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of human kindness, of indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry in conversation and conduct. The number of his friends, and the warmth of their affections, were proofs of his worth, and their estimate of it." This was the first and only speech of Mr. Carr in the House of Representatives. He died the 16th of May, 1773, in the thirtieth year of his age.

This system of corresponding committees between the legislatures of the different colonies, which was thus adopted as the best instrument for communication between the respective colonies, and by which they might be brought to a mutual understanding and a unity of action, has since been asserted to have arisen in Massachusetts, and Judge Marshall, in his Life of Washington, has fallen into the errour. But Mr. Jefferson, and no doubt correctly, asserts the contrary. He imagines the mistake to have arisen from confounding together two distinct committees: adding, "Thus in Massachusetts there were two committees of correspondence, one chosen by the people, the other appointed by the House of Assembly; in the former, Massachusetts preceded Virginia; in the latter, Virginia preceded Massachusetts. To the origination of committees for the interiour correspondence between the counties and towns of a state, I know of no claim on the part of Virginia, and certainly none was ever made by myself." And the letter of Samuel A. Wells, Esquire, to Mr. Jefferson, and the answer of the latter of May 12th, 1829, show conclusively that Massachusetts did not adopt the measure, but on receipt of the proposition from Virginia, and which was delivered at their next session.

On the twelfth of March, 1773, Mr. Jefferson was chosen a member of the first committee of correspondence established by the colonial legislatures, the act already alluded to, as the most important of the revolution in preparing the way for that union of sentiment and action from whence arose the first effective resistance, and on which depended the successful progress and final triumph of the cause.

The year 1774 found Mr. Jefferson still actively engaged in his duties as a member of the legislature of Virginia. The passage by Parliament of the Boston Port Bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the first of June, 1774, was the next event which aroused the indignation and excited the sympathies of the house. It arrived while they were in session in the spring of 1774. It was at this crisis that Mr. Jefferson wrote, and the members, though not then adopting as resolutions, afterwards published his "Summary View of the Rights of British America;" and in which he maintained what was then thought by many a bold position, but which he considered as the only orthodox and tenable one: that the relation between Great Britain and the colonies was exactly the same as that of England and Scotland, after the accession of James, and until the union, and the same as her present relation with Hanover, having the same executive chief, but no other necessary political connexion; and that our emigration from England to this country gave her no more rights over us, than the emigration of the Danes and Saxons gave to the authorities of the mother country over England.

"In this doctrine, however," says he, "I had never

been able to get any one to agree with me but Mr. Wythe. He coincided in it from the first dawn of the question, What was the political relation between us and England? Our other patriots, Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas and Pendleton, stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson, who admitted that England had a right to regulate our commerce and to lay duties on it for the purpose of regulation, but not of raising revenue. But for this ground there was no foundation in compact in any acknowledged principles of colonization, nor in reason: expatriation being a national right, and acted on as such by all nations, in all ages.'

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This pamphlet is addressed to the king, as the chief officer of the people, appointed indeed by the laws, but circumscribed by definitive power, to carry into effect that institution of government erected by themselves for their use and benefit, and consequently subject to their superintendence. He reminded him that our ancestors had been British freemen; that they had acquired their settlements here at their own expense and blood; that it was for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered; and for themselves alone they had a right to hold. That they had indeed thought proper to adopt the same system of laws under which they had hitherto lived, and to unite themselves under a common sovereign; but that no act of theirs had ever given a title to that authority, which the British parliament arrogated; that the crown had unjustly commenced its encroachments, by distributing the settlements among its favourites, and the followers of its fortunes; that it then proceeded to abridge the free trade which the colonies possessed as of natural right with all

parts of the world; and that afterwards offices were established of little use but to accommodate the ministers and sycophants of the crown. That during the reign of the sovereign whom he immediately addressed, the violation of rights had increased in rapid and bold succession; being no longer single acts of tyranny, that might be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions pursued so unalterably through every change of ministers, as to prove too plainly a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing the colonies to slavery. He next proceeds, in a style of the boldest invective, to point out the several acts by which this plan has been enforced, and enters against them a solemn and determined protest. He then considers the conduct of the king as holding an executive authority in the colonies, and points out, without hesitation, his deviation from the line of duty; he asserts that by the unjust exercise of his negative power, he had rejected laws of the most salutary tendency; that he had defeated repeated attempts to stop the slave trade and abolish tyranny; thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few African corsairs, to the lasting interests of America, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice. That, inattentive to the necessities of his people, he had neglected for years the laws which were sent for his inspection; and that, assuming a power, for advising the exercise of which, the English judges, in a former reign, had suffered death as traitors to their country, he had dissolved the representative assemblies, and refused to call others. That to enforce these, and other arbitrary measures, he had from time to time sent over large

bodies of armed men, not made up of the people here,

nor raised by the authority of their laws. That to render these proceedings still more criminal, instead of subjecting the military to the civil powers, he had expressly made the latter subordinate to the former. That these grievances were thus laid before their sovereign, with that freedom of language and sentiment which became a free people, whom flattery would ill beseem, when asserting the rights of human nature.

In all this we perceive the germe of that national declaration, which so shortly succeeded it; many of the same bold truths, and in the same bold language.

In these sentiments, however, bold as they were, his political associates joined with him; they considered those acts of oppression directed against the colonies of New England, acts in which all were concerned, and an attack on the liberties and immunities of every other province. They accordingly resolved, that the first day of June, the day on which the Boston Port Bill was to go into operation, should be set apart by the members as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, "devoutly to implore the divine interposition for averting the heavy calamities which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of a civil war; and to give them one heart and one mind, to oppose by all just and proper means every injury to American rights."

Lord Dunmore, the royal Governour of the province, could not be otherwise than highly exasperated at such proceedings. Mr. Jefferson, who had boldly avowed himself the author of the obnoxious pamphlet, was threatened with a prosecution by him for high treasun;

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