HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE AMERICAN UNION. A brief History of the Events and Circumstances which led to the Union of the States, and the formation of the Constitution. In the early history of the New England colonies, we find the first instance of the association of the people of America for mutual defence and protection, while they owed allegiance to the British crown. In 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, under the impression of danger from the surrounding tribes of Indians, entered into a league, offensive and defensive, firm and perpetual, under the name of the United Colonies of New England. They vested in an annual congress of commissioners, delegated from each colony, the authority to regulate their general concerns, and especially to levy war and make requisitions of men and money, upon the several members of the union in a ratio to their respective numbers. This confederacy subsisted' for upward of forty years, and, for part of the time, with the countenance of the government in England, and was dissolved under King James II., in the year 1686. This association is generally considered as the foundation of subsequent efforts for a more extensive and perfect union of the British North American colonies; and the people of this country continued, after the dissolution of this league, to afford other instructive precedents of associations for their safety. A congress of governors and commissioners from other colonies, as well as from New England, was occasionally held, the better to make arrangements for the protection of their interior frontier, of which we have an instance at Albany, in the year 1722; and a much more interesting congress was held at the same place in the year 1754, which consisted of commissioners from the colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. It was called at the instance of the British government, to take into consideration the best means of defending America, as a war with France was then apprehended. The object of the British government, in calling this congress, was to effect treaties with the Indian tribes; but the commissioners, among whom was Dr. Franklin, and other distinguished men in the colonies, had more enlarged views. They asserted and promulgated some invaluable truths, the proper reception of which in the minds of their countrymen prepared the way for their future independence and union. The commissioners unanimously resolved that a UNION of the colonies was absolutely necessary for their preservation. They likewise rejected all proposals for a division of the colonies into separate confederacies, and adopted a plan of federal government, drawn up by Dr. Franklin, consisting of a general council of delegates, to be chosen by the provincial assemblies, and a president general to be appointed by the crown. In this council were proposed to be vested, subject to the negative of the president, many of the rights of war and peace, and the right to lay and levy imposts and taxes; and the union was to embrace all the colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia. But the times were not yet ripe, nor the minds of men sufficiently enlarged, for such a comprehensive proposition; and this bold project for a continental union, had the singular fate of being rejected, not only by the king, but by every provincial assembly. We were to remain some years longer separate and alien commonwealths, emulous of each other in obedience to the parent state, but jealous of each other's prosperity, and divided by policy, interest, prejudice, and manners. So strong was the force of these considerations, and so exasperated were the people of the colonies against each other in their disputes about boundaries, that Dr. Franklin, in the year 1761, observed, that a union of the colonies was absolutely impossible, or at least without being forced by the most grievous tyranny and oppression.* The seeds of union, however, had been sown, and its principles were to gather strength and advance toward maturity, when the season of common danger approached. When the first attempt upon our liberties was made by the British government, by the passage of the stamp act, in 1765, a congress of delegates from nine colonies assembled in New York, in October of that year, at the instance and recommendation of Massachusetts. The colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina, were represented. This congress adopted a declaration of rights, in which the sole power of taxation was asserted to reside in the colonial legislatures, and they also declared, that the restrictions imposed by several late acts of parliament on the colonies were burdensome, and would render them unable to purchase the manufactures of Great Britain. An address to the king, and a petition to each house of parliament, were adopted. These state papers evince the talents, as well as firmness, tempered with wisdom and moderation, of this first American congress; composed, as it was, of some of the most distinguished statesmen from the several colonies therein represented.† The congress of 1765, was only a preparatory step to a more extensive and permanent union, which took place at Philadelphia, in September, 1774, and thereby laid the foundations of this great republic. The more serious and impending oppressions of the British parliament at this last critical era, induced the twelve colonies which spread over this vast continent, from Nova Scotia to Georgia, to an interchange of political opinions, and to concur in choosing and sending delegates to Philadelphia, "with authority and direction to meet and consult together for the common welfare." The assembling of this congress was first recommended by a town-meeting of the people of Providence, Rhode Island, followed by the colonial assemblies of Massachusetts and Virginia, and by other public bodies and meetings of the people. In some of the legislatures of the colonies, delegates were appointed by the popular or representative branch; and in other cases, they were appointed by conventions of the people in the colonies. The congress of delegates (calling themselves, in their more formal acts, "the delegates appointed by the good people of these colonies") assembled on the 4th of September, 1774; and having chosen officers, they adopted certain fundamental rules for their proceedings. All the colonies were represented, except Georgia. Thus was organized, under the auspices, and with the consent, of the people, acting directly in their primary, sovereign capacity, and without the intervention of the functionaries to whom the ordinary powers of government were delegated in the colonies, the first general or national government, which has been very aptly called "the revolutionary government," since, in its origin and progress, it was wholly conducted upon revolutionary principles. The congress, thus assembled, exercised, de facto and de jure, a sovereign authority; not as the delegated agents of the governments de facto of the colonies, but in virtue of original powers derived from the people. The revolutionary government thus formed, terminated only when it was regularly superseded by the confederated government, under articles finally ratified, as we shall see, in 1781.* The first and most important of their acts was a declaration, that in determining questions in this congress, each colony or province should have one vote; and this became the established course during the revolution. They proposed a general congress to be held at the same place in May, in the next year. They appointed committees to take into consideration their rights and grievances; asserted by number of declaratory resolutions, what they deemed to be the unalienable rights of English freemen; pointed out to their constituents the system of violence which was preparing against those rights; and bound them by the most sacred of all ties, the ties of honor and their country, to renounce commerce with Great Britain, as being the most salutary means to avert the one, and to secure the blessings of the other. These resolutions were received with univerJudge Story's Commentaries. |