 | The Old Dominion |  |
IV
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
I
THE year 1776 is not, as centuries are reckoned,
very far away, still less, as the steps
of Liberty are reckoned, was it distant from the
date when Liberty was a poor and puny thing;
walking with painful steps along the paths
which often led to the dungeon or the scaffold,
liable to be cut off forever by the mailed hand
of a King's Pretorian guard.
The year 1776, however, may be almost taken
as the birth year of Liberty as we know it; of true
Liberty which can never be slain except by her
own hand. Events have followed each other so
rapidly in the last century—the current has
swept us so swiftly from the old moorings that
the time appears longer than it is.
A number of persons still survive who remember
some of the participants in the drama
of 1776.
In the year 1776 the American colonies, instead
world, possibly the strongest, and certainly the
wealthiest and the best able to sustain itself independently
of the rest of the world, were a very
insignificant and poor collection of dependent
colonies hugging the sea-coast from Mount
Desert Island to the northern line of Florida.
It was a long line, covering some two thousand
miles, with many a break of wilderness
stretching between the settlements, with their
back to the vast wilderness, peopled with
savages, ready to crouch and spring at the first
opportunity; and with their eyes turned in
continual appeal to the mother country, which
many still called "home." The population
numbered something like three millions, about
as many as are now embraced in the City of
New York, and half as many again as are now
within the borders of Virginia. They were
mainly of English descent; though a small
proportion were French Huguenots, a sturdy
stock, and about fifteen per cent. were Negroes
and slaves. The frontier, which until about
fifty years before had been the Allegheny
Mountains, had within a generation been pushed
by hardy and adventurous settlers to the western
lakes and to the banks of the Ohio. Beyond,
to the north and to the west, lay the boundless
while savage Indians ever lurked along the
border ready to invade and slay almost with
impunity.
As few in number as they appeared to be,
they were rendered by their distant separation
even more feeble, more insignificant than their
numbers would seem to indicate. They were
not united by the ordinary bonds of a common
religion and a common interest. The major
portion of them, it is true, were Protestants,
but even they were divided. New England was
almost entirely of the dissenting faith, a people
filled with the spirit of Puritanism, who saw
but one side, reckoned a Churchman little better
than a papist, and classed both with the Devil;
her history was the history of opposition. While,
on the other hand, Virginia and the other Southern
colonies were mainly of the Established
Church, and the laws of intolerance yet stood on
the statute books or had been but lately expunged.
Considered by classes we find them equally
divided. Class distinctions had been largely
destroyed in the major part of New England,
but in Virginia and in some other colonies they
yet existed, and a class of large landowners gave
themselves the airs and filled, with reasonable
success, the position of an aristocracy.
Even the common interest of commerce was
lacking. All were dependent on England, and
in trade, such as existed, the colonies were
rivals rather than sisters.
If we look at the settlements we find them
strangely small and insignificant. Philadelphia,
Boston, Newport, New York, Portsmouth,
York, Baltimore, Hampton, St. Mary's, Alexandria,
Norfolk, Charleston, were, perhaps,
the only considerable towns in the country.
On the other hand, England was almost at
the zenith of her power, if not her glory, at home
and abroad. Less than a hundred years before
she had fought out her Revolution and
established her charter of liberty, her bill of
rights. Since that time she had conquered and
laid the ghost of the Stuart invasion; she had
defeated her hereditary enemy, France, both by
sea and land; had forced her from the Low
Countries; had wrested from her grasp India
and the East; had reduced her fleets from the
first to the second place, and now within ten
years, with the aid of her colonists, had torn
from her her northernmost American colony
and had driven her from the Atlantic seaboard.
It was the same at home. With Peace,
her internal affairs appeared to have advanced
swelled to an unprecedented volume. Wealth
beyond the dream of avarice poured into her
coffers.
In Letters—even in Art—she was on the topmost
wave of her glory. Hume, Gibbon and
Robertson were her historians. Goldsmith and
Gray were among her poets, and Reynolds,
Gainsborough and Romney were among her
painters. Her greatest chancellor had but
lately retired from the woolsack, while Lord
Mansfield was yet her chief justice. Her statesmen—Chatham,
Burke, North, Fox and others
—were not esteemed second to any whom she
had ever had on her long roll of great men
who had guided and maintained her destinies
throughout her period of glory.
It must, indeed, have appeared to an onlooker,
as it appeared to the Home Government, as
though the colonies were mad to defy her to the
point of war. Nor were the Americans ignorant
of her power. They kept in close touch with
her. They dealt with her constantly; sending
her the product of their forests and plantations,
and bringing from her warehouses almost every
comfort and convenience of life.
They knew that in the time of their grandfathers
her navies had swept the seas, and her
Grand Monarch. They knew that but a few
years before, at the end of the Seven Years' War,
she had wrested from France her most cherished
Western possession. They had felt the thrill
of all this as Englishmen in blood, and as
Englishmen they had contributed their part
towards its accomplishment. Among them
were the descendants of that gallant officer
who was knighted for bearing to England the
dispatches announcing the victory of Blenheim,
and among them was the young officer
who had saved the remnant of Braddock's ill-starred
force.
They fed on her Literature, sent their sons to
her schools, and kept time with her progress.
