USA > South Carolina > Documentary history of the American revolution: consisting of letters and papers relating to the contest for liberty, chiefly in South Carolina, from originals in the possession of the editor, and other sources, V.1 > Part 2
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A Committee was afterwards appointed to draw up such particular Resolutions on the present occasion as were thought necessary for the
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DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF
House to enter into, which accordingly they did, and reported, and to which, after making a very few alterations, the House agreed, and ordered to be published-inclosed is one of these publications. As soon as this business was completed the House adjourned till after Christmas, (to the 7th January,) having just ordered the Commissioner of Corres- pondence to write more fully to the Agent upon these important matters by a packet that will sail in about ten or twelve days. The short letter that has been already sent to the Agent you have herewith a copy of, as also of another wrote by Mr. Lynch, Mr. Rutledge, and myself from New York the day after the Congress, and put into Capt. Davis' bag the morning I sailed. Our people have behaved as firmly in the common cause as any upon the Continent, without having done the least mischief, and I make little doubt of their continuing so to do, though we have a . number of cunning, jacobitical, Butcan rascals to encounter, that leave nothing untried to counterwork the firmness and loyalty of the true sons of liberty among us; these are such infernal fiends as none of the sister colonies north of us have to dread, but with all their cunning (though that is generally accounted a more formidable onemy than mere force), I hope, and indeed don't doubt but the wretched miscreants will find themselves disappointed, and their American posterity, as well as our- selves by our uniform spirit of firmness, made happy in the preservation of their and our just rights and privileges, whether they will or no. The friends of liberty here are all as sensible as our brethren to the northward, that nothing will save us but acting together. That pro- vince that endeavors to act separately will certainly gain nothing by it ; she must fall with the rest, and not only so, but be deservedly branded besides with everlasting infamy.
For my part, I have ever been of opinion, that we should all endeavor to stand upon the broad and common ground of those natural and inhe- rent rights that we all feel and know, as men and as descendants of Englishmen, we have a right to, and have always thought this bottom amply sufficient for our future importance. I wish that the charters, (we have one as most) being different in different colonies, may not be the political trap that will ensnare us at last by drawing different colonies upon that account to act differently in this great and common cause, and whenever that is the cuse, all will be over with the whole. There ought to be no New England men, no New Yorker, &c .. known on the Continent, but all of us Americans; a confirmation of our essential and common rights as Englishmen may be pleaded from the Charters safely enough, but any farther dependence on them may be fatal. I am the more rivetted into this opinion from all ministerial
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
writers that I have seen, fas est et ab hoste doveri, and from none more than the famous author of the regulations lately made concerning the colonies, published the present year with great eclat, pages 17 and 18, also page 22 where be informs us of the reasons why the new provinces are not yet permitted to hare Assemblies, which are easily seen through. 'Tis pity that every Assembly in each province should not have a con- stant eye upon the attacks that may be made upon the essential part of the British Constitution in any, and the agents of the whole ordered to assist upon such occasions. for any single province being once deprived of a material right, 'tis presently made a precedent for the rest. The late attacks on different parts of the Constitution in different places are very alarming and have the appearance of design; in New York on one point, in our province on another, in Jamaica on a third, in Maryland on several, and the striding encroachments of the Council almost every where, except in your happy province in this respect, &c., &c, this by the by --. I still wish what Mr. Lynch and I were so earnestly for at the Congress, that we had stopt at the Declarations and Petition to the King, as the House of Commons refused to the
of the Colonies, when the matter was pending in Parliament, as we neither hold our rights from them or the Lords. His Majesty is, in the petition, desired to lay the matter before the Parliament. However, as the Congress thought otherwise, and union is most certainly all in all, the Memorial to the Lords and Petition to the Commons were supported hy us here equally with as much zeal as if we had voted for them at the Congress, and God send the desired success and establish harmony oter more between us and our mother country. But had we consented to the addition that was so strenuously proposed to be made to the first Declaration of the Opinion of the Congress, I am sure we should have been far, very far from having the thanks of our House. The attarli- ment the eastern gentlemen seemed to have to it, I imputed to their Charters, but I must own I was unable to account how any other gen- tlemen could be so particularly fond of it. I wish these Charters may not be the bane of us at last, as it seems to be the common fetch of the P-t, and ministerial writers at present that the King could not grant us those exemptions that are claimed under them.
