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 from the parent state. They had been clothed with no legislative or coercive authority, even of a revolutionary nature; compliance with their resolves would follow only on conviction of the utility of their measures; and all their resolves and all their measures were, by the express terms of many of their credentials, limited to the restoration of union and harmony with Great Britain, which would of course leave the colonies in their colonial state. The people of the continent, therefore, as a people in the state of nature, or even in a national existence as one people standing in a revolutionary attitude, had not then come into being.

The nature of the questions, too, which they were to discuss, and of the measures which they were to adopt, were to be considered in determining by what method of voting those questions and measures should be decided. The Congress had been called to secure the rights of the colonies. What were those rights? By what standard were they to be ascertained? By the law of nature, or by the principles of the English Constitution, or by the charters and fundamental laws of the colonies, regarded as compacts between the crown and the people, or by all of these combined? If the law of nature alone was to determine their rights, then all allegiance to the British crown was to be regarded as at an end. If the principles of the English Constitution, or the charters, were to be the standard, the law of nature must be excluded from consideration. This exclusion would of necessity narrow the ground, and deprive them of a resource to which Parliament might at last compel them to look. In order, therefore, to leave the whole field open for consideration, and at the same time to avoid committing themselves to principles irreconcilable with the preservation of allegiance and their colonial relation to Great Britain,

See the very interesting notes of their debates in Adams's Works, II. 366, 370-377.

it was necessary to consider themselves as an assembly of committees from the different colonies, in which each colony should have one voice, through the delegates whom it had sent to represent and act for it. But, as if foreseeing the time when population would become of necessity the basis of congressional power, when the authority of Parliament would have given place to a system of American continental legislation, they inserted, in the resolve determining that each colony should have one vote, a caution that would prevent its being drawn into precedent. They declared, as the reason for the course which they adopted, that the Congress were not possessed of, or able to procure, the proper materials for ascertaining the importance of each colony.'

It appears, therefore, very clear that an examination of the relations of the first Congress to the colonies which instituted it will not enable us to assign to it the character of a government. Its members were not elected for the express purpose of making a revolution. It was an assembly convened from separate colonies, each of which had causes of complaint against the imperial government to which it acknowledged its allegiance to be due, and each of which regarded it as essential to its own interests to make common cause with the others, for the purpose of obtaining redress of its own grievances. The idea of separating themselves from the mother country had not been generally entertained by the people of any of the colonies. All their public proceedings, from the commencement of the disputes down to the election of delegates to the first Congress, including the instructions given to those delegates, prove, as we have seen, that they looked for redress and relief to means which they regarded as entirely consistent with the principles of the British Constitution."

1 Journals, I. 10.

2 The instructions embraced in the credentials of the delegates to the first Congress were as follows: NEW HAMPSHIRE· -"to devise, consult, and adopt such measures as may have the most likely tendency to extricate the colonies from their present difficulties; to secure and perpetuate their rights, liberties, and privileges; and to restore that peace, harmony, and mutual confidence which once happily subsisted between the parent country and her colonies." MASSACHUSETTS-"to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration

1

Still, although this Congress did not take upon themselves the functions of a government, or propose revolution as a remedy for the wrongs of their constituents, they regarded and styled themselves as "the guardians of the rights and liberties of the colonies ;" and in that capacity they proceeded to declare the causes of complaint, and to take the necessary steps to obtain redress, in what they believed to be a constitutional mode. These steps, however, although not directly revolutionary, had a revolutionary tendency.

On the 6th of September, 1774, a resolve was passed, that a committee be appointed to state the rights of the colonies in general, the several instances in which those rights had been violated or infringed, and the means most proper to be pursued for obtaining a restoration of them. Another committee was ordered on

