withdrawn by Great Britain, and war made upon them, they had a right to enter into a confederacy with any other States for the purpose of mutual defence; but their internal government remained unaltered and the same." - pp. 57, 58.

As the American Revolution did not impair the authority of the charter or the government established under it, so neither was there any thing in the conduct or the principles of the men at that period, which gives any sanction to the proceedings of the Suffrage party. We have already shown, that this great event was the most orderly revolution, that the world has ever witnessed. It was not a mere revolt, conducted by disorderly assemblages of men, suddenly throwing off a yoke which they had patiently borne for many years, and fanatically combating in defence of abstract principles to the value and importance of which their own eyes were but just opened. It was not a Quixotic crusade in favor of human rights in general, nor a war undertaken only to show that all men were free and equal, and had a right to govern themselves as they saw fit. It was rather the grave and deliberate act of a great country, that had grown up, in less than two centuries, as a dependency of England, and had gloried in this connexion with the land of its fathers, and in the privileges which inured to its people in their character as British subjects, till the aggressions of the crown and the oppressive conduct of the administration made it necessary. to sever the tie, and to strike boldly in defence of these privileges, and of the more general rights of humanity, to which they were at last compelled, though reluctantly, to make appeal. They fought through the whole earlier part of the struggle, not for the acquisition of new privileges, but for the preservation of old ones; not for the abstract doctrine of the equality of the human race, but for the maintenance of their charters, and of the right, which they had inherited from their fathers, of being taxed only by their own representatives. It is true, they were driven, at last, by “a long train of abuses and usurpations," to throw off their dependency on the British crown, "and to provide new guards for their future security." But it was a grave and awful necessity, like that of sundering the tie between parent and child. Even then, they did nothing in hatred, haste, or malice. They say, in language which is rather pathetic than denunciatory or triumphant, "we must, therefore, ac

quiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation"; and they declare, " that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." And this was the grand result of the Revolution, to dissolve "all political connexion" with England, and not to proclaim a new gospel of human rights; to fall back on their primitive institutions, and not to destroy them and to put new ones in their place; to strike out one principle of American law, and not to abrogate the whole code.

Is this a novel and merely speculative view of the great contest of 1776? Look, then, at the conduct, the speeches and the writings of the earlier patriots, the proper fathers of the Revolution," of such men as James Otis, John Dickinson, and Dr. Franklin. They all boasted of the connexion of the country with England, and gloried in the title of British subjects; they were strongly attached to the land which they still called their "home"; they acknowledged the duty of allegiance to the crown, and spoke with the gloomiest apprehensions of measures for a separation, that might be forced upon them, if the ministry persisted in their schemes. The General Court of Massachusetts, in a memorial against the "Sugar Act," which they transmitted to their agent in England in the summer of 1764, declared, that "the connexion between Great Britain and her Colonies is so natural and strong, as to make their mutual happiness depend upon their mutual support. Nothing can tend more to the destruction of both, and to forward the measures of their enemies, than sowing the seeds of jealousy, animosity, and dissention between the mother country and the Colonies." James Otis, in his "Rights of the British Colonies," published the same year, when he was the avowed leader of the patriotic party in Massachusetts, writes thus: "We all think ourselves happy under Great Britain. We love, esteem, and reverence our mother country, and adore our king. And could the choice of independency be offered the Colonies, or subjection to Great Britain upon any terms above absolute slavery, I am convinced they would accept the latter." As late as July, 1774, John Dickinson, "the Pennsylvania Farmer," wrote the "instructions " presented by the deputies of several counties in Pennsylvania to their representatives in the General Assembly, from which we make the following extract.

"We well know, that the Colonists are charged by many persons in Great Britain, with attempting to obtain such an exclusion [of any power of parliament over these Colonies] and a total independence on her. As well we know the accusation to be utterly false. We can safely appeal to that Being, from whom no thought can be concealed, that our warmest wish and utmost ambition is, that we and our posterity may ever remain subordinate to and dependent upon our parent state. This submission our reason approves, our affection dictates, our duty commands, and our interest enforces."

Washington, as late as October, 1774, writes to a friend in Boston as follows:

"I was involuntarily led into a short discussion of this subject by your remarks on the conduct of the Boston people, and your opinion of their wishes to set up for independency. I am well satisfied, that no such thing is desired by any thinking man in all North America; on the contrary, that it is the ardent wish of the warmest advocates for liberty, that peace and tranquillity, upon constitutional grounds, may be restored, and the horrors of civil discord prevented."

