USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution > Part 14
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During the greater portion of the period in which had occurred the various transactions of which meu- tion has been made, herein, the General Assembly of the Colony of New York had not been permitted, by the Colonial Government, to meet for the considera- tiou of the public affairs and for the transaction of the public business of the Colony ; but a large proportion, it not a majority, of the Members of the House, in their individual characters, were known to have sym- pathized, to a greater or lesser extent, with the less radical portion of the party of the Opposition, in the Colony, while the Committee of Correspondence of the House, in which was vested, ad interim, much of the authority of the House, was also known to have united with the local Committees of Correspondence, in New York and elsewhere, in proposing the conven-
1 Vide pages 43, 41, 45, ante.
among the Colonists, generally, when, on the tenth of Jannary, 1775, that body was permitted to asseuible, in an Adjourned Session; " and, in the absence of more exciting occurrences and in view of many anx- ious hopes that that Assembly, which had not been concerned in any of the extraordinary occurrences of the preceding twelve months, might, possibly, become instrumental in restoring harmony between the Mother Country and the Colonies-" most ardently " desired by all good men " 3-the eyes of all careful observers, in Europe and America, were directed, wistfully, toward the little chamber, in the old City- Hall, in Wall-street, in the City of New York, in which that General Assembly was assembled.
The members of that Assembly, as was well-known, like the body of the Colonists whom they respectively represented, were of the confederated party of the Opposition, and, to a man, antagonistic to the Colo- nial policy of the Home Government; but, also like their constituents, they were divided-in some in- stances, they were radically divided-in their views and in their inclinations, concerning the manner in which that opposition should be presented and through what instrumentality it should be exercised. A portion of those members, respectable in character and ability, but a minority in numbers, led by George Clinton, Philip Schuyler, and Peter R. Livingston, asserting its continued loyalty to the Sovereign, its desire to effect a redress of the grievances under which the Colonies were laboring, and its hope that a reconciliation between the Colonies and the Mother Country might be secured, nevertheless, fell back on the Congress and on the line of action on which the Congress had determined, notwithstanding the well- known tendency toward Revolution of all which that Congress had done, and notwithstanding, also, the equally well-known effects of that action, because of its ill-concealed encouragement of Insurrection if not of Rebellion, ou a large portion of the Colonists, throughout the Continent, and on the Home Govern- ment. Another portion of those members, equally respectable in character and ability, constituting a large majority of the House, and led by Isaac Wil- kins, James De Lancey, and Crean Brush, was not less opposed to the Colonial policy of the Home Gov- ernment, nor less decided and sincere in its opposition to that policy, nor less desirous of effecting a redress of the grievances under which the Colonies were said to have been suffering, nor more hopeful that a recon- " Journal of the Assembly. Die Martis, 10 ho., A.M., the 10th January, 1775.
3 Resolution of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, inviting a Meeting of Deputies, in a Congress of the Continent, June 17, 1774.
