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that the perilous outcome of these grand incidents was a forward movement of all true hearted patriots towards a severance of the ties which bound the colonies to the mother country; and that there could he no backward movement. Those who had foreseen the future in the onward tramp of past events were prepared to meet the emergency; but, they were not many. The great majority, while dreading the uncertainties clustered around the situation, began to realize that the duty of the hour demanded that every sacrifice should be made to meet the dread responsibilities resting upon them as citizens and freemen.

It was under such circumstances as these that this second Provincial

Congress of New Jersey met. There were delegates from every county-eighty-four in all-conscientious men, fully alive to the situation. Their very first measure, after examining credentials and the election of officers, was to provide for a daily petition for God's blessing and favor.

Hendrick Fisher, of Somerset, was elected President; Samuel Tucker, of Hunterdon, Vice President; Jonathan D. Sergeant, Secretary; and William Paterson and Frederick Frelinghuysen, Assistant Secretaries.

All of these names will be recognized as prominent in the after history of New Jersey, either in its civil or military service. But Congress could not rid itself of old associations, and so, it declared that they had assembled with the profoundest veneration for the person and family of his Majesty, George III, firmly professing all due allegiance to his rightful authority and government." It continued in session until the 3d of June, when it adjourned to August 5th, then next. It was a very busy session, meeting in the morning at 8 o'clock and adjourning, sometimes, late at night. It immediately put itself in connection. with the Continental Congress, sending two of its prominent members to that body with a message asking for advice as to the proper course for them to pursue and promising support for any measures which the principal body might adopt. This was done on the second day after the meeting; on the day after that, it passed a resolution by which it confirmed the action of the Continental Congress that all exportations to Quebec, Nova Scotia, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Georgia, excepting the parish of St. Johns, East and West Florida should immediately cease and that no provisions of any kind, or other necessaries, be

4 P. M.; New Brunswick the next day at 2 A. M.; Princeton the same day at 6 A. M.; Trenton at 9 A. M., from which place it was forwarded to Philadelphia. The committees of these several towns indorsed and forwarded the dispatch, noting the time of its arrival.

furnished to the British fisheries on the American coasts. It also put itself in connection with the Congresses of New York and Connecticut. It then turned its attention to the preparation for resisting any invasion of the colonies by British troops; it directed that the different townships in the colony should form themselves into military associations, each township organizing a company of no less than eighty men with four commissioned officers-a Captain, two Lieutenants and an Ensign, and the commissioned officers were to select their subordinates. These companies were to unite into battalions or regiments with four officers each-a Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel, Major and Adjutant, and the different organizations were directed to drill themselves in military manoeuvres and each soldier was to sign a muster roll; £10,000, proclamation money, were directed to be raised by different Counties to meet the expenses incident upon the preparations for defence. The proportion of this fund to be raised by each county will give an idea of the number of inhabitants and their financial standing at that time. For instance:

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Persons were to be appointed by the different township committees to apportion this money amongst the tax payers. The money was to be paid to the collector who was to distribute the funds under the direction of the county committees. The last act of the Provincial Congress was to appoint fourteen persons a Committee of Correspondence, any three of whom with the President or Vice-President might convene Congress.

This Congress, for the time being, took the place of the Legislature, assumed its powers and was recognized by the people as invested with all the authority of the Assembly. It declared itself in full accord with the Continental Congress and ready to do whatever became freemen in the impending contest. In the mean time Ticonderoga had been stormed by Allen and Arnold, Bunker Hill had been fought, George Washington appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental forces and the British generals, Howe, Clinton and Burgoyne, had appeared

at Boston with additional troops to awe the rebels into submission. But submission was no more thought of and all hope of reconciliation between the rebels and the mother country was at an end.

The provincial Congress met again on the 5th of August, 1775, when the subject of raising £10,000 was again considered and means taken to have the money raised and paid in at the proper places. The inhab itants of the colony were directed to meet in their respective voting places, on the 21st of September, 1775, for the purpose of electing a deputation to a Provincial Congress to be held at Trenton on the 3rd day of October then next and it was ordered that during the continuance of the dispute between Great Britain and America, there should be an election of deputies yearly, on the 3rd Thursday of September. This Congress also prepared a more extensive plan of military organi zation, by which the militia from 16 to 50 years of age, drawn from the several counties, in proportion to the number of their inhabitants, was distributed into regiments and battalions, an exception being made in favor of Quakers, who were not required to perform military duty, but were obliged to pay an additional sum to the military fund.

The Committee of Safety appointed by this Congress was one of the most important factors in the prosecution of the efforts of the colonists to secure their independence. It met at different places during the whole of the war and was vested with absolute dictatorial powers.

