system is suffered to go into operation, we shall have reason to esteem
it a great privilege that rain and dew do not depend upon Parliament;
otherwise, they would soon be taxed and dried.
But, thanks to God! There is freedom enough left upon earth to resist
such monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece
and Rome, but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong
on the shores of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will
resist unto death.
But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a
desperate community have heaped upon their enemies shall be amply and
speedily repaired. Still, it is lighted in these colonies which one
breath of their king may kindle into such fury that the blood of all
England cannot extinguish it.
INDEPENDENCE A SOLEMN DUTY
BY RICHARD HENRY LEE
The time will certainly come when the fated separation between the
mother-country and these colonies must take place, whether you will or
no, for it is so decreed by the very nature of things, by the progressive
increase of our population, the fertility of our soil, the extent of our
territory, the industry of our countrymen, and the immensity of the ocean
which separates the two countries. And if this be true, as it is most
true, who does not see that the sooner it takes place the better?—that
it would be the height of folly not to seize the present occasion, when
British injustice has filled all hearts with indignation, inspired all
minds with courage, united all opinions in one, and put arms in every
hand? And how long must we traverse three thousand miles of a stormy sea
to solicit of arrogant and insolent men either counsel, or commands to
regulate our domestic affairs? From what we have already achieved it is
easy to presume what we shall hereafter accomplish. Experience is the
source of sage counsels, and liberty is the mother of great men. Have you
not seen the enemy driven from Lexington by citizens armed and assembled
in one day? Already their most celebrated generals have yielded in Boston
to the skill of ours. Already their seamen, repulsed from our coasts,
wander over the ocean, the sport of tempests and the prey of famine. Let
us hail the favorable omen, and fight, not for the sake of knowing on
what terms we are to be the slaves of England, but to secure to ourselves
a free existence, to found a just and independent government.
Why do we longer delay? why still deliberate? Let this most happy day
give birth to the American Republic. Let her arise, not to devastate
and conquer, but to reëstablish the reign of peace and the laws. The
eyes of Europe are fixed upon us; she demands of us a living example
of freedom that may contrast, by the felicity of her citizens, with
the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She
invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace and
the persecuted repose. She entreats us to cultivate a propitious soil,
where that generous plant which first sprang up and grew in England,
but is now withered by the poisonous blasts of Scottish tyranny, may
revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable
shade all the unfortunate of the human race. This is the end presaged
by so many omens; by our first victories; by the present ardor and
union; by the flight of Howe, and the pestilence which broke out among
Dunmore’s people; by the very winds which baffled the enemy’s fleets
and transports, and that terrible tempest which engulfed seven hundred
vessels upon the coast of Newfoundland.
If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of
the American legislators will be placed, by posterity, at the side of
those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams
of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been and will be forever
dear to virtuous men and good citizens.
AN APPEAL FOR AMERICA
BY WILLIAM PITT (LORD CHATHAM)
(In Parliament, January 20, 1775)
_My Lords_:
These papers, brought to your table at so late a period of this business,
tell us what? Why, what all the world knew before: that the Americans,
irritated by repeated injuries, and stripped of their inborn rights and
dearest privileges, have resisted, and entered into associations for the
preservation of their common liberties.
Had the early situation of the people of Boston been attended to, things
would not have come to this. But the infant complaints of Boston were
literally treated like the capricious squalls of a child, who, it is
said, did not know whether it was aggrieved or not.
But full well I knew, at that time, that this child, if not redressed,
would soon assume the courage and voice of a man. Full well I knew that
the sons of ancestors, born under the same free constitution and once
breathing the same liberal air as Englishmen, would resist upon the same
principles and on the same occasions.
What has government done? They have sent an armed force consisting of
seventeen thousand men, to dragoon the Bostonians into what is called
their duty; and, so far from once turning their eyes to the policy and
destructive consequence of this scheme, are constantly sending out more
troops. And we are told, in the language of menace, that if seventeen
thousand men won’t do, fifty thousand shall.
It is true, my lords, with this force they may ravage the country, waste
and destroy as they march; but, in the progress of fifteen hundred miles,
can they occupy the places they have passed? Will not a country which can
produce three millions of people, wronged and insulted as they are, start
up like hydras in every corner, and gather fresh strength from fresh
opposition?
Nay, what dependence can you have upon the soldiery, the unhappy engines
of your wrath? They are Englishmen, who must feel for the privileges of
Englishmen. Do you think that these men can turn their arms against their
brethren? Surely no. A victory must be to them a defeat, and carnage a
sacrifice.
