*

gers. The meeting was awfully solemn. The object which had called them together was of incalculable magnitude. The liberty of no less than three millions of people, with that of all their posterity, was staked on the wisdom and energy of their counsels. No wonder, then, at the long and deep silence which is said to have followed upon their organization; at the anxiety with which the members looked around at each other; and the reluctance which every individual felt to open a business so fearfully momentous. In the midst of this deep and death-like silence, and just when it was beginning to become painfully embarrassing, Mr. Henry arose slowly, as if born down by the weight of the subject. After faltering, according to his habit, through a most impressive exordium, in which he merely

echoed back the consciousness of

berless prejudices to remove here. We have been obliged to act with great delicacy and caution. We have been obliged to keep ourselves out of sight, and to feel pulses and sound the depths; to insinuate our sentiments, designs, and desires by means of the other persons; sometimes of one province, and sometimes of another."-Works, vol. i., pp. 153–154.

Beside the recollections of Charles Thomson, who took the minutes of the session, and a condensed abstract in the diary of John Adams, nothing authentic remains of this speech. See Henry, Life of Patrick Henry, vol. i., pp. 219-221; John Adams, Works, vol. ii., p. 365.

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every other heart, in deploring his inability to do justice to the occasion, he launched gradually into a recital of the colonial wrongs. Rising, as he advanced, with the grandeur of his subject, and glowing, at length, with all the majesty and expectation of the occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal man. He sat down amidst murmurs of astonishment and applause; and as he had before been proclaimed the greatest orator of Virginia, he was now, on every hand, admitted to be the first orator of America." According to Wirt, the speech made by Henry was followed by one made by Richard Henry Lee, but according to the Journal, Lee was not even in the house that day and the speech was probably delivered on the second day of the convention. Undoubtedly, both Henry and Lee were among the most eloquent of the orators assembled at this congress, but it was only in debate that they surpassed their fellow members; for when matters requiring clear solid sense, judgment and discretion, were before the House, both Henry and Lee found their equals and superiors.

In order to give proper dignity and

Wirt, Life of Patrick Henry, p. 124. Tyler, however, in his Life of Patrick Henry, p. 106 et seq. says that there is no other part of Wirt's biography which is so historically inaccurate; that Henry did not make the speech attributed to him on that day and probably not at all; and that the members were not strangers, but if not known personally to one another, were at least known by reputation.

"Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British Parliament, claiming a power of right to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases whatsoever, hath in some acts expressly imposed taxes on them; and in others, under various pretences, but in fact for the purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and duties payable in these colonies, established a board of commissioners with unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising within the body of a county:

"And whereas, in consequence of other statutes, judges, who before held only estates at will in their offices, have been made dependent on the

See Sparks, Correspondence of the American Revolution, vol. i., pp. 448-458; W. C. Ford, The Washington-Duché Letters (privately printed, Brooklyn, 1890).

On his contributions to the literature of that time, see Tyler, Literary History of the American Revolution, vol. ii., p. 292 et seq.

On the debates in the committee, see Henry, Life of Patrick Henry, vol. i., p. 226 et seq.

Curtis, Constitutional History, vol. i., p.

14.

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crown alone for their salaries, and standing armies kept in times of peace: and whereas it has lately been resolved in Parliament, that by force of a statute made in the 35th year of the reign of Henry VII., colonists may be transported to England, and tried there, upon accusations for

treason, and misprisions and concealment of treasons committed in the colonies; and by a late statute, such trials have been directed in cases therein mentioned:

"And whereas, in the last session of Parliament three statutes were made; one entitled 'An act to discontinue in such manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping of goods, wares and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America;' another, entitled 'An act for the better regulating the government of the province of Massachusetts Bay in New England;' and another act, entitled 'An act for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any act done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults in the province of Massachusetts Bay in New England:' and another statute was then made for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec, etc.: all which statutes are impolitic, unjust and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous and destructive of American rights:

"And whereas, Assemblies have been frequently dissolved, contrary to the rights of the people, when they attempted to deliberate on grievances; and their dutiful, humble, loyal and reasonable petitions to the crown for redress, have been repeatedly treated with contempt by his majesty's ministers of state: the good people of the several colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Newcastle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,— justly alarmed at the arbitrary proceedings of Parliament and administrations, have severally elected, constituted and appointed deputies to meet and sit in general Congress, in the city of Philadelphia, in order to obtain such establishment, as that their religion, laws and liberties may not be subverted: whereupon, the deputies so appointed being now assembled in a full and free representation of these colonies, taking into their most serious consideration the best means of attaining the ends aforesaid, do, in the first place, as Englishmen, their ancestors, in like cases have usually done for asserting and vindicating their

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rights and liberties, declare, that the inhabitants of the English colonies in North America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following rights:

"Resolved unanimously,— 1st, That they are entitled to life, liberty and property; and they have never ceded to any sovereign whatsoever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.

"Resolved,- 2d. That our ancestors, who first settled these colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from the mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the realm of England.

"Resolved,- 3d, That by such emigration, they by no means forfeited, surrendered, or lost any of those rights, but that they were, and their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of them as their local and other circumstances enabled them to exercise and enjoy.

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Resolved, 4th, That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative councils; and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed; but from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interests of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British Parliament as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, external or internal, for raising a revenue on the subjects of America, without their consent.

"Resolved,-5th, That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law.

"Resolved,- 6th, That they are entitled to the benefit of such of the English statutes as existed at the time of their colonization; and which they have, by experience, respectively found to be ap

'Resolved,- 9th, That the keeping a standing army in these colonies in times of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony in which such army is kept, is against law.

"Resolved,- 10th, It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative power in several colonies, by a council appointed during pleasure by the crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous, and destruction to the freedom of American legislation.

"All and each of which the aforesaid deputies, in behalf of themselves and their constituents, do claim, demand, and insist on, as their indubitable rights and liberties, which cannot be legally taken from them, altered, or abridged by any power whatever, without their own consent, by their representatives in their several provincial legisla tures. In the course of our inquiry, we find many infringements and violations of the foregoing rights, which, from an ardent desire that harmony and mutual intercourse of affection and interest may be restored, we pass over for the present, and proceed to state such acts and measures as have been adopted since the last war, which demonstrate a system formed to enslave America.

"Resolved,-11th, That the following acts of Parliament are infringements and violations of the rights of the colonists; and that the repeal of them is essentially necessary, in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies, viz., the several acts of 4 Geo. III., ch. 15 and 34; 5 Geo. III., ch. 25; 6 Geo. III., ch. 52; 7 Geo. III., ch. 41, and ch. 46; 8 Geo. III., ch. 22, which impose duties for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, extend the power of the admiralty courts beyond their ancient limits, deprive the American subject of trial by jury, authorize the judge's certificate to indemnify the prosecutor from damages that he might otherwise be liable to, requiring oppressive security from a claimant of ships and goods seized, before he shall be al