CHRIST'R. GADSDEN
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DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF
A LIST OF THOSE PERSONS WHO FIRST MET AT LIBERTY TREE, IN CHARLESTON, IN THE FALL OF THE YEAR 1766, AFTER THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT OF THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. AGAINST THE AMERICAN COLONIES. AS EXTRACTED FROM THE ORIGINAL LIST IN THE HANDS OF BENJAMIN ELLIOTT, ESQ., REGISTER IN EQUITY, WHICH LIST IS SIGNED BY GEORGE FLAGG, THE ONLY SURVIVOR OF THE PARTY.
[DISS. of Christopher Gadsden.]
1. Christopher Gadsden, Merchant, then 42 years old.
2. Willigra Johnson, Blacksmith.
3. Joseph Veree, Carpenter.
4. John Fullerton, Carpenter.
5. James Brown, Carpenter.
6. Nath'I. Libby, Ship Carpenter.
7. George Flagg, Painter and Glazier.
8. Thos. Coleman, Upholsterer.
9. Jobn Hall, Coachmaker.
10. Wm. Field, Carver.
11. Robert Jones, Sadler.
12. John Loughton, Coachmaker.
13. W. Rodgers, Wheelwright.
14. John Calvert, Clerk in some office.
15. H. Y. Bookless, Wheelwright.
16. J. Barlow, Sadler.
17. Tunis Teabout, Blacksmith.
1S. Peter Munclean. Clerk.
19. Wm. Trusler, Butcher.
20. Robert Howard, Carpenter.
21. Alex. Alexander, Schoolmaster.
22. Ed. Weyman, Clerk of St. Philip's Church, and glass grinder,
23. Thos. Swarle, Painter.
24. Wm. Laughton, Tailor.
25. Daniel Cannon, Carpenter.
26. Benjamin Hawes, Painter.
On this occasion the above persons invited Mr. Gadsden to join them, and to meet at an oak tree just beyond Gadsden's Green, over the Creek at Hampstead, to a collation prepared at their joint expense for the occasion. Here they talked over the mischief's which the Stamp Act would have induced, and congratulated each other on its repeal. On
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
this occasion Mr. Gadaden delivered to them an address, stating their rights, and encouraging them to defend them against all foreign taxa tion. Upon which joining hands around the tree, they associated themselves as defenders and supporters of American Liberty, and from that time the oak was called Liberty Tree-and public meetings were occasionally holden there.
A LETTER FROM "FREEMAN"* OF SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE DEPU- TIES OF NORTH AMERICA. ASSEMBLED IN THE HIGH COURT OF CONGRESS AT PHILADELPHIA.
To the Deputies of North America in General Congress :
GENTLEMEN,-When the people of England, in the early part of the last century were oppressed by illegal taxes, violation of property. billeting soldiers and martial law, there was reason to apprehend some insurrection, from the discontents which prevailod. They believed their liberties were on the point of being ravished from them, and Charles the First, found himself under an absolute necessity to summon a Parliament, to meet carly in the year 1028. On the first day of their meeting, to deliberate upon a subject of no less importance than to reinstate a good correspondence between the Crown and People -- and before the Commons had entered into any debates-an anonymous let- ter to them, touching the inconveniences and grievances of the State, was communicated to the Members, and it was called a speech without doors.
Upon subjects of grievance similar with, yet infinitely more serions than those of that period-now, at a time threatening, not insurrection from discontent, but a civil war from despair-and by the same mode of address as was used to that House of Commons, I thus have the honor, publicly, to make known my sentiments to the Deputies of North America-deputies elected to meet in General Congress, to deliberate upon a subject, of at least as high import to the British crown and pe - ple of America, as that Parliament had to discuss, relative to the Crown
# Doctor Ramsay, in his second volume of his History of South Carolina, page 435. in the life which he has written of William Henry Drayton, says, "In the year 1774 he wrote a pamphlet under the signature of ' Freeman,' which was addressed to the American Congress. In this he stated the grievances of America, and drew up a Bill of American, Rights. This was well received. It substantially chalked out the line of conduct adopted by Congress then in session."