But it is not merely three millions of people, the produce of America, we
have to contend with in this unnatural struggle; many more are on their
side, dispersed over the face of this wide empire. Every Whig in this
country and in Ireland is with them.
In this alarming crisis I come with this paper in my hand to offer you
the best of my experience and advice; which is, that a humble petition be
presented to his Majesty, beseeching him that, in order to open the way
toward a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America, it may
graciously please him that immediate orders be given to General Gage for
removing his Majesty’s force from the town of Boston.
Such conduct will convince America that you mean to try her cause in the
spirit of freedom and inquiry, and not in letters of blood.
There is no time to be lost. Every hour is big with danger. Perhaps,
while I am now speaking, the decisive blow is struck which may involve
millions in the consequence. And, believe me, the very first drop of
blood which is shed will cause a wound which may never be healed.
When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America,
when you consider their firmness, decency, and wisdom, you cannot but
respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must
affirm, declare, and avow that, in all my reading and observation (and it
has been my favorite study, for I have read Thucydides, and have studied
and admired the master-states of the world), I say, I must declare that,
for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion,
under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body
of men can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia.
I trust it is obvious to your lordships that all attempts to impose
servitude upon such men, to establish despotism, over such a mighty
continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal.
We shall be forced, ultimately, to retract. Let us retract while we
can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent,
oppressive acts. They Must be repealed. You Will repeal them. I pledge
myself for it that you will, in the end, repeal them. I stake my
reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not
finally repealed.
CONCILIATION OR WAR
EDMUND BURKE, IN PARLIAMENT, MARCH 22, 1775
We are called again, as it were by a superior warning voice, to attend to
America, and to review the subject with an unusual degree of calmness.
Surely, it is an awful subject, or there is none this side the grave. The
proposition is peace; not peace hunted through the medium of war, but
peace sought in its natural course, in its ordinary haunts, and laid in
principles purely pacific. I propose to restore the former unsuspecting
confidence of the colonies in the mother-country, and reconcile them each
to each. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows
from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges and equal
protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as
links of iron.
Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated
with your government; they will cling and grapple to you, and no force
under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But
let it once be understood that your government may be one thing and
their privileges another; that these two things may exist without any
mutual relation; and the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and
everything hastens to decay and dissolution.
As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this
country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to
our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship
freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply,
the more friends you will have. The more ardently they love liberty, the
more perfect will be their obedience.
Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.
They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But until
you become lost to all feelings of your true interest and your national
dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity
of price, of which you have the monopoly.
This is the true Act of Navigation, which binds to you the commerce of
the colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world.
Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond
which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire.
Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and
your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and
your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce.
Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and
your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great
contexture of this mysterious whole.
These things do not make your government, dead instruments, passive tools
as they are; it is the spirit of the English constitution that gives
all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the English
constitution which, infused, through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds,
unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the
minutest member.
Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England?
Do you imagine, then, that it is the land tax which raises your revenue?
that it is the annual vote in the committee of supply which gives you
your army? or that it is the mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery
and discipline?
No! surely no! It is the love of the people, it is their attachment to
their government from the sense of the deep stake they have in such
a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and
infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be
a base rabble and your navy nothing but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the
profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place
among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is
gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be
directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in
the machine.
But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master
principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned have
no substantial existence, are, in truth, everything and all in all.
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom, and a great
empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our
situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station
and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on
America with the old warning of the church, _Sursum corda!_[5] We ought
to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of
Providence has called us.
By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have
turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most
extensive and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying, but by
promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness, of the human race.
“WAR IS ACTUALLY BEGUN”
BY PATRICK HENRY
(Mr. Henry in the Convention of Delegates of Virginia, March 23, 1775,
urges that the colony be immediately put in a state of defense.)
This, sir, is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is
one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as
nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to
the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It
is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the
great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep
back my opinions at this time through fear of giving offense, I should
consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country and of an act
of disloyalty towards the majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all
earthly kings.
Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.
We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the
song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part
of wise men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we
disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and
having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal
salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am
willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And, judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the
conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those
hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the
house? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately
received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer
not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourself how this gracious
reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which
cover our waters and darken our land.
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?
Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be
called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These
are the implements of war and subjugation, the last arguments to which
kings resort. I ask, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose
be not to force us to submission? Can the gentlemen assign any other
possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No,
sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other.
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the
British ministry have been so long forging.