In a long note upon this passage, Mr. Sparks brings together an array of citations and authorities upon this point, which are perfectly decisive. We can find room only for a few brief extracts. John Jay says:

"During the course of my life, and until after the second petition of Congress, in 1775, I never did hear an American of any class, or of any description, express a wish for the independence of the Colonies. It has always been, and still is, my opinion and belief, that our country was prompted and impelled to independence by necessity, and not by choice."

"That there existed a general desire of independence of the crown, in any part of America, before the revolution, is as far from the truth, as the zenith from the nadir. For my own part, there was not a moment during the revolution, when I would not have given every thing I possessed for a restoration to the state of things before the contest began, provided we could have had a sufficient security for its continuance."

And Mr. Jefferson affirmed,

"What, eastward of New York, might have been the dispositions towards England before the commencement of hostilities, I know not; before that, I never heard a whisper of a

disposition to separate from Great Britain; and after that, its possibility was contemplated with affliction by all."

"You

Similar opinions, expressed in language quite as strong, are found throughout Franklin's correspondence for eight or nine years after the date of the Stamp Act. Even the old Congress, in the autumn of 1774, in an address to the people of Great Britain, use the following language. have been told that we are seditious, impatient of government, and desirous of independency. Be assured, that these are not facts but calunnies. Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness." And in their address to the king, they say: "We ask but for peace, liberty, and safety. We wish not a diminution of the prerogative, nor do we solicit the grant of any new right in our favor. Your royal authority over us, and our connexion with Great Britain, we shall always carefully and zealously endeavour to support and maintain."

It is useless to multiply these citations. Enough has been given to support our view of the sentiments and doctrines maintained by the patriots of this country at the beginning of the war with England, and to show that there is nothing in them which harmonizes with the disorganizing and anarchical theory and practice of the Suffrage party in Rhode Island. Even the abstract assertion of the natural rights of man, with which the Declaration of Independence opens, if viewed in light cast upon it by the writings and the actions of its signers, must not be taken in its broad and literal meaning, as then actually reduced to practice; but as put forward only to justify the single step of a separation from England. Accordingly they say, that "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it"; but they go on immediately to qualify this assertion by the remark, that "prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established ought not to be changed for light and transient causes."

It is more directly connected with our present purpose to remark, that the revolution of 1776 was directed entirely by duly organized assemblies and associations, legally constituted, representing bodies politic. The authority on which they acted was not derived merely from casual and tumultuous assemblages of the people, into which any person might enter, and where every man had a voice. It was drawn, in

most cases, from long established legislative assemblies, existing according to law; and when circumstances prevented such assemblies from coming together, conventions were organized in their place, closely resembling them in every particular. Such conventions were never held to displace the regular legislatures, to usurp their functions, or to dispute their authority.

Our limits will not permit us to illustrate and support this proposition at length. We can only call attention to a few facts and authorities, which are still enough to leave no doubt upon the subject. The inhabitants of Boston, who played the chief part in the opening scenes of the Revolution, acted only in legal town meetings, duly called by the selectmen, and properly organized. An irregular convention of deputies from the towns in Massachusetts was held at Boston in 1768; but it was called only on account of the refusal of the governor to convene the General Court; and it sat but a few days, and did but little business, for the confidence of the people was not with it. The members expressly disclaimed "any pretence to authoritative, or governmental acts," and soon gladly resigned their task of defending the people's rights into the hands of the people's legal representatives. The delegates to the first Continental Congress were chosen, sometimes by the regular Assemblies, sometimes by a convention of committees appointed by the people for this purpose, and, in a few instances, by the committees themselves. "It is not likely," says Mr. Sparks, "that in a single elective body on the continent, there was an instance of a member's taking his seat, without exhibiting a well authenticated certificate, that he was duly chosen."* The credentials of the members are printed in full in the journals of the old Congress, and it appears, that they were examined before the individuals were allowed to take their seats. We find there the certificate of the governor of Rhode Island, given under the Colonial seal, certifying that Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward had been duly nominated and appointed delegates by the General Assembly of the Colony. Similar certificates, though without the signature of the governor, were presented by the members from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and South