To what, then, was the Revolution due? To
one sole cause: to the invasion of the rights of
English citizens—in other words, to the spirit
of Liberty that animated the souls of those who
had struck their roots deep into the American
soil: to the spirit of Free institutions which
flamed in every colony and in every class. From
northern Maine to southern Georgia, gentle and
simple; churchman and dissenter alike cherished
it.
To get at the reason for it we must go a long
way back. Traditions count for much, especially
who settled America had been bred on traditions
of Liberty. From the time of Alfred down
throughout the long struggle, at first of Baron
against King, and then of Commoner against
King and Baron, their history had been the history
of wresting Liberty from Tyranny. At
Runnymede the Barons had been strong because
their retainers were at their back. In Westminster
the Commons had been brave because
the shires were behind them. At Edgehill and
Naseby, at Worcester and Boyne-water Cromwell
and William had won because the people
were fighting for their English liberties. In
Virginia, especially, tradition had the weight of
unwritten law. When they came across the
water they had brought their Liberties with them
as the Children of Israel bore the Ark of the
Covenant in their midst. And whenever the
occasion arose the Ark was borne before them.
Often it appeared to be in danger of abandonment,
but at need the cry was always heard: "To
your tents, O Israel," and heard, it was obeyed.
All through their history on this side they had
stood for their Liberties as English citizens.
Within five years after the assembling of their
first House of Burgesses in 1619, and ten years
before any other colony had an assembly, the
shall not lay any tax or impositions upon
the Colony, their lands or commodities, otherway
than by the authority of the General Assembly,
to be levied and employed as the said
Assembly shall appoynt."[1]
Subservient as they may have appeared at
times to the Crown as represented by the royal
governors, addressing petitions with a humility
of phrase which sounds strangely fulsome to
modern republican ears, there were certain
Rights which neither King nor Parliament could
touch without arousing a resentment which both
had been wont to heed. They called them the
Inalienable Rights of Citizens. And they knew,
as we know to-day, that they had been won by
hard fighting.
A hundred years before 1776 Revolution had
flamed through Virginia, kindled by the invasion
of the right of self-protection, and her capital
had been laid in ashes. It had been stamped
out in blood; but the blood of Patriots is the
seed of Liberty. And Liberty is the inalienable
heritage of the Anglo-Saxon. Its flame is the
divine fire which, ever burning in his breast, distinguishes
him from all other men.
From this time on they had ever stood for
years which had passed had been spent in the
assertion and, whenever necessary, the maintenance
of those rights. As universally happens
under government by alien governors, the results
reflected largely the personal character of the individuals
who held the office of governor. Under
a Spotswood or a Botetourt, the people had
clemency and consideration, if not justice, and
felt that they were understood and befriended
by their governors. Under a Harvey, a Berkeley
or a Dunmore, they felt that they were misunderstood
and were treated with hostility. It
is the essential and inherent vice of governing by
absentee rulers, and the inherent weakness of
it is that the ruling power, however strong, does
not know the depth and the strength of the
feeling within, which may be pent up until it
bursts forth in Revolution.
Too often the only contact with the Home
Government had resulted in ignominious treatment
and sometimes in galling insult. The
conduct of that Government was the oft-repeated
story of self-centred phariseeism, thinking
that it knows the problems of another region
better than those know them to whom they are
as vital as the breath they breathe. And as in
such cases always, the result was a fiasco.
"Damn your souls! raise tobacco!" flared out
Seymour to Parson Blair, the esteemed commissary
of the old College of William and Mary.
As if the people were not raising tobacco.
These things had sunk deep into their hearts.
But deeper yet were the real grievances.
As in most instances, we find that the violation
of rights also affected their interests.
The Acts in the Restraint of Trade had touched
the pocket of every man in the Colonies. That
England should regulate their commerce and
not only fix the prices for their products, but
refuse to permit them to trade elsewhere except
through her ports, was a real grievance. In the
same way, that she should not permit them to
exclude the further introduction of slaves within
their borders was a grievance—how real some
of us can form an opinion on to-day after nearly
two hundred years.
When to these was added the assertion by
England of the right to bind by law without giving
Representation, and to withdraw the protection
of the great Writs of privilege, the injury
was very real indeed. To yield would have
been to surrender themselves as slaves.
Remonstrance after remonstrance had been
addressed to the Crown, each one couched in
terms respectful enough, but each firmer than
humility of expression had begun to gall the
withers that had been so long wrung.
It appears as though Providence, watching
over the growth of Liberty, had so set her immutable
laws that at this juncture all things
conspired to establish her in her home, with
foundations laid deep in this broad Western
world. Had but reasonable consideration been
shown on the other side, this Nation might never
have come into being.
But, "the Monarch was mad and the Minister
blind."
And though every effort was made on the
part of the colonists to settle the differences on
grounds consistent with their Liberties, they were
unavailing. Submission but brought forth only
truculence. "They must either triumph or submit,"
said George III. "I am unalterably determined,"
he wrote to Lord North on August
18, 1775, "at every hazard and at the risk of
every consequence to compel the Colonies to
absolute submission."