And what have we to oppose them. Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been
trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon
the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which
it is capable, but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty
and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been
already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves
longer.
Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm that
is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have
supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry
and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have
produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been
disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the
throne.
In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be
free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for
which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon
the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we
have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of
our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must
fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left
us!...
They tell us, sir, that we are weak—unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a
British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength
by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual
resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive
phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God
of nature hath placed in our power.
Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such
a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our
enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles
alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations,
and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.
The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the
active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base
enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There
is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their
clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and
let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace,
peace, but there is no peace. The war has actually begun! The next
gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here
idle? What is it that the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take,
but as for me, _give me liberty or give me death!_
EMANCIPATION FROM BRITISH DEPENDENCE
BY PHILIP FRENEAU
(_The following note in explanation of proper names, etc., in this poem
is copied from Duyckinck’s edition of Freneau._)
Note.—Sir James Wallace, Admiral Graves, and Captain Montague, were
British naval officers, employed on our coast. The _Viper_ and _Rose_
were vessels in the service. Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of
Virginia, had recently in April, 1775, removed the public stores from
Williamsburg, and, in conjunction with a party of adherents, supported by
the naval force on the station, was making war on the province. William
Tryon, the last Royal governor of New York, informed of a resolution
of the Continental Congress: “That it be recommended to the several
provincial assemblies in conventions and councils, or committees of
safety, to arrest and secure every person in their respective colonies
whose going at large may, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the
colony or the liberties of America,” discerning the signs of the times,
took refuge on board the Halifax packet in the harbor, and left the city
in the middle of October, 1775.
_Libera nos, Domine_—Deliver us, O Lord,
Not only from British dependence, but also,
From a junto that labor for absolute power,
Whose schemes disappointed have made them look sour;
From the lords of the council, who fight against freedom
Who still follow on where delusion shall lead ’em.
From groups at St. James’s who slight our Petitions,
And fools that are waiting for further submissions;
From a nation whose manners are rough and abrupt,
From scoundrels and rascals whom gold can corrupt.
From pirates sent out by command of the king
To murder and plunder, but never to swing;
From Wallace, and Graves, and _Vipers_ and _Roses_,
Whom, if Heaven pleases, we’ll give bloody noses.
From the valiant Dunmore, with his crew of banditti
Who plunder Virginians at Williamsburg city,
From hot-headed Montague, mighty to swear,
The little fat man with his pretty white hair.
From bishops in Britain, who butchers are grown,
From slaves that would die for a smile from the throne,
From assemblies that vote against Congress’ proceedings,
(Who now see the fruit of their stupid misleadings).
From Tryon, the mighty, who flies from our city,
And swelled with importance, disdains the committee;
(But since he is pleased to proclaim us his foes,
What the devil care we where the devil he goes.)
From the caitiff, Lord North, who could bind us in chains,
From our noble King Log, with his toothful of brains,
Who dreams, and is certain (when taking a nap)
He has conquered our lands as they lay on his map.
From a kingdom that bullies, and hectors, and swears,
I send up to Heaven my wishes and prayers
That we, disunited, may freemen be still,
And Britain go on—to be damn’d if she will.
IV
THE DECLARATION
THE ORIGIN OF THE DECLARATION[6]
BY SYDNEY GEORGE FISHER
Besides the semi-independent character of their political governments,
there were other circumstances which tended to inspire a large part of
the colonists with a strong passion for independence, and led them to
resist with unusual energy the remodeling plans which England began in
1764.
The sturdy influences of Protestantism and American life had, however,
not so great an effect on that large body of people called loyalists,
whose numbers have been variously estimated at from one-third to over
half the population. They remained loyal to England, and were so far from
being inspired with a love of independence that they utterly detested the
whole patriot cause and sacrificed their property and lives in the effort
to stamp out its principles and put in their place the British empire
method of alien control as the best form of government for America.
Patriot parties have existed in other countries without the aid of
the particular influences which Burke described. The love of national
independence is, in fact, the most difficult passion to eradicate, as the
Irish, the Poles, and other broken nationalities bear witness. The desire
for independence is natural to all vigorous communities, is generally
regarded as more manlike and honorable than dependence, and usually
springs up spontaneously whether in Holland, Switzerland or America, in
spite of the commercial and conservative influences of loyalism. But,
nevertheless, the influences mentioned by Burke, and several that he did
not mention, had no doubt considerable effect in creating the patriot
party in America and inspiring it with enthusiasm and energy.