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ciliation between the Colonies and the Mother Coun- try might be effected ; but it also maintained, in op- position to the minority of the House and more con- sistently with the uniform profession of loyalty to ! the preceding year, except such as should be brought the Sovereign and of respect for the fundamental before it, officially, or such as might have arisen from somne prior action of the Assembly itself; and, more important than all else, it determined that, with all the weight of its legitimate and official authority and influence and with all the personal influence of its individual member-, but after a fashion and in terms of its own selection, and without any violation of offi- cial or individual propriety or of the Laws of the Land -- especially without officially recognizing the existence of any other opposition to the Ministry or the existence of any other organized body which had been, which was, or which might become, similarly employed-it would vigorously oppose the obnoxious Colonial policy of the Home Government, earnestly seek a redress of the serious grievances under which the Colonies were then laboring, and honestly en- deavor to effect that honorable and permanent recon- eiliation of the Colonies and the Mother Country, which all factions, and all parties, and all sects, and all classes of society, throughout the Colony, professed to consider necessary and desirable; and which, some in one manner and some in others, each faction for itself, they were endeavoring to secure, for the common weal.2 principles of the Constitution, in both of which all, the minority as well as the majority, professed to be in harmony, that a removal of the causes of the dis- affection and a restoration of harmony between the exeited disputants could not be secured by the use of such means as the Congress had recommended and authorized, no matter by whom organized and con- trolled ; and that, for those well-defined purposes, it would be preferable to adopt and employ only those means which would give offence to no one, and only those instrumentalities concerning which there could not be raised any question of their legitimacy nor of thei- entire fitness, within the law, for the due promo- tion of the great ends for which, alone, all professed to be contending. The first-named portion of the mem- bers, was, evidently, determined to force the Assembly into the line of the radical portion of the party of the Opposition, for no other purpose, however, than that of increasing the moral weight of that particular fac- tion of the party, in its desperate struggle for the possession of the controlling power, in political affairs, within the Colony; and this, too, notwithstanding that success in such determined effort could only re- sult in destroying the one remaining body, legally constituted and entirely unsmirched by any associa- tion with any less legally constituted body, through which the Home Government could be reached, offi- cially, in whatever action should be taken in behalf of "the common cause ; " 1 and notwithstanding, also, that the supporters of the Congress, in the event of their success, would, thereby, destroy a most powerful instrumentality, then preparing to labor, independ- ently, in a line which whilst parallel to that already occupied by the Congress itself, was, nevertheless, for the accomplishment of the great purposes for secur- " There is no subject connected with the history of the United States which, from the beginning until now, has been more systematically and recklessly falsified than the political character of the members of that Assembly, the influeners which controllal that body, and the action which it took, on the great political questions of the day. ing which that Congress had been originally proposed and was subsequently organized, and was, then, among other less desirable purposes, through its own appointed instrumentalities, apparently laboring. The last-named portion of the members, not less deter- mined than the other, resolutely maintained that the Assembly should remain entirely independent from all those popular Committees and Congresses which had been moving and laboring, during the preceding year, in lines of action which they had respectively approved, each for itself, for the common purposes;
1 " The Ministry alledged that the Congress was no legal body, and "uone could be heard in reference to their proceedings, without giving " that illegal body some degree of countenance ; that they could only " hear the Colonies through their legal Assembdies and their Agents prop- "erly authorized by their, and properly admitted here ; that to do "otherwise would lead to inextricable confusion and destroy the whole ' order of Colony Government."-(Annual Register for the pour 1975, 56.) See, also, Parliamentary Register (Almon's) i., 115, 16, 124.
and, with equal resolution and consistency, it evi- dently determined, also, that the Assembly should take no official action on any of the occurrences of
The County of Westchester was ably represented on the floor of the Assembly, in the persons of Col- onel Frederic Philipse and Judge John Thomas, who represented the body of the County ; Pierre Van Cortlandt, who represented the Manor of Cortlandt; and Isaac Wilkins, who represented the Borough of Westchester. Of these, Thomas and Van Cortlandt were of the minority of the Assembly, of which mention has been made ; and Philipse and Wilkins
Notwithstanding there was not a member of the party of the Govern- ment in the Assembly, Murray (Lupmirtint History, 1, 434) Lossing ( Full Book, li., 593) and, with his characteristic indirectness and malignity Bancroft ( History of the United Stubs, original eiffi in, is., 205. 2009, 210, 211, 212, etc. ; the state, centenary edition, iv., 455, 450, 477, etc.) stated or insinuated that the "friends of the Government, " or "" the Tories, " were in the ascendency atl controlled it.
Notwithstanding the Despatches of Lieutenant. governor Coldden to the Home Government, which are (and have been, since 1;) accessible to everybody, abundantly prove that the Colonial Government possessed no more influence, which it could exercise over the Assembly, than was pos- Ensol by any other political opponent, -that, in fact, that body was Dot in harmony with the Government, and acted adversely to the hopes of the, Goverument-Murray, ( Lupartied History, i., 134) History of Civil War in America, Dublin: ITT9, i., f3 ; Scale, (Histoire des Troubles, i., 12% ;) etc., nswrt that whatever action was taken by the House, was under the influence of the Lientenatt-governor of the Coleuy.