It will be perceived that the plan adopted in the appointment of Committees was as complete as could possibly be devised. There were township Committees of "Correspondence," "Observation" and "Inquiry;" there were County Committees of "Correspondence" and of "Observation," also, and above all these was this General Committee of Safety; which had power of supervision over the other committees and to which those committees reported. This Committee of Safety was enlarged and finally took the whole supervision of the affairs of the colony, both military and civil. Their first meeting was held on the 30th of August, 1775, at Princeton. Their very first action gives some idea of the wide scope of their duties. They took into consideration the condition of several companies of soldiers in the province where vacancies had happened in consequence of the promotion of officers and expressed their opinion that such vacancy was to be filled by the choice of a new officer in the usual manner of election. Their next business was a provision for strolling vagabonds and runaway servants who had infested the roads, stolen horses and committed other robberies; they

recommended to the good people of the province that they should strictly examine all suspicious persons passing to and fro, and if the tramps could not give satisfactory account of themselves, they were to deal with them according to the laws of the province. This Committee of Safety met again in January, 1776, organized by the appointment of the ordinary officers and began their business. They provided for express riders to be stationed at the different towns in the province for the purpose of carrying messages to and from the different Congresses and received reports from the deputies to the Continental Congress of the proceedings of that body and acted upon them. Certain suspicious persons brought before them, were examined; committed to jail; or recognized with sureties to appear for trial upon charges for treason. Petitions were presented to them from the different counties, for the appointment of officers to regiments, battalions and companies; com missions were issued by them in pursuance of the action taken by the committees to whom such petitions were referred. They disposed of certain prisoners of war that were in the barracks at Trenton, directing their removal from their place of confinement elsewhere, so that the continental soldiers might occupy the barracks.

The Provincial Congress met again on the 10th of June, 1776, at Burlington. Several other meetings had been held, prior to that time, where the immediate questions of the hour were discussed.

The first question debated at this meeting in June, 1776, was whether the colony should declare its independence. The vote was taken June, 1776, and was determined in the affirmative by an overwhelming majority of fifty out of fifty-seven votes. On the 24th of June, a Committee was formed with the Rev. Jacob Green as Chairman, charged with the duty of preparing a constitution. The Committee reported two days afterwards, and on the 2d of July, the organic law thus reported, was adopted. This Constitution was in many respects, a remarkable document. It was apparently prepared in the short space of two days, but, in all probability, it had been planned or, at least, had received much thought from the clerical chairman before Congress assembled. The Committee was a very able one; among its members were John Cleves Symmes, afterwards one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, and Jonathan D. Sergeant, both able lawyers. The Chairman and Silas Condit represented Morris County; John Cooper came from Gloucester; Jonathan D. Sergeant, from Somerset; Lewis Ogden, from Essex; Jonathan Elmer, from Cumberland; Elijah Hughes, from Cape

May; John Covenhoven, from Monmouth; and James Dick, from Salem.

The document reported by the Committee was declared by the Congress and by its own terms, to be a Constitution, but, according to the notions held in these modern times, it did not rise to that dignity. It was a mere expression of the views of the sixty-five delegates who came up from the people,. To enable it to become the organic law of a State, it must have been submitted to the people for their consent. That was never done, and it never received the sanction of the citizens of the colony, by definite action, expressed at the polls, or in any other public manner. The community submitted to it and, perhaps, by their silent consent, virtually adopted it. It is now a measure of the past and this, perhaps, is not the time to discuss it. It had many excellent provisions and some most glaring defects. The same power that cre ated it, could have annulled it; that has not been done, but the Legislature, acting in its legislative capacity, has frequently overridden many of its most objectionable features, by mere statute. It was, evidently, prepared in haste, under most peculiar and trying circumstances and received very little consideration, scarcely any discussion from the Convention, and was adopted with most remarkable celerity. It was a crude affair; but it was somewhat of an improvement on the one under which the colony had been acting and relieved the people and their legislation from many burdens. It nowhere used the word "State," in speaking of the province, but in almost every instance employed the word "colony ;" it provided that all laws should begin in the following. style: Be it Enacted by the Council and General Assembly of this Colony." All commissions granted by the Governor, or Vice President of the Council, who acted for the Governor, under certain circumstances, ran in this manner: "The Colony of New Jersey to A. B. Greeting." It adopted a feature of the old administration of Judicial matters when it provided that the Governor and Council should be the Court of Ap peals in the last resort. Its last article was significant, by which it was provided that if "a reconciliation between Great Britain and these colonies should take place and the latter be again taken under the protection and government of the Crown of Great Britain, this Charter shall be null and void."

Two days after the adoption of this remarkable document, the immortal Declaration of Independence was published to an astonished world. It would seem therefore, that at the very moment when the

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