May, and, after negativing thirteen of the Councillors, Governor Gage adjourned the Assembly to meet at Salem on the 7th of June. When they came together at that place, the House of Representatives passed a resolve, declaring a meeting of committees from the several colonies on the continent to be highly expedient and necessary, to deliberate and determine upon proper measures to be recommended to all the colonies for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and for the restoration of union and harmony with Great Britain. They then appointed five delegates6 to meet the representatives of the other colonies in congress at Philadelphia, in the succeeding September.

      These examples were at once followed by the other colonies. In some of them, the delegates to the Continental Congress were appointed by the popular branch of the legislature, acting for and in behalf of the people; in others, they were appointed by conventions of the people called for the express purpose, or by committees duly authorized to make the appointment.7 The Congress, styling themselves "the delegates appointed by the good people of these colonies," assembled at Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 1774, and organized themselves as a deliberative body by the choice of officers and the adoption of rules of proceeding. Peyton Randolph of Virginia was elected President, and Charles Thompson of Pennsylvania Secretary of the Congress.

      No precedent existed for the mode of action to be adopted by this assembly. There was, therefore, at the outset, no established principle which might determine the nature of the union; but that union was to be shaped by the new circumstances and relations in which the Congress found itself placed. There had been no general concert among the different colonies as to the numbers of delegates, or, as they were called in many of the proceedings, "committees" of the colonies, to be sent to the meeting at Philadelphia. On the first day of their assembling, Pennsylvania and Virginia had each six delegates in attendance; New York had five; Massachusetts, New Jersey, and South Carolina had four each; Connecticut had three; New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland had two each. The delegates from North Carolina did not arrive until the 14th.8

      As soon as the choice of officers had taken place,9 the method of voting presented itself as the first thing to be determined; and the difficulties arising from the inequalities between the colonies in respect to actual representation, population, and wealth, had to be encountered upon the threshold. Insuperable obstacles stood in the way of the adoption of interests as the basis of votes. The weight of a colony could not be ascertained by the numbers of its inhabitants, the amount of their wealth, the extent of their trade, or by any ratio to be compounded of all these elements, for no authentic evidence existed from which data could be taken.10 As it was apparent, however, that some colonies had a larger proportion of members present than others, relatively to their size and importance, it was thought to be equally objectionable to adopt the method of voting by polls. In these circumstances, the opinion was advanced, that the colonial governments were at an end; that all America was thrown into one mass, and was in a state of nature; and consequently, that the people ought to be considered as represented in the Congress according to their numbers, by the delegations actually present.11 Upon this principle, the voting should have been by polls.

      But neither the circumstances under which they were assembled, nor the dispositions of the members, permitted an adoption of the theory that all government was at an end, or that the boundaries of the colonies were effaced. The Congress had not assembled as the representatives of a people in a state of nature, but as the committees of different colonies, which had not yet severed themselves СКАЧАТЬ