by denying to his governors permission to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations for his assent, and, when so suspended, neglecting to attend to them for many years;

work of George Mason. The Constitution, with the Preamble, was passed on the 29th of June, and the Committee of Congress had only the day before that reported to that body the draught of the Declaration of Independence. The fact is, that that Preamble was prior in composition to the Declaration; and both having the same object, of justifying our separation from Great Britain, they used necessarily the same materials of justification, and hence their similitude.” Jefferson, both at the time, and afterwards, denied the power of the Virginia Convention to adopt a permanent constitution, on the grounds that it was chosen an executive body to carry on the war, and that independence and the establishment of a state government were not before the people when they chose the delegates to it. Edmund Randolph (MS. History of Virginia, p. 63) states that:

"Mr. Jefferson, who was in Congress, urged a youthful friend in the convention to oppose a permanent constitution until the people should elect deputies for the special purpose. He denied the power of the body elected (as he conceived them to be agents for the management of the war) to exceed some temporary regimen." The leading members of the convention, however, according to Randolph, "saw no distinction between the conceded powers to declare independence, and its necessary consequence, the fencing of society by the institution of government."

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In pursuance of his opinion, Jefferson's proposed constitution was given the form of a mere act, and much is included which has no place in a constitution. The non-concurrence of the convention in his view, and even more, the aristocratic limits on the franchise and the unfavorable discrimination against the western counties, that the planter and tide-water representatives secured, which made no grosser error than to suppose that the Constitution of Virginia was formed in 1776, [for] its two great distinctive features, the sectional, and the aristocratic, had been given to it a century before" (Debates of Virginia Convention, 1830), were the causes for his dislike of the Constitution adopted in 1776, and of his constant attempts to obtain its alteration. His objections are indicated in his Notes on Virginia (Query XIII, 5) as well as in his correspondence, and his preparation of his " Fundamental Constitution" in 1783 and his "Notes for a Constitution" in 1794; both of which form striking examples, in contrast to this, of the democratic development of his mind.

by refusing to pass certain other laws, unless the person to be benefited by them would relinquish the inestimable right of representation in the legislature

by dissolving legislative assemblies repeatedly and continually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people; when dissolved, by refusing to call others for a long space of time, thereby leaving the political system without any legislative head;

by endeavoring to prevent the population of our country, & for that purpose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners & raising the condition [lacking appro]priations of lands;

[by keeping among u]s, in times of peace, standing armies and ships of war;

[lacking]ing to render the mil

itary independent of & superior to the civil power; by combining with others to subject us to a foreign jurisdiction, giving his assent to their pretended acts of legislation.

for quartering large bodies of

troops among us;

for cutting off our trade with

all parts of the world;

for imposing taxes on us without our consent;

for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury;

for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; and

for suspending our own legislatures & declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;

by plundering our seas, ravaging our coasts, burning our towns and destroying the lives of our people;

by inciting insurrections of our fellow subjects with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation;

by prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us; those very negroes whom he hath from time to time by an inhuman use of his negative he hath refused permission to exclude by law;

by endeavoring to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, & conditions of existence; by transporting at this time a large army of foreign mercenaries [to complete] the works of death,desolation & tyranny