The action, on the great questions of the day, which the Assenddy took, from day to day, tells its own story, wherever it is known, and stamps the brand of infidelity to their duties, as historians, on by far the greater number of those who have undertaken to discharge those duties, on these particular subjects.
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were of the majority of that body, which has been the introduction of a Resolution, submitted by Col- already described; and because of the prominent and Abraham Ten Broeck, of the Manor of Rens- parts which those Representatives of that County selnerwyck, to "take into consideration the Proceed- respectively took, in the debates concerning the "ings of the Continental Congress, held in the City "of Philadelphia, in the Months of September and " October last." momentous questions which were considered and determined in that Assembly, and because of the ills which befell three of those Representatives, because of what they had respectively said and done in that Assembly, there is no portion of the history of rey- ohitionary New York which possesses a deeper inter- est to those who are of the Westchester-county of more recent days, than that which relates to the action taken by that General Assembly of the Colony of New York, on the political grievances under which the Colony was then said to have been laboring, on the Colonial policy of the Home Government through which those alleged grievances had been inflicted on the Colonies, on the means which were best adapted to the redress of those alleged grievances, and on its employment of those means for that purpose.
Although the Assembly had been prorogued to meet on the tenth of January, 1775, the members from the distant Counties were not present on that day, nor on several succeeding days; and, on the twentieth of that month, a "Call of the House" was ordered to be made on the seventh of February ensu- ing; and the Clerk of the House was ordered to write to the absent Members, to require their punctual attendance on that day,' both factions of the House evidently understanding that that particular " Call of "the House" carried with it, in honor if in nothing else, the additional provision that no leading question which was likely to be brought before the Assembly, during that Session, should be thus introduced, until after that "Call " should have been made, agreeably to that Order .? It appears, however, that the minority was strengthened by the arrival of two of the absen- tees, within a few days after the "Call" had been ordered and nearly a fortnight before the day on which it was ordered to be made-at which time, too, it appeared to the minority that it had temporarily acquired the control of the House-and the majority was surprised, on the twenty-sixth of January, by
1 Journal of the House, " Die Veneris, 10 ho., A. M., the 20th January, *1775."
" " It was some Days before a sufficient number of Members got to Town " to trike a Hlouse, and there are still twelve of their number absent, " which has occasioned the House to put off the farther consideration of " their Important Business to the 7th of next Month, at which Time "they have ordered all their Members to attend."-(Lieutenant governor Golden to the Barlaf Dartmouth, "NEW YORK, 21 January, 1775." )
In the Lieutenant governor's Despatch to the Earl of Dartmouth, Hated on the first of February, 1775, it is stated that the Call of the House referred to was made on a Motion offered by the minority of the House, for what was supposed would be beneficial to its purposes; and when it i remembered that the majority already possessed the control of what- er. r was brought forward, it will be seen that that majority not only had no occasion to make such a Call, but also, that, when it cousented Bat mich a "Call" should be mate, it had entire confidence in its con- " sound supremacy, even when the entire strength of each of the two fic- ! ta should have been brought into the House, an instance of its temer- which, very nearly, became disastrous to it. 4
Under any circumstances and in any assemblage, there would be aroused an earnest, if not an angry, opposition to any movement which was covered with as much of bad faith and dishonor as was seen, sur- rounding the Resolution which Colonel Ten Broeck had thus submitted in violation of the honorable understanding, between the two factions, which had been entered into when the "Call of the House " was agreed to, by both ; and, in the instance under con- sideration, "a .warm debate ensued," between the rival factions of the Assembly, which was followed by a call " for the Previous Question," submitted by Colonel Philipse, of the County of Westchester, on which, agreeably to the parliamentary usage of that period, the House was carried from the consideration of the Resolution which was then before it, to the consideration of that "previous question," whether the question on the original Resolution should then be taken, in other words, if that original Resolution should not, then and there, be absolutely rejected, without being permitted to linger until another day, in the hands of an adverse majority. By a vote of ten to eleven, the House determined that the question on Colonel Ten Broeck's ill-timed Resolution should not "be now put," thereby entirely defeating the minority, in its certainly dishonorable attempt to force a consideration of the proceedings of the Con- gress, on the Assembly, in open violation of its own particular undertaking, and at the expense of its own honor.3
Very reasonably, although the welcome aet was done by those who were not of the " friends of the "Government," the result of that carly struggle in the General Assembly of the Colony, on such a momen- tous question, was very acceptable to the Colonial Government' as well as to the Ministry, at London; 5 and, from that date until this, separated from the mo- tives of the majority of the Assembly who had thus rejected the Resolution, and from the other acts of the series, in opposition to the Government, of which
. S Journal of the House, " Die Jovis, 10 ho., A. M., the 26th January, " 1995 ;" Lieutenant governor Coblen to General Cage, " New YORK 29th " Jany 1776 ;" the same to the Earl of Dartmouth, " NEW York Ist Feby "1775 ;" the same to Governor Ergon, " NEW York, Ist Feby. 1775 ;" the " some to flmirel Graves, "NEW York 20th Feb. 1775."
