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Mackean was chosen its president. On the nineteenth, one hundred and four members being present, the resolution of congress of the fifteenth of May was read twice, and unanimously approved; the present government of the colony was condemned as incompetent, and a new one was ordered to be formed on the authority of the people only. Every other colony had shunned the mixture of questions of internal reform with the question of the relation to Great Britain; but here a petition was read from Germans, praying that all associators who were taxable might vote. In the election to the assembly, the possession of fifty pounds proclamation money had been required as the qualification of a voter both in the city under its charter and in the counties, and the foreign born must further have been naturalized under a law which required an oath of allegiance to the British king; the conference reviving the simple provision of "the Great Law" of December 1682 endowed every tax-payer with the right to vote for members of the constituent convention. No more did poverty or place of birth disfranchise free citizens in Pennsylvania.

While in this manner the divisions arising from differences in national origin and in wealth were thrown down, the conference, at the instance of Christopher Marshall who had been educated among the Friends and had left the society because he held it right to draw the sword in defence of civil liberty, resolved that the members elected to the convention should be required to declare their faith in God the Father, Christ his eternal Son, the Holy Spirit, and the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. The pure-minded mystic did not perceive that he was justifying an inquisition by the civil authority into the free action of the soul, and a punishment for departing in belief from the established faith of the state.

It had not been the intention of the conference to perform administrative acts; yet, to repair the grievous neglect of the assembly, they ordered a flying camp of six thousand men to be called out, in conformity to the vote of the continental congress.

One thing more remained: on the afternoon of the twentyfourth, on the report of a committee composed of Mackean, Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, and James Smith of York

VOL. IV.-28

county, the members of the conference, giving their voices one by one with unanimity, pronounced in behalf of themselves and their constituents their willingness to concur in a vote of congress declaring the united colonies to be free and independent states; and an authenticated copy of the vote was, by Mackean, their president, delivered directly to congress.

Wiser were the people of Maryland, for they acted with moderation and unanimity, from a sense of right, and from sympathy with their sister colonies. In May and the early part of June the people, in county meetings, renounced the hope of reconciliation; listening to their voices, the committee of safety called a convention; and that body, assembling on the twenty-first of June, placed itself in the closest relations with its constituents. On the request of any one delegate, the yeas and nays might be taken and entered in its journal; its debates and proceedings were public. Its measures for calling militia into active service were prompt and efficient. On the afternoon of the day on which Moultrie repelled the British squadron from Charleston it concurred with Virginia on the subject of independence, a confederation, treaties with foreign powers, and the reservation of the internal government of each colony to its own people; and five days later, while the continental congress was still considering the form of its declaration of independence, it directed the election of a new convention, to create a government by the sole authority of its people.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE RESOLUTION AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

FROM THE FIRST TO THE FOURTH OF JULY 1776.

On the morning of the first of July, the day set apart for considering the resolution of independence, John Adams, confident as if the vote had been taken, invoked the blessing of heaven to make the new-born republic more glorious than any which had gone before. His heart melted with sorrow at the sufferings of the army that had been in Canada; he knew that England, having recovered that province, commanded the upper lakes and the Mississippi; that she had a free communication with all the tribes of Indians along the western frontiers, and would induce them by bloodshed and fire to drive in the inhabitants upon the middle settlements, at a time when the coasts might be ravaged by the British navy and a single day might bring the army before New York. Independence could be obtained only by a great expense of life; but the greater the danger, the stronger was his determination, for he held that a free constitution of civil government could not be purchased at too dear a rate. He called to mind the fixed rule of the Romans, never to send or receive ambassadors to treat of peace with their enemies while their affairs were in a disastrous situation; and he was cheered by the belief that his countrymen were of the same temper and principle.

At the appointed hour, the members, probably on that day fifty in number, appeared in their places; among them, the delegates lately chosen in New Jersey. The great occasion had brought forth superior statesmen-men who joined moderation to energy. After they had all passed away, their lon

gevity was remarked as a proof of their calm and temperate nature; full two thirds of the New England representatives lived beyond seventy years-some of them to be eighty or ninety. Every colony was found to be represented, and the delegates of all but one had received full power of action. Comprehensive instructions, reaching the question of independence without explicitly using the word, had been given by Massachusetts in January, by Georgia on the fifth of February, by South Carolina in March. North Carolina, in the words of Cornelius Harnett, on the twelfth of April, led the way in expressly directing its representatives in congress to concur in a declaration of independence. On the first of May, Massachusetts expunged the regal style from all public proceedings, and substituted the name of her "government and people; on the fourth, Rhode Island more explicitly renounced allegiance, and made its delegates the representatives of an independent republic; Virginia on the fifteenth, the very day on which John Adams in congress carried his measure for instituting governments by the sole authority of the people, ordered her delegates at Philadelphia to propose independence, and by a circular letter communicated her resolve to all her sister colonies. The movement of Virginia was seconded almost in her words by Connecticut on the fourteenth of June, New Hampshire on the fifteenth, New Jersey on the twentyfirst, the conference of committees of Pennsylvania on the twenty-fourth, Maryland on the twenty-eighth. Delaware on the twenty-second of March had still hoped for conciliation; but on the fifteenth of June she instructed her delegates to concur in forming further compacts between the united colonies, concluding treaties with foreign powers, and adopting such other measures as should be deemed necessary for promoting the liberty, safety, and interests of America. The vote of the eleventh of June showed the purpose of New York; but, under the accumulation of dangers, her statesmen waited a few days longer, that her voice for independence might have the direct authority of her people.

The business of the day began with reading various letters, among others one from Washington, who returned the whole number of his men, present and fit for duty, including the one

regiment of artillery, at seven thousand seven hundred and fifty-four. Of near fourteen hundred, the firelocks were bad; more than eight hundred had none at all; three thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, more than half the whole number of infantry, had no bayonets. Of the militia who had been called for, only about a thousand had joined the camp. With this force the general was to defend extensive lines against an army, near at hand, of thirty thousand veterans. An express from Lee made known that fifty-three ships, with Clinton, had arrived before Charleston, of which the safety was involved in doubt.

A more cheering letter, which Chase had forwarded by express from Annapolis, brought the first news of the unanimity of the Maryland convention, whose vote for independence was produced and read.

The order of the day came next, and congress resolved itself "into a committee of the whole to take into consideration the resolution respecting independency." For a few minutes, silence prevailed. In the absence of the mover of the resolution, the eyes of every one turned toward its seconder, John Adams; and the new members from New Jersey requested that the arguments used in former debates might be recapitulated. He had made no preparation for that morning; but for many months independence had been the chief object of his thoughts and his discourse, and the strongest arguments ranged themselves before his mind in their natural order. Of his sudden, impetuous, unpremeditated speech, no minutes ever existed, and no report was made. It is only remembered that he set forth the justice and the necessity, the seasonableness and the advantages of a separation from Great Britain; he dwelt on the neglect and insult with which their petitions had been treated by the king; and on the vindictive spirit manifested in the employment of German troops whose arrival was hourly expected. He concluded by urging the present time as the most suitable for resolving on independence, inasmuch as it had become the first wish and the last instruction of the communities they represented.

Dickinson of Pennsylvania rose, not so much to reply as to justify himself before congress. He took pride in being the

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