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DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF
and people of England. I here religiously wish, that the claims of this Congress may be as favorably admitted as were the claims of that Parlia- ment-and that the similitude between the two periods may then finally end. For we know the subsequent years of Charles' administration encreased the public discontents to that degree that at length the people in their might arose and took up arms against the sovereign !
Hitherto charactered by my countrymen as most zealous for the pre- rogative in opposition to the liberty of the subject. I am conscious my principle of conduct has been misunderstood. As far as my small abili- ties enabled me as an independent and honest middle branch of Legis- lature ought to act, so, in private and in public stations have I endeav- ored at one time to oppose the exuberances of popular liberty, and at another, the stretches of the government party, when I thought either advanced beyond the constitutional line of propriety. In short, I wish to form a political character, by the picture Junius gave of a virtuous Duke of Bedford : "Willing to support the just measures of government, but determined to observe the conduct of the Minister with suspicion, he would oppose the violence of faction with as much firmness, as the encroachments of prerogative." And before .Junius was known, I had established it as a first principle, not to proceed any farther with any party, than I thought they travelled in the Constitutional highway.
Hitherto I have opposed the local popular policy of this colony. I. thought the principles of action were unconstitutional -- I am of the same opinion-I may be wrong, my judgment is my guide. But now ! the tragedy of five rets, composed in the last session of Parliament, in my opinion, violates all the rules of the political drama, and incapaci- tates me from saying one word in favor of administration. Nay, the same spirit of indignation which animated me to condemn popular mea- sures in the year 1769, because although avowedly in defence of liberty, they absolutely violated the freedom of society, hy demanding men, under pain of being stigmatized, and of sustaining detriment in property, to accede to resolutions, which, however well meant, could not, from the apparent constraint they held out, but be grating, very grating to a free- man, so, the same spirit of indignation, yet incapable of bending to measures violating liberty, aetnates me in like manner, now to assert my freedom against the malignant nature of the late five Acts of Parlia- ment. As then, a certainty of sustaining a heavy loss of property, and of acquiring a heavy load of public odium, did not intimidate me from persevering in a.conduct I thought right; so, now that the liberty and property of the American is at the pleasure of a despotie power, an idea of a risk of life itself in defence of my hereditary rights, cannot appal
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
me, or make me shrink from my purpose, when perhaps those rights, can be maintained only by a temporary suspension of the rules of con- stitutional proceedings. Tenacious and jealous of my liberty, I do not change my ground, because I in turn face opposite quarters making the attack. Thus, from one and the same centre of action and principle of conduct, I opposed succeeding violations of my rights, then, by a tem- porary democracy, now, by an established monarchy. If I did not act thus confidently, it might well be asked, why did I with so much spirit oppose my countrymen in the year 1769, and remained silent now, that injuries of a much more alarming nature, are threatened from another quarter ? I consider myself thus fully obliged to anticipate, any uncan- did and unworthy reflections, that might possibly be made of my being Bekle and unsteady, or influenced by disgust,* as I have written agalust popular measures, and now write against those of Administration. Each of the five late acts of Parliament relating to America, increased my alarms in a progressive degree-they all run counter to my ideas of the constitutional power of Parliament. Either they are utterly illegal, as
# The full intention of Parliament respecting America became known here by the arrival of the Acts at the same time when accounts were received that Adminstration had nominated an Assistant Judge, regularly breil to the Bar, in the room of Mir. Jus- rice Murray, deceased, and a change of conduct taking place in the author at this crisis, some imputed it to disgust rather than to principle. The author was aware of such a construction, but he was incapable of being intimidated from a system he thought right. The following extract will shew, that the late appointment from home was expected, and therefore could have no influence upon his present conduct.