4 The venerable Lientenant-governor of the Province was evidently in excellent spirits, from that result. when he wrote the Despatches to Geti- eral Gige and the Earl of Dartmouth, which were referred to in the last preceding Note.
3 " When the question to adopt the Measures recommended ly the Con- " gress was negatived by a Majority of one only, in this Assembly of "twenty-six Individual, the Ministers were in high spirits ; and these " Individuals were then represented as 'all America.'"-(Governor Jobn- stone's Speech in the House of Commons, May 15, 1775-Almon's Farlomen- Berg Register, i., 173.)
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that rejection of Colonel Ten Broeck's Resolution the minority of the Assembly, appears to have been well-studied by those who were of that minority ; but it did not prevent it from continuing to hanker after the leadership of whatever movement, in the direc- tion of a redress of the grievances of the Colonies, the Assembly should be inclined to take. Subsequent events very clearly indicated, indeed, that the mi- nority desired to promote its own factional interests rather than to serve the Colony; and, undoubtedly wat- only the prelude. that Vote of the Assem- bly has supplied a theme on which those who have seemed to play the part of historians of that portion of America's history, have based much of what they have said, unduly commendatory of Massachusetts and Virginia and quite as unduly denunciatory of everything which pertained to New York, 'unless of some of the men of New York, of that early period, whose characters, for fidelity to ; with that end in view, five days after the defeat of its the truth and uprightne>> in the discharge of public duties, were no better than their own. 1
The lesson which the defeat of its dishonorable movement, under Colonel Ten Broeck, had given to
1 Gordon (History of American Bordation, i., 471) led of, in the work of detraction, by saying " The Massachusetts Congress were displeased with " the proceedings of the General Assembly of New York, " for this Vote, among others, as if the approval of any merely insurrectionary body were necessary to ensure the respectability, in history, of any General Assembly, legally electel, legally convened, and arting in conformity with law. Raturay (History of the American Revolution, i., 14%) insinua- ted, in the absence of sufficient authority to assert, that "the party for "Royal Government," -although there was not a member of that party within the Assaubly, aml although the Colonial Government was con- fessedly without influence enough to le minde acquainted with its inten- tions-led the Assembly to reject the Resolution. Grahamte (History of the United_Notes, iv., 3 un following Ramsey, and, generally, in his wi- credited words, repeated the skinder which that early writer insinuated. Leake (M. moir of General Lomb, 97) regarded the Vote as unpatriotic and " an important ministerial triumph." Lossing ( Field Bruk of the Rer- olution, ii., 793) made " fifteen of the twenty-four Members of the As- "semilly, Loyalists ; " and he attributed the Vote to that unduly assumed canse, although, in fact, every member professed to have been equally loyal to the Sovereign. Bancroft, also, as far as his fragmentary para- graphs may be regarded as history (History of the Unital Nutex, original edition, iv., 207-210; the atre, centenary edition, iv., 154-150) insinu- ated what he would have been glad to have asserted, had he possessed even a shadow of evidence to support him, that it was the influence of the Government and that of the Established Church, the venality of the Representatives in the Assembly, the timidity of the Colonists themselves, aud prejudice against lawyers and Presbyterians, combined, which pro- duced that notable Vote. The servility of the Assembly to the Minis- try, singularly enough, produced it, if the acote and untrustworthy John C. Hamilton (History of the Republic, i., 59), is to be believed. Lodge (History of the English Colmies, 491, , one of the latest specimens of Massa- chusetts dilettanteiam, sueeringly refers to the Assembly of New York as "the close corporation known as the Assembly," as if the General Court of Massachusetts, locked in its Chamber, was not quite as " close" a body, while it was in session, aseven he could find. Others, including