"I remember," said Jefferson, speaking of
Franklin's minutes of the negotiations between
him and Lord North to prevent the contest of
arms which followed,—"I remember that Lord
North's answers were dry, unyielding, in the
an absolute indifference to the occurrence of a
rupture, and he said to the mediators distinctly
at last that a rebellion was not to be deprecated
on the part of Great Britain, and that the confiscations
would provide for many of their
friends."[2]
"George, be King," used to say his silly
mother to him. And George was trying to be
king and was making a mess of it.
A worse king ne'er left a realm undone."
The only answer to subservience was a kick.
"The Governor dissolved us as usual," says
Jefferson, speaking of the dissolution that followed
the appointment by the Virginia House of
Burgesses of a day of fasting and prayer, for the
purpose of showing their deep feeling over the
shutting up of the port of Boston.
A dissolution at that time was a serious matter.
Every member had come on horseback
from his home through forests and often through
almost trackless wilderness. Some had come
from far beyond the mountains in remote Augusta
and Transylvania, the present State of
Kentucky.
The day of subservience had, however, passed
away; the answer to the dissolution of an Assembly
was now a Convention.
In fact, the colonists knew that however their
grants might run in terms, however dependent
on the Crown they appeared by their phraseology,
they had themselves wrested their holdings
from the Savage and the Wild; had themselves
builded and maintained their homes in what had
once been the untenable wilderness and had
themselves established their governments. There
was not an acre that had not been cleared and
fought for; there was not a house that had not
been built by arduous toil; there was not a right
that had not been won at the end of a struggle
and at the expense of fortitude.
Happily for the colonists, they had friends on
the other side. And happily for England, the
assumption of arbitrary power had sent a thrill
of fear through her as well as through the colonies.
The issue of General Warrants had been
fought out in the Wilkes case in 1765, at the
very time when America was in the throes of
her Stamp Act revolution, and as a sequel, that
foundation-stone of Liberty, that mightiest engine
for her preservation, the Freedom of the
Press, had been established.
Pitt, that "trumpet of sedition," as George
see it, recognized that America was fighting their
battle no less than her own. "He gloried in the
resistance which was denounced in Parliament
as rebellion. `In my opinion,' he said, `this
kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the colonies.
. . . America is obstinate; America is almost in
open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has
resisted. Three millions of people so dead to
all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit
to be slaves would have been fit instruments to
make slaves of the rest.' "
The difficulty was to secure the united action
of the colonies, and without union the chance of
success was hopeless. Happily, George gave
the occasion for union by proving its necessity.
"George was, in fact," says Green, the historian,
"sole Minister during the fifteen years which followed,
and the shame of the darkest hour of
English history lies wholly at his door."[3]
The value of union among the colonists was
well understood, and had been the subject of
discussion and the subject of solicitude among
the leaders.
The idea of union for defence was almost as
old as the earliest wars in which the colonists
engaged. It had nearly taken shape in June,
colonies met in convention at Albany for the
purpose of strengthening their treaties with the
Indians, and for devising a plan of union. Indeed,
they recommended a plan of union drawn
up by Franklin, which contained the germinal
ideas of the American union. But it fell
through.
Now the necessity of union was more pressing
than ever.
"We must all hang together," said one, as
they stood about the desk signing the Declaration
of Independence.
"Yes," answered Franklin, "or we shall all
hang separately."
The utmost care was used by the leaders to
so direct public events that they should meet with
the approval and secure the co-operation of all
the colonists. The Committees of Public Safety,
and the Committees of Correspondence were composed
of the best men in the colonies, and they
gave their utmost energies to raising and welding
together the sympathies of all the colonies.
The importance of the Stamp Act in the
history of the movement is that it affected the
interests of every one and thus made a common
cause for which every one would stand.
When the Stamp Act was passed and the attempt
made common cause. When the Stamp
Act was repealed and only enough of the law
was left by the tax on tea to maintain the right
of Great Britain to tax her colonies by her laws
without giving them representation they still
stood together. When the right was asserted in
Rhode Island, that "little acre of freedom," by
Great Britain to send Americans to England to
be tried for offences committed in America, it
awakened the colonies to the imperative necessity
of united opposition.
"We were all sensible," said Jefferson afterwards,[4]
speaking of the action of the Virginia
Assembly in 1773, "that the most urgent of all
measures was that of coming to an understanding
with all the other colonies to consider the
British claims as a common cause to all and to
produce a unity of action."
It was to forward this that Committees of Correspondence
between the colonies were formed.
In this measure, as in many others, though the
honor has been claimed by our younger sister,
Massachusetts, the great weight of authority
goes to show that, while Massachusetts first
started Committees of Correspondence in the
several cities of that colony, the Colony of Virginia
the several colonies, looking to a confederation
of the colonies, and finally leading to a union.
Says Jefferson, "Mr. Marshall in his history
of General Washington, Chapter 3, speaking of
this proposition for Committees of Correspondence
and for a General Congress, says, `this
measure had already been proposed in town
meeting in Boston,' and some pages before he
had said that, `At a session of the General Court
of Massachusetts in September, 1770, that
Court in pursuance of a favorite idea of uniting
all the Colonies in one system of measures,
elected a Committee of Correspondence to communicate
with such Committees as might be appointed
by the other Colonies.' This is an
error. The Committees of Correspondence
elected by Massachusetts were expressly for a
correspondence among the several towns of that
province only. Besides the text of their proceedings,
his own note X., proves this. The
first proposition for a general correspondence between
the several States and for a General Congress
was made by our meeting of May, 1774.
