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

effect. It was rejected by all the colonial assemblies before which it was brought, and in England it was not thought proper by the Board of Trade to recommend it to the king. In America it was considered to have too much of prerogatice in it, and in England to be too democratic. It was a comprehensive scheme of government, to consist of a governor-general, or president-general, who was to be appointed and supported by the crown, and a grand council, which was to consist of one member chosen by each of the smaller colonies, and two or more by each of the larger. Its duties and powers related chiefly to defence against external attacks. It was to have a general treasury, to be supplied by an excise on certain articles of consumption. See the history and details of the scheme, in Sparks's Life and Works of Franklin, I. 176, III. 22-55; Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, III. 23; Trumbull's History of Connecticut, II. 355; Pitkin's History of the United States, I. 140-146. In 1788, Franklin said of it: "The different and contradictory reasons of dislike to my plan make me suspect that it was really the true medium; and I am still of opinion it would have been happy for both sides, if it had been adopted. The colonies so united would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves; there would have been no need of troops from England; of course the subsequent pretext for taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided. But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes." (Life of Franklin, by Sparks, I. 178.) We may not join in his regrets now.

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.

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."

1

1 It is not certain by whom the first suggestion of a Continental Congress was made. Thomas Cushing, Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly, and a correspondent of Dr. Franklin, appears to have expressed to him the opinion, previously to the date of Franklin's official letter quoted in the text, that a congress would grow out of the committees of correspondence which had been recommended by the Virginia House of Burgesses. But Mr. Sparks thinks that no other direct and public recommendation of the measure can be found before the date of Franklin's letter to the Massachusetts Assembly. Sparks's Life of Franklin, I. 350, note. In the early part of the year 1774 the necessity of such

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 that 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 held 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.'

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

a congress began to be popularly felt throughout all the colonies. Sparks's Washington, II. 326.

1 These delegates were Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and Edmund Pendleton.

rights and liberties, civil and religious, and for the restoration of union and harmony with Great Britain. They then appointed five delegates' to meet the representatives of the other colonies in congress at Philadelphia in the succeeding September.

2

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. 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

1 Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine, James Bowdoin, and John Adams.

The delegates in the Congress of 1774 from New Hampshire were appointed by a Convention of Deputies chosen by the towns, and received their credentials from that convention. In Rhode Island they were appointed by the General Assembly and commissioned by the governor. In Connecticut they were appointed and instructed by the Committee of Correspondence for the Colony, acting under authority conferred by the House of Representatives. In New York the mode of appointment was various. In the city and county of New York the delegates were elected by popular vote taken in seven wards. The same persons were also appointed to act for the counties of West Chester, Albany, and Duchess, by the respective committees of those counties; and another person was appointed in the same manner for the county of Suffolk. The New York delegates received no other instructions than those implied in the certificates, "to attend the Congress and to represent" the county designated. In New Jersey the delegates were appointed by the committees of counties, and were simply instructed "to represent" the colony. In Pennsylvania they were appointed and instructed by the House of Assembly. In the counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex-on-Delaware delegates were elected by a convention of the freemen assembled in pursuance of circular letters from the Speaker of the House of Assembly. In Maryland the appointment was by committees of the counties. In Virginia it was by a popular convention of the whole colony. In South Carolina it was by the House of Commons. Georgia was not represented in this Congress.

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.'

As soon as the choice of officers had taken place,' 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 such data could be taken.' 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. Upon this principle the voting should have been by polls.

1 Journals, I. 1, 12.

3

The president and secretary appear to have been chosen viva voce, or by a hand vote. John Adams's Works, II. 365. Adams, II. 366. This opinion, we are told by Mr. Adams, was advanced by Patrick Henry. See notes of the debate, in Adams, II. 366, 368.