" On Tuesday last a Commission passed the Great Seal of this province, appointing the Honorable William Henry Drayton, Esquire, to the office of Assistant Judge. in the room of John Murray, Esquire, deceased. We hear that when his honor the Lieuten- ant-Governor, and his Majesty's Council were in deliberation to nominate a grutheonan of proper rank and character to the office of Assistant Judge, it was allowed that no such person at the bar would, for such a consideration, be induced to quit his pruptive. and that as no other person of rank and character would choose to run the risk of being superseded by the appointment of a Barrister from England ; so it would be highly in delicate to offer the post to any such. The case seemed difficult, yet of necessity a Judge must be appointed. After some time spent in agitating this subject, Mr. Dray- ton offered his service in that station, until a Barrister should be appointed Ur the King; which public spirited behavior was very readily and unanimously appr. v ! ... the Lieutenant Governor and Council."-General tincette, No. 301. January 25, ITT1.
When Mr. D. wus pro tempore appointed Post Master General, in the year 1 ?? I AMtal made application at home to be confirmed, Lords Sandwich and Hillsborough Mi hin the honor to acquaint him, that they personally applied on his behalf to Lord Le Despencer, one of the Post Mastery General, who acquainted them, the office had been for some time previously engaged. Mr. D. was not disgusted here, although he nia .. application -- in the present case he has never made the least solicitation, and engaged in the station exactly in the manner related in the Gazette.
DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF
the Acts of a whole session,* of the second Richard, and two Acts, t in particular, of Henry the eighth, were deemed to be, and therefore done away by subsequent Parliaments, or, I am utterly ignorant of the nature of the English constitution of Parliament. Let this alternative be as it may, every man has feelings, and must act by them.
The question now, is not whether Great Britain has a right to Tax America against her consent, but whether she has a constitutional right to exercise despotism over America! What can be more despotie in any government, than, in one colony? to revoke charter rights -- to alter the law-to annihilate an essential branch of the Legislature in favor of the people, and in its room to place an establishment existing but at the will of the Sovereign ! In anothers in effect to annihilate the ancient code of law, as well of the vanquished as of the conquerors, subjecting the existence of the common law, to the pleasure of the Crown; to declare the people, English people ! shall not have representation, and to empower the Governor and Council to make laws for them. What is this, but to enable the Crown, by an instruction, to give law to the people ! What is this, but the same power that Henry the Eighth, had by a proclamation, to give law to the people of England ! And what greater power has the Sovereign at Constantinople, over a province in the East, than the Sovereign at London now has over a province in the west ! At a stroke to annihilate the right of representation, and the common law from among English subjects, nay, English people :- to empower Bashaws, in their little Divans, to promulgate such laws to people of English blood, as, from time to time, under the form of instructions, shall be penned by the English Reis Effendi! Such pow- ers cannot legally exist in Britain. Than, that such powers should be exercised over us, it will be better, O! Americans ! that we should not be. The highest despotism is now exercised over Quebec, and remem- ber ! it is true to a proverb, multis miniatur, uni qui injuriam facit.
But, affairs may yet be well, notwithstanding the gloomy face of our political atmosphere. Our ancestors of England, were often obliged to claim their rights, when they were in danger of losing them. Let us follow so successful an example. On such a subject, let the Americans address the throne with all due respect to majesty, and at the same
# Anno XL.
+ 23 Henry 3. To enable Kings by their letters Patent to repeal laws during their minority. 31 Henry. To give the King's proclamations the force of an Act of Pariia- ment.
İ Massachusetts Bay.
¿ Quebec.
-----
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
time with attention to their own dignity as freemen. The style of the Lord Keeper to Charles the First, on a similar occasion, is a case in point.
" May it please your most excellent Majesty" your people of Ame- rica by their Deputies assembled in General Congress, "taking into consideration that, the good intelligence between your Majesty and your people" of America, "doth much depend upon your Majesty's answer upon their" claim "of rights, with unanimous consent, do now become most humble suitors unto your Majesty, that you may be pleased to give a clear and satisfactory answer"* to
THE AMERICAN CLAIM OF RIGHTS.
That whereas, discontents, jealousies, and alarms have unhappily per- vaded, overspread and distressed the British subjects, settled on the Continent of North America, to the great endaugering the public peace,
1. By Acts of the British Parliament, taxing those American free- holders, although they have not any representation, of their own elec- tion, in Parliament.