Botta, copying Marshall, has repeated his error;
so it will be handed on from copyist to copyist,
ad infinitum."
The correction of this error is due to Virginia.
But, unequal as the struggle between England
and her colonies might appear on the surface,
there were conditions which tended to make it
more even.
Their life had fitted the Americans for such a
struggle. It is possible that throughout the
colonies there was not a person who was not inured
to hardship and ready to bear his part in
whatever came. Men and women alike faced
the conditions with undaunted hearts. Hall
and farm-house and mountain cabin all held
intrepid souls. The very boys were ready to
enlist and fight as men.
Nature, moving with resistless step, had
throughout the long years been training the
people for just this crisis. For generations they
had been inured to fighting Indians. They had
fought the French on the north and northwest
and the Spaniards on the south. Andrew
Lewis, with his brave frontiersmen, had crushed
the Indian power at the Great Kenawha. And
now, just at the crucial moment, they had had
an opportunity to witness and judge from personal
observation the fighting qualities of the
far-famed English regulars. Washington, a
young and untried officer, had fought the French
and Indians at Great Meadows and, though
forced to capitulate, had marched out with the
picked regiments of regulars, had been defeated
and routed disastrously. His troops had been
saved from annihilation only by the courage and
the wisdom of the young American volunteer.
By this test the prestige of the redoubted regulars
had been lowered, and America had found out,
after all, that on her own soil, man for man, she
was better than they. Better than they, not because
braver than they, for, indeed, they were
brave enough and to spare. But better because,
while the British, animated by physical courage,
fought for duty or for fame, the Americans, inspired
by the spirit of free institutions, and thus
thrice armed, fought for Home and Liberty.
So, Fate, with sure and steady hand, was
leading them along the path to the heights
where Liberty with her torch lighted the way to
Freedom.
In fact, war, though not declared, was really
on them.
In April, 1775, the embattled farmers and
minute men of Massahusetts had "fired the
shot heard 'round the world." The Virginia
uprising had proved less bloody; for when
Virginia flamed and Patrick Henry led his
"gentlemen independents of Hanover" and his
Caroline men to Williamsburg to demand restitution
magazine, Dunmore, at Peyton Randolph's
instance, had placated them by paying
for it. England was now massing her troops
about Boston; and her war-vessels were cruising
in every bay along the coast. Dunmore had
abandoned the capital of Virginia, and, after
taking refuge on a warship, was ravaging Virginia's
seaboard, arming her slaves, and threatening
her Convention, even in their assembly-hall.
The colonies were arming with all haste.
Virginia had sent her Washington, her best
tried soldier, to command the Continental
forces in the distant colony of Massachusetts.
"It was easy to distinguish him from all the
rest," says Thatcher of him, on his first appearance
as he rode into Cambridge.
It is still easy, after a hundred and thirty
years, to distinguish him from all the rest.
Sprung from Virginia's soil, compact of the elements
that have given distinction to the character
that bears her stamp; country-bred; levelheaded
rather than clever; direct and straight-forward
rather than astute or keen; inspired
by her traditions; tempered on the anvil of
adversity to be the truest instrument that
Providence had ever fashioned to its hand; following
with divine patience and divine humility
down the years, still easily distinguished from
all the rest. And the only one of all the company
who bears a close resemblance to him
was, like him, a Virginian also.
II
With a view to understanding just the situation
when the convention sat, let us for a moment
turn aside out of the clangor of revolution
and picture to ourselves the external appearance
of Virginia's capital, and then we shall
come to those who made it what it is to-day—a
shrine of Liberty. Fortunately, we have the
picture of the town, drawn by a facile and
friendly pen—that of the Rev. Hugh Jones—
about three-quarters of a century before the sitting
of the convention that declared for Independence.
"Public buildings here of note," he says, "are
the College, the Capitol, the Governor's House,
and the Church." Observe that he puts the College
first; and he describes it with much warmth.
Next comes a description of the capitol:
"Fronting the College at near its whole
breadth is extended a noble street mathematically
straight (for the first design of the town
of a mile in length: At the other end
of which stands the Capitol, a noble, beautiful
and commodious pile as any of its kind, built
at the cost of the late Queen, and by the direction
of the Governor.
"In this is the Secretary's Office, with all the
Courts of Justice and Law, held in the same
form, and near the same manner as in England,
except the Ecclesiastical Courts.
"Here the Governor and twelve Counsellors
sit as Judges at the General Courts in April
and October, whither trials and causes are removed
from Courts held at the Court Houses
monthly in every County by a Bench of Justices
and a County Clerk.
"Here are also held the Oyer and the Terminer
Courts, one in Summer and the other in
Winter, added by the charity of the late Queen
for the prevention of prisoners lying in goal
above a quarter of a year before their trial.
"Here are also held Courts Martial by Judges
appointed on purpose for the trial of pirates;
likewise, Courts of Admiralty for the trial of
ships for illegal trade.
"The building is in the form of an `H'
nearly; the Secretary's Office, and the General
Court taking up one side below stairs; the
Clerk of the Assembly's Office, and the House
of Burgesses on the other side; which last is
not unlike the House of Commons.