of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently desired by all good men." RHODE ISLAND-" to meet and join with the other commissioners or delegates from the other colonies in consulting upon proper measures to obtain a repeal of the several acts of the British Parliament for levying taxes upon his majesty's subjects in America without their consent, and particularly the commercial connection of the colonies with the mother country, for the relief of Boston and the preservation of American liberty." VIRGINIA— "to consider of the most proper and effectual manner of so operating on the commercial connection of the colonies with the mother country as to procure redress for the much injured Province of Massachusetts Bay, to secure British America from the ravage and ruin of arbitrary taxes, and speedily to procure the return of that harmony and union so beneficial to the whole empire, and so ardently desired by all British America." SOUTH CAROLINA—"to consider the acts lately passed and bills depending in Parliament with regard to the port of Boston and Colony of Massachusetts Bay, which acts and bills, in the precedent and consequences, affect the whole continent of America; also the grievances under which America labors by reason of the several acts of Parliament that impose taxes or duties for raising a revenue, and lay unnecessary restraints and burdens on trade; and of the statutes, parliamentary acts, and royal instructions, which make an invidious distinction between his majesty's subjects in Great Britain and America; with full power and authority to concert, agree to, and effectually prosecute such legal measures as, in the opinion of the said deputies and of the deputies so to be assembled, shall be most likely to obtain a repeal of the said acts and a redress of these grievances." The delegates from New York and New Jersey were simply instructed "to represent" those colonies in the Congress. Journals, I. 2-9.

1 Letter of the Congress to Governor Gage, October 10, 1774; Journals, I. 25, 26.

the same day, to examine and report the several statutes affecting the trade and manufactures of the colonies. On the following day, it was ordered that the first committee should consist of two members, and the second of one member, from each of the colonies. Two questions presented themselves to the first of these committees, and created a good deal of embarrassment. The first was, whether, in stating the rights of the colonies, they should recur to the law of nature, as well as to the British Constitution and the American charters and grants. The second question related to the authority which they should allow to be in Parliament; whether they should deny it wholly, or deny it only as to internal affairs, admitting it as to external trade; and if the latter, to what extent and with what restrictions. It was soon felt that this question of the authority of Parliament was the essence of the whole controversy. Some denied it altogether. Others denied it as to every species of taxation; while others admitted it to extend to the regulation of external trade, but denied it as to all internal affairs. The discussions had not proceeded far, before it was perceived that this subject of the regulation of trade might lead directly to the question of the continuance of the colonial relations with the mother country. For this they were not prepared. It was apparent that the right of regulating the trade of the whole country, from the local circumstances of the colonies and their disconnection with each other, could not be exercised by the colonies themselves: it was thought that the aid, assistance, and protection of the mother country were necessary to them; and therefore, as a proper equivalent, that the colonies must admit the right of regulating the trade, to some extent and in some mode, to be in Parliament. The alternatives were, either to set up an American legislature, that could control and regulate the trade of the whole country, or else to give the power to Parliament. The Congress determined to do the latter; supposing that they could limit the admission, by denying that the power extended to taxation, but ceding at the same time the right to regulate the external trade of the colonies for the common benefit of the whole empire. They grounded this concession upon "the necessities of the case," and "the mutual interests of

1 Additions were made to it.

? Works of John Adams.

both countries;"' meaning by these expressions to assert that all legislative control over the external and internal trade of the colonies belonged of right to the colonies themselves, but, as they were part of an empire for which Parliament legislated, it was necessary that the common legislature of the whole empire should retain the regulation of the external trade, excluding all power of taxation for purposes of revenue, in order to secure the benefits of the trade of the whole empire to the mother country.

The Congress, therefore, after having determined to confine their statement to such rights as had been infringed by acts of Parliament since the year 1763, unanimously adopted a Declaration of Rights, in which they summed up the grievances and asserted the rights of the colonies. This document placed the rights of the colonies upon the laws of nature, the principles of the English Constitution, and the several charters or compacts. It declared that, as the colonies were not, and from their local situation could not be, represented in the English Parliament, they were entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation could alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as had been before accustomed. At the same time, from the necessity of the case and from a regard to the mutual interests of both countries, they cheerfully consented to the operation of such acts of Parliament as were in good faith limited to the regulation of their external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole to the mother country, and the commercial benefit of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal and external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America, without their consent."

In addition to this, they asserted, as great constitutional rights inherent in the people of all these colonies, that they were entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the realm of England; to the common law of England, and especially to trial by a jury of the vicinage; to the

375.

1 See the origin of these expressions explained, in Adams's Works, II. 373–

2 Journals, I. 29.