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first ill-timed movement, and apparently actuated only by purely patriotic motives, Peter R. Living- ston, of the Manor of Livingston, one of the leaders of the minority, offered a Resolution "that a day "may be appointed to take the state of this Colony "into consideration : to enter such Resolutions as the " House may agree to, on their Journals ; and, in " consequence of such Resolutions, to prepare a hum- " ble, firm, dutiful, and loyal Petition to our most gra- " cions Sovereign." Whatever may have been the pur- poses of the minority, in submitting that Resolution. however, it certainly gathered no special advantages to itself, in doing so, since the majority promptly ac- cepted a proposition which was perfectly agreeable to it, and added importance to it, per se, by uniting with the minority in support of it, all the members who were present, the conservative as well as the radical, uniting in the unanimous adoption of it."
Immediately after the adoption of the Resolution submitted by the Representative of the Living- ston Manor, James De Lancey, of the City of New York, one of the leaders of the majority and the head of that powerful family, moved "that a Memorial to the Lords, and a Representation " and Remonstrance to the Commons of Great Brit- "ain may be prepared, together with the Petition. "to his Majesty;"' and, like the Resolution which
" Journal of the House, "Die Diartis, 10 ho., A.L., the 31st January, " 1775."
" The peculiar force, if not the peculiar assertion of the political standing of the General Assembly, with which the proposed papers were Frothingham (Rise of the Republic, 3!) told only of the rejection of Col- . Vested, in the words of the Resolution, was noticed, in the Parliament, ouel Ten Broeck's Resolution, and, by the suppression of much of the , and used as one of the reasons for the Parliament's rejection of them- truth concerning the subject, left their less informed readers to infer, if the latter are not directly tollso, that the Assembly was influenced, in that action, by an antagonism to the popular cause.
in the House of Lords, it was said, " the title of the paper rendered it "inadmissible. It was called ' a Momocid: ' now, ' Momcials ' are pre- " seuted from one crowned head to another ; but as to a . Memoriel ' from "an American Assembly, it was utheard of, and ought not to be read." In the same debate, it was said, ako, by another Peer, that "the title " given to the paper was suspicious : a ' Petition' from the same Assen :- "bly had been presented to the King, the Colomies not denying the " supreme Rights of His Majesty : a ' Demonstraare' to the Commons; "and, now, a . Momarint' to the Lords. They dropped the usual word "' Petition," Test, fiom that, it should be intagined that they acknowl- (Speeches of the Earl of Denbigh sand Ford Concer, in the House of Lords, May 1%, 1973.)
Y one, unacquainted with the facts 'and depending on any of the above-named historians for information, can possibly learn, from them, that the Vote referred to was taken in the interest of the common cause, as a prelude to what the Assembly intended to do, in its own manner, in support of that cause ; that there was not a " friend of the Government." or " Tory, " or in .miber of the " party of the Government," among the members of that Assembly ; that the Colonial Goverment was not con- snitel, respecting anything which was done, or to be done, by that As- . "edged the supreme power of those branches of the Legislature."- semidy ; and that not even the Congress of the Continent, as will be seen hereafter, muore earnestly, more powerfully, or more successfully opposed the Ministry and demanded a redress of the grievances of the Colonies, than that Asetubly, in every thing which it dil, on those subjects. Pit- kin ( History of the Failed States, 1. 521, 325, ) and Hildreth (History of the United States, First Series, ilj., at, , not withstanding they were New Eng- lunders, did not permit the truth to be suppressed ; but they gave to the Assenbly of New York, at lost a portion of what was due to ir, in honestly written history.
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