"In each wing is a good staircase, one leading
to the Council Chamber, where the Governor
and Council sit in very great state, in imitation
of the King and Council, or the Lord Chancellor
and House of Lords.
"Over the portico is a large room where Conferences
are held and prayers are read by the
Chaplain to the General Assembly; which
office I have had the honor for some years to
perform. At one end of this is a lobby, and
near it is the Clerk of the Council's Office; and
at the other end are several Chambers for the
Committees of Claims, Privileges and Elections;
and all over these are several good offices for
the Receiver General, for the Auditor, Treasurer,
Etc., and upon the middle is raised a
lofty cupola with a large clock.
"The whole is surrounded with a neat area
encompassed with a good wall, and near it is a
strong, sweet prison for criminals; and on the
other side of an open court another for debtors,
when they are removed either from other
prisons in each county; but such prisons are
very rare, the creditors being there generally
debtors that some esteem them too indulgent.
"The cause of my being so particular in
describing the Capitol is because it is the best
and most commodious pile of its kind that I
have seen or heard of.
"Because the State House, Jamestown, and
the College have been burnt down, therefore is
prohibited in the Capitol the use of fire, candles,
and tobacco.
"At the Capitol at public times may be seen
a great number of handsome, well-dressed, complete
gentlemen. And at the Governor's House
upon Birth-Nights, and at Balls and Assemblies,
I have seen as fine an appearance, as good
diversion, and as splendid entertainments in
Governor Spotswood's time, as I have seen anywhere
else.
"These buildings here described are justly
reputed the best in all the English America, and
are exceeded by few of their kind in England."
I fancy that his Reverence's pen ran somewhat
away with him in his enthusiasm to picture
Virginia's capital for his friends in Westminster.
I seem to see in his flowery description something
of the generous warmth which always
surges about the heart of Virginians when her
memory comes to them in a far country. But,
about the "complete gentlemen."
I have given the picture at length, partly because
it shows the life of the Virginians who
brought on the Revolution and their relation to
the government, and partly because, making
due allowance for his Reverence's warmth of
feeling, the old town which he so affectionately
described could not have changed greatly between
his day and the day when the convention
of 1776 sat. In fact, it has not changed incredibly
since that day.
If I may say so without offence, Time appears
to me to have dealt gently with this ancient
capital of Virginia. Two wars have left her
much as she was, as, indeed, they have left
the Virginians much as they were when the
Reverend Hugh Jones drew their pleasant picture;
pleasure-loving; chasing their horses five
miles through pastures to ride them two miles
on the road; easy-going till necessity arouses
them, but, once aroused, like the Nemean lion.
Into this capital came on May 6, 1776, one
hundred and thirty of these "complete gentlemen,"
all with one mind and one motive: the
preservation of American liberty. However
they might have differed and wrangled and contended,
here they were all at one. Nor had
a man came but knew that it was a crisis in
his life and fortunes. Three conventions had
sat in the preceding year, the first on the 20th
of March in old St. John's Church, Richmond,
where Patrick Henry fired all hearts by his
eloquent appeal for liberty or death. Though it
had lasted but a week, it did its work well. The
second, which met on the 24th of July, had put
the colony in a posture of defence.
On this day, May 6, the House of Burgesses
held its last session and declared that the ancient
Constitution of Virginia had been subverted by
the King and Parliament of Great Britain.
They thereupon disbanded and gave way to the
great Convention, thus terminating Virginia's
subjection to Great Britain. For the last year
the Royal Governor had been a fugitive from
the capital, and was now on board the warship
William, fulminating proclamations against the
people of Virginia as rebels, declaring martial
law, and arming their runaway slaves, to whom
he held out the reward of freedom. On October
26, 1775, George Nicholas had "fired the
first shot of the Revolution at one of Dunmore's
tenders sent to destroy the town of Hampton."
Four months before, the battle of Great
Bridge had been fought and Woodford had
had burnt Norfolk, Virginia's seaport, to
the ground.
War was already begun, though not yet generally
flagrant. Separation was imminent and
Independence was in the air.
Some persons appear to think that Jefferson
sat down in Philadelphia after the 7th of June
and wrote off the Declaration of Independence
as one might dash off a letter. They little know
the measure of Clio's march. The principles of
that immortal paper had been debated possibly
by every gentleman in Virginia, and by many
outside of her borders. It had been the subject
of discussion at every fireside and in every assemblage
for months, if not for years. And its
substance had been proclaimed as early as June
12 in that immortal paper, the Virginia Bill of
Rights which has since been incorporated in the
Constitution of every State of the Union.
However this may have been, Richard Henry
Lee, on the 20th of April, wrote from Philadelphia,
where he was representing Virginia in
the General Congress, to Patrick Henry, urging
him to propose to the convention about to
assemble a separation from Great Britain.
"Ages yet unborn," he says, "and millions
existing at present may rue or bless that Assembly
eminently depend." (Grigsby, p. 8.)
Those will remember who know the story of
the Declaration, that Richard Henry Lee was
the member of Congress who, in obedience to
Virginia's Instructions, on the 7th day of June
moved Congress to declare the Colonies Free
and Independent States. And but that he was
recalled to Virginia by the illness of his wife, it
would probably have been his pen rather than
Jefferson's which drafted the Declaration.