2. By the constitution of Council established among them by the Royal Mandamus. Seeing they act as a second branch of the Legisla- ture, entirely dependent upon the pleasure even of the Governor-that placemen, dependent upon the Crown, being strangers, ignorant of the interests and laws of the colonies, are sent from England to fill seat- in Council, where they often form a majority; as Legislators, determining the most weighty affairs of the colony, aud as Chancellors, decreeing in suits relating to the most valuable property of the subject.
3. By there not being any constitutional Courts of Ordinary and of Chancery in America, and by appeals being under the jurisdiction of the King and Privy Council, as the dernier resort.
4. By the Judges holding their seats at the will of the Crown, a ten- ure dangerous to the liberty and property of the subject, and therefore justly abolished in England.
5. By Judges now-a-days granting to the Customs to lie dormant in their possession, writs of assistance in the nature of general warrants, by which, without any crime charged and without any suspicion, a lotty officer has power to cause the doors and locks of any maneto be bruke open, to enter his most private cabinet, and thence to take and carry away, whatever he shall in his pleasure deem uncustomed goods.
6. By the oppressive powers vested in the Courts of Admiralty.
* 8 Parliamentary History, 202.
e . V.
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DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF
7. By the British Parliament claiming and exercising a power to bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever. To suspend the Legislature of New York; to divest the Americans of the value of their lawful property at pleasure, and even without any form of trial; to annul and make void lawful contracts in trade; to oblige Judges to take bail in cases of murder; to enable persons charged with murder in Massachu- setts Bay to Hy the colony; to annihilate an ancient* brauch of the Legislature in favor of the people, and in its room to constitute one entirely dependent upon the pleasure of the Crown; to deprive subjects of English blood of the right of representation in the colony of Quebec; and to enable the Governor and Council there to make laws for them, thereby in effect leaving it in the power of the Crown, whether or not, or in what degree, such subjects shall enjoy the benefit of Magna Charta and the Common Law, under a ('rown, which is itself limited and con- troled by Magna Charta and the Common law! And for the purpose of repeating and continuing, all their grievances and heavy oppressions herein specified-to establish the Romish religion in a very considerable part of the British Empire ; and to quarter soldiers in America, against the consent of the freeholders. All which are illegal, and directly con- trary to the franchises of America.
And therefore, the Americans represented by their Deputies afore- said, taking into their most serious consideration, the best means to avert the calamities .of Civil war-to restore public tranquility-and to pre- serve without dispute, the supremacy of the Crown and British Domin- ion over America: "Do in the first place, as their ancestors in like case bave usually done, for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties, declare :"+
1. That the Americans being descended from the same ancestors with the people of England, and owing fealty to the same Crown, are there- fore equally with them, entitled to the common law of England formed by their common ancestors ; and to all and singular the benefits, rights, liberties and claims specified in Magna Charta,t in the petition of Rights, § in the Bill of Rights, || and in the Act of Settlement." They being no more than principally declaratory of the grounds of the funda- mental laws of England. ** Therefore,
* About 200 years.
+ Bill of Rights, W. & M.
+ " Henry 3.
20 Car. I.
# William and Mary.
៛ 12 and 13 William 3. * * 2 Inst. Proem.
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
2. That the British Parliment ought not to have, and cannot of right possess any power to Tax,* or in any shape to bind American free- holders of the British Crown, seeing it is against the franchises of the land, because their consent is not signified in Parliament, by a repre- sentation of their own election .*
3. That the Constitution of the present Councils in America. by Mandamus, be utterly abolished, as being injurious to the subject, and destructive of a free constitution of government. That of right, there ought to be an independent and permanent middle branch of Legisla- ture. between the Crown and people, and, that as it ought of right to arise by the Royal creation, so, the members of it, ought of right, to be called out of American families ; that the majority of the Council of State to the Governor, ought of right to consist of men connected with the colony, by birth or fortune, and that the Governor, or Council of State, cannot of right possess any judicial power whatsoever.
4. That of right there ought to be in each colony, constitutional Courts of Ordinary and of Chancery ; that for the case of the subject, at such a vast distance as he is from England, appeals from the American Courts of Chancery, ought to be made to the Upper House of Assembly of each colony respectively, and from thence to the House of Lords in Great Britain-the only constitutional dernier resort for justice in the Empire.
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