Who were the members of the conventions
who performed so notable a part in the drama
that was just opening? Simply the old Virginians—planters
and lawyers, plain country
gentlemen—whose names were to be immortalized
by their acts.
III
When the Virginia Convention of 1776 met
there was but one subject for consideration—
the preservation of liberty. Without any preliminary
waste of time it at once settled down
to business.
Of other Conventions since that date we have
the debates—the methods and processes by
which the members arrived at their conclusions.
proceedings all we find are the results told in
briefest minutes. And all related to the public
weal.
On the fifth day of their session the convention
directed that 1,300 men, consisting of
minute men and militia, be immediately raised
in the middle counties of Virginia, and formed
into two distinct battalions, to be sent to the
assistance of North Carolina. And on this
same day a "representation from the committee
of the County of Augusta," which embraced all
Western Virginia and Kentucky, was presented
to the convention, "setting forth the present
unhappy situation of the country, and from the
ministerial measures of vengeance now pursuing,
representing the necessity of making the confederacy
of the United Colonies the most perfect,
independent and lasting, and of framing
an equal, free and liberal government that may
bear the test of all future ages."
So we come to the great day of May 15, 1776.
The session was the most momentous which
had yet been held, for the real business of the
day was a Declaration of Independence.
Of what occurred during the debate we know
little. We only know, indeed, that Edmund
Pendleton, the President, drafted a resolution
move that body to declare the colonies Free and
Independent States; that Patrick Henry drafted
another resolution to the same purpose, and that
Meriwether Smith drafted a third; that Thomas
Nelson, Jr., offered the resolution, said to have
been that drafted by Pendleton, thus becoming
the sponsor for it; that Patrick Henry seconded
and advocated it, and that while there was some
opposition to it from conservatives like Robert
Carter Nicholas, it was on the final vote of the
convention unanimously adopted.
"They are," says Grigsby, "in every view the
most important ever presented for the consideration
of a public body . . . they constitute
the first Declaration of Independence."
It bespeaks the greatness of the members of
that convention that even when its far-reaching
effect was recognized, no claim was set up by
the mover of that resolution to any special
honor. And not one historian has set forth the
authorship as it was. The resolution passed
into history—into Virginia's histories, for these
were the only histories that deigned even to
notice them, as Pendleton's resolution. But the
real author of a resolution is not the man who
writes it, but the man who offers it and carries
it through. He it is who must stand or fall by it.
Here is the minute, from the Journal: "When
Mr. President resumed the Chair, Mr. Cary
reported that the Committee had under their
consideration the state of the Colony and had
come to the following Resolutions thereupon;
which he read in his place, and afterwards delivered
in at the Clerk's table where the same
were again twice read and unanimously agreed
to; 112 members being present:
"Forasmuch as all the endeavors of the
United Colonies, by the most decent representations
and petitions to the King and Parliament
of Great Britain, to restore peace and security
to America under the British Government, and
a reunion with that people upon just and liberal
terms, instead of a redress of grievances, have
produced from an imperious and vindictive administration
increased insult, oppression and a
vigorous attempt to effect our total destruction.
By a late act all these colonies are declared to
be in rebellion, and out of the protection of the
British Crown, our properties subjected to
confiscation, our people, when captured, compelled
to join in the murder and plunder of
their relations and countrymen, and all former
rapine and oppression of Americans declared
legal and just. Fleets and armies are raised,
and the aid of foreign troops engaged to assist
in this Colony hath not only withheld
all the powers of government from operating
for our safety, but, having retired on board an
armed ship, is carrying on a piratical and savage
war against us, tempting our slaves by
every artifice to resort to him and training and
employing them against their masters. In this
state of extreme danger, we have no alternative
left but an abject submission to the will of these
overbearing tyrants, or a total separation from
the Crown and Government of Great Britain,
uniting and exerting the strength of all America
for defence, and forming alliances with foreign
powers for commerce and aid in War: Wherefore,
appealing to the Searcher of Hearts for
the sincerity of former declarations, expressing
our desire to preserve the connexion with that
Nation, and that we are driven from that inclination
by their wicked councils, and the
eternal laws of self-preservation;
"Resolved unanimously, that the Delegates
appointed to represent this Colony in General
Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable
body to declare the United Colonies
free and independent States, absolved from all
allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown
or Parliament of Great Britain; and that they
and to whatever measures may be thought
proper and necessary by the Congress for forming
foreign alliances, and a confederation of the
Colonies, at such time and in the manner, as
to them shall seem best: Provided, that the
power of forming government for, and the regulation
of the internal concerns of each Colony
be left to the respective Colonial legislatures.
"Resolved unanimously, That a Committee
be appointed to prepare a Declaration of
Rights, and such a plan of government as will
be most likely to maintain peace and order in
this Colony, and secure substantial and equal
liberty to the people."
Thus, the act of instruction became the act
of the whole convention. And, becoming such,
it was the first Declaration of Independence by
a State on this continent. The hour had
struck; a new star had risen in the firmament
of Nations.
The account contained in the Virginia Gazette
of May 17, shows the enthusiasm with which the
passage of the resolution was hailed by the people
of the old town of Williamsburg. The British
flag was immediately struck on the capitol of
the colony where it had flown continuously since
April, 1607, and "the Union flag of the American
thus making Virginia the first State to fly the
Union flag. The soldiery "were paraded in
Waller's Grove before Brigadier-General Lewis,
attended by the gentlemen of the Committee of
Safety, the members of the General Convention,
the inhabitants of this City, etc. The
resolutions being read aloud to the army, the
following toasts were given, each of them
accompanied by a discharge of the artillery
and small arms, and the acclamation of all
present:
"1. The American Independent States.
"2. The Grand Congress of the United
States, and their respective legislatures.
"3. General Washington, and victory to the
American arms.
"The evening," says the Virginia Gazette,
"concluded with illuminations and other demonstrations
of joy, every one seeming pleased that
the domination of Great Britain was now at an
end, so wickedly and tyrannically exercised for
these twelve or thirteen years past, notwithstanding
our repeated prayers and remonstrances
for redress."
The mover of the resolution for Independence,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., was a delegate in Congress,
and, having carried it through the convention,
with the resolution in his pocket. There all
eyes were turned on Virginia, which was taking
the lead now in the Revolution.
On the 7th of June her delegate, Richard
Henry Lee, in obedience to the resolution,
offered in Congress a resolution in almost the
words of his instruction.
The story is known how it was debated
through the following three or four weeks;
how Lee returned to Virginia partly because of
his wife's illness, but partly because of the
urging of George Mason and others who wished
him to help frame the Virginia constitution; how
Jefferson was appointed on the committee to
draft the Declaration of Independence, and how
by the committee the drafting was assigned to
him. It is known also how Benjamin Harrison,
as chairman of the Committee of the
Whole, received and transmitted the Declaration
to the Congress, whose president was
John Hancock, now that Peyton Randolph was
no more.
To show the importance of this action of the
Virginia convention at this time it is only necessary
to recall that on the 15th of May, the very
day when the convention adopted the resolution
declaring for Independence, and ordered a new
entered into by Congress for suppressing the exercise
of all powers derived from the Crown,
had shown, as Mr. Jefferson states in his memoir,
by the ferment into which it had thrown the middle
colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania,
the Jerseys and New York) that the people
of those colonies had not yet accommodated their
minds to a separation from the mother country.
That some of them had expressly forbidden
their delegates to consent to such a
declaration, and others had given no instructions
and consequently no powers to give such
consent.
This argument was employed by Wilson,
Robert R. Livingston, Rutledge, Dickinson and
others against the Virginia resolution which
Richard Henry Lee moved in Congress on June
7th. And even as late as the first of July, when
in Committee of the Whole House, the consideration
of the original motion made by the
delegates of Virginia after being debated through
the day was carried in the affirmative by the
votes of New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, South
Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it, the
two members from Delaware who were present
though they declared themselves for it, were
acting under instructions given them a twelvemonth
before, and asked leave to withdraw
from the question.
The determination of the question was then,
on the request of Mr. Edward Rutledge of South
Carolina, put off to the next day, as he stated
his belief that his colleagues, though they disapproved
of the resolution, would join in it for
the sake of unanimity. And on the second of
July, the question whether the House would
agree to the Virginia resolution was carried,
South Carolina concurring in the vote, as did
Pennsylvania and Delaware. On the same days
the actual declaration, its matter and form, as
Mr. Jefferson states, was taken up, but it was
on the Fourth of July that it was decided, and
was signed by every member present except Mr.
Dickinson, though the delegates from New
York did not sign until the fifteenth of July,
authority not having been given them by their
convention until the ninth, five days after the
general signature. The convention of Pennsylvania,
learning that it had been signed only by
a majority of their delegates, named a new delegation
on the 20th, leaving out Mr. Dickinson,
and the entire delegation then signed.
IV
I cannot do better in closing the discussion
of this subject than to quote from a scholarly
address delivered some little time back by a
cultured Virginian.[5]
"It may be of interest to relate the views of
one well qualified to judge of events, and to
whom both the choice of Washington to command
the armies of the country, and of Jefferson
to draw the great Declaration were due. In a
letter to Timothy Pickering, written August 6,
1822, John Adams writes: `You inquire why so
young a man as Jefferson was placed at the head
of the Committee for preparing a Declaration of
Independence? answer, `It was the Frankfort
advice to place Virginia at the head of everything.'
Mr. Richard Henry Lee might be gone
to Virginia to visit his sick family for aught I
know, but that was not the reason of Mr.
Jefferson's appointment. There were three
committees appointed at the same time. One
for the Declaration of Independence, another
for preparing Articles of Confederation, and
another for preparing a treaty to be proposed
to France. Mr. Lee was chosen for the Committee
convenient that the same person should be on
both. Mr. Jefferson came into Congress in
June, 1775, and brought with him a reputation
for literature, science, and a happy talent for
composition. Writings of his were handed
about, remarkable for the felicity of expression.
Though a silent member in Congress, he was
so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon
committee and in conversation (not even Sam.
Adams was more so) that he soon seized upon
my heart; and upon this occasion I gave him
my vote and did all in my power to procure
votes of others. I think he had one more vote
than any other and that placed him at the head
of the committee. I had the next highest number
and that placed me second. The committee
met, discussed the subject, and then appointed
Mr. Jefferson and me to make a draft
(I suppose because we were the first on the
list). The sub-committee met, Jefferson proposed
to me to make the draft. I said:
" `I will not.'
" `You should do it.'
" `Oh no.'
" `Why will you not? You ought to do it.'
" `I will not.'
" `Why?'
" `Reasons enough.'
" `What can be your reasons?'
" `Reason first. You are a Virginian, and a
Virginian ought to appear at the head of this
business. Reason Second. I am obnoxious,
suspected and unpopular. You are very much
otherwise. Reason third; you can write ten
times better than I can.'
" `Well,' said Jefferson, `if you are decided,
I will do as well as I can.'
"After saying that he did not make or suggest
a single alteration, and adding that he did not
remember that Franklin or Sherman criticised
anything, the distinguished New Englander
says: `As you justly observed, there is not an
idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Congress
for two years before. The substance of
it is contained in the Declaration of Rights and
the violation of these rights in the Journals of
Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it
is contained in a pamphlet voted and printed
by the town of Boston before the first Congress
met, composed by James Otis, I suppose in one
of his lucid moments, and pruned and polished
by Sam. Adams.'
"The latter part of this letter recalls the saying
attributed to the writer of it, relative to the
elevation of his son to the Presidency for which
Madison, and Monroe were respectively elected
over John Quincy, the elder Adams is alleged to
have said, `My son will stand no chance until the
last Virginian is dead.'
"Let us briefly sum up the results of the Virginian
movement, and what it accomplished. It
gave Patrick Henry to arouse and stimulate the
whole people of America. It gave George
Washington, Lewis, Henry Lee, Daniel Morgan,
George Rogers Clarke, and Thomas Nelson,
Jr., to the army. It gave Thomas Nelson, Jr.,
to draw the instructions for Independence and
to offer them to the Virginia Convention. It
gave Peyton Randolph to preside over the first
Congress. It gave Thomas Jefferson to write
the Declaration of Independence after the motion
therefor had been made by Richard Henry
Lee, who was also to be chairman of the committee
for preparing Articles of Confederation.
It won and gave the Northwest Territory to the
country. It gave the Virginia plan to the convention
that formed the Constitution of the
United States with George Washington, James
Madison and Edmund Randolph to support it;
for though Randolph refused to sign the Constitution,
he did as much as anybody to bring it to its
state of perfection. It gave John Marshall to
that civil war could not disturb it. It
gave four out of the first five presidents of the
United States; not to speak of the gallant sons
of Virginia who offered themselves for the public
good, nor of the treasure which Virginia
poured into the general fund which the limits
of this paper will not permit me to detail.
"The result of the Virginian movement may
be summed up in the following language that
has been well styled `monumental,' written by
one of the greatest of the Virginians and one
well qualified to speak: Thomas Jefferson.
These are his words, and my idea of what that
movement made possible:
"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever
state or persuasion, religious and political;
peace, commerce, and honest friendship with
all nations, entangling alliances with none;
the support of the State Government in all
their rights, as the most competent administrations
for our domestic concerns and the
surest bulwark against Anti-republican tendencies,
the preservation of the general government
in its whole constitutional vigor as the
sheet-anchor of our peace at home and our
safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of
election by the people; a mild and safe correction
of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;
absolute acquiescence in the decisions
of the majority; the vital principle of Republics,
from which there is no appeal but to force, the
vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
a well disciplined militia, our best reliance
in peace and for the first movements in war,
till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy
of the civil over the military authority; economy
in the public expense that labor may be light
burdened; the honest payment of our debts
and the sacred preservation of the Public faith;
encouragement of agriculture and of commerce
as its hand-maid; the diffusion of information
and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of
public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of
the press, and freedom of person under the
protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by
jurors impartially selected; these principles
form the light constellation which has gone
before us and guided our steps through an age
of revolution and reformation!"
Such in brief, was the part which the Old
Dominion had in the creation of the Revolutionary
movement. She inspired the movement,
encouraged her sister colonies, supplied the
statesmen who led the councils and the chief who
was by no mere accident that George Washington,
Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George
Mason, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, the
Lees, the Harrisons, the Nelsons, the Randolphs,
the Blands and other leaders of the Revolutionary
movement came from the shores of the rivers
which poured into the Chesapeake. They were
the product of the life established on those shores.
Then, when Independence was achieved, she led
the movement to establish a more permanent
union by the adoption of the Constitution of the
United States, to consummate which she surrendered
her vast Northwest Territory which
her sons had conquered. And, having effected
this, it was under one of her sons that the great
Louisiana Territory was secured, and under another
that the loose bands of the Constitution
were welded to make the whole homogeneous
and effective.
These and many more national benefits were
the fruits of the civilization which had a footing
first at Jamestown. But the chief and choicest
fruit of all was the distinctive civilization which
sprang up within her borders and took its character
from her secluded and uncommercial life.
This life shed an inestimable influence on the
whole country. The Virginia gentleman became
hospitality became noted the world over.
The quality and temper of the life were shown
to the world in men like Washington and
Marshall and Madison, and later in men like
Lee and Jackson. They were all men of genius;
but more marked than even this genius was their
character.
This was the ripest fruit of the Virginia civilization,
and the Virginians know that though
these might have been equalled by few in genius,
in character they were not exceptions, but only
types of the Virginian.
| The Old Dominion | |