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THE 
 
 Declaration of Independence 
 
 By Herbert Friedenwald. 
 
 Reprinted from 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY 
 
 FOR JULY, 1 901. 
 
 Burlington, Vermont, 
 I 9 o I . 
 
£p 
 
 ^/ 
 
 <r<r 
 
 Copyright by 
 
 FREDERICK A. RICHARDSON, 
 
 1901. 
 
 P. 
 
 AulV»or. 
 
 5_Ag'01 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 HERBERT FRIEDENWALD, Philadelphia. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence marks the climax of the 
 Revolutionary movement in America. It announced to the 
 world that Great Britain and her colonies, after a journey in com- 
 pany along the same road for a hundred and fifty years, had come 
 to the parting of the vi^ays. It is a brief but eloquent and compre- 
 hensive summary of the reasons that made the separation inevit- 
 able. Within those few terse and masterly lines are contained 
 the history of the great controversy that peacefully assumed 
 definite shape, in 1763, and came to an end only after bitter war. 
 By no mere chance was Jefferson called on to write the docu- 
 ment that has been termed "the best known paper that ever came 
 from the pen of an individual." Many persons throughout the 
 colonies had produced pamphlets innumerable upon the rights of 
 the colonies and the wrongs they had suffered. But none had so 
 wrought as Jefferson. His "Summary View," written in 1774 
 and designed to serve as articles of instructions to the Virginia 
 delegates to the Continental Congress, showed him to have a 
 scholarly knowledge of the history of the colonies, a philosophic 
 insight into the essentials of the controversy, and withal a facil- 
 ity of expression that were possessed by none of his contempo- 
 raries. The sentiment of Congress, therefore, irresistibly turned 
 to him as the fittest person to draw up a declaration of the char- 
 acter desired. The event proved the wisdom of the choice. 
 
 (0 
 
1 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 For while the Declaration included nothing that was not familiar 
 to every frequenter of the taverns, to every reader of the news- 
 papers and pamphlets, Jefferson yet couched this memorable 
 paper in such powerful terms that even wavering minds could not 
 but be fired with something of enthusiasm by its perusal. 
 
 Though this remarkable summary of grievances needed no 
 elucidation to men of that generation, it is almost meaningless to 
 us. In but few instances do the histories covering the period 
 lend any aid. An explanation, therefore, of the Declaration of 
 Independence as understood by the men of the Revolution may 
 prove of interest, especially as we are again hearing constant 
 reference to the " undying principles " of that document. 
 
 Passing over the philosophy of the opening paragraph with the 
 remark that it breathes the spirit of Locke throughout, with naught 
 of French casuistry in it, we come immediately to the counts in 
 the indictment against King and Parliament. T*hey show a 
 total of twenty-six. For seventeen of these the King alone is 
 held accountable, while for the remainder he is made to share 
 the responsibility with Parliament. 
 
 In the first two charges, Jefferson leaps at once into the thick 
 of the controversy. He has included in them the whole great 
 question of royal prerogative, as against colonial freedom from 
 control, that agitated the English in America for all of a century. 
 
 Excepting only Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland, all 
 the colonies had fully experienced what it meant to enact laws 
 " wholesome and necessary for the public good " only to have 
 them repeatedly rejected by the King in Council. Every man 
 had felt the strong arm of the home government interfering, not 
 only in public, but in his private affairs as well. To such an 
 extreme had this been carried, that after 1773 even a divorce 
 could not be granted in any of the colonies, for the penalty was 
 instant dismissal to the governor who lent his assent to such a 
 law. That same year witnessed at least twenty important colo- 
 nial laws rejected by the King upon various pretexts. What 
 Jefferson had in mind, however, was the repeated disallowance 
 of laws passed by the colonies to promote their welfare, but 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 3 
 
 which came into conflict with the theories of government enter- 
 tained by the home authorities. Such were the laws of Virginia 
 and other Southern colonies designed to prohibit the slave-trade 
 and the introduction of convicts, and those of nearly all the 
 colonies for issuing bills of credit and naturalizing aliens. And 
 Massachusetts, as is well known, had her great grievances over 
 laws relating to questions of compensating, in her own way, the 
 sufferers from the Stamp Act riots, as well as over questions of 
 taxation and the appropriation of money for salaries of govern- 
 ment officials. 
 
 Attempts to restrict the importation of slaves were made at an 
 early date. Every law of this nature was disallowed by the 
 home government. Thus fared the acts framed in South Caro- 
 lina in 1760, in New Jersey in 1763, and in Virginia in 1772. 
 
 Similarly, the endeavors to prevent the entrance of convicts, 
 regarded, if possible, with less favor even than slaves, met with 
 no greater success. Franklin spoke strongly against this in 
 1768, and John Dickinson wrote in the same year, "The 
 emptying their Jails upon us and making the Colonies a Recepta- 
 cle for the Rogues and Villians : an Insult and Indignity not to 
 be thought of, much less borne without Indignation and Resent- 
 ment." 
 
 Also, bills of credit were then an absolute necessity in order 
 that the colonists might be enabled to carry on trade by means 
 other than those of mere barter. But the policy of King 
 and Parliament was against their allowance. First came the 
 breaking up of the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania land bank 
 schemes. Then the act of Parliament, of 1 764, prohibiting abso- 
 lutely the making of bills of credit legal tender, served to emphasize 
 the fact that all control by the home government was not exer- 
 cised with an eye to furthering the best interests of the colonies, 
 but rather to help the English traders and manufacturers in 
 increasmg their fortunes. Thus were laws of New Jersey 
 (1758 and 1769), of Pennsylvania (1759), and of New York 
 (1769 and 1770) of this nature disallowed by the King in 
 spite of urgent petitions in their favor. 
 
4 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 When Massachusetts compensated the sufferers from the 
 Stamp Act riots, pardoning the offenders at the same, time, the 
 law was promptly disallowed. Not only this, but to forestall 
 just what happened, the King by Order in Council, May 13, 
 1767, required the governor to have a law passed compensating 
 the sufferers, " unmixed with any other matter whatsoever," 
 should payment of the sums appropriated have been made before 
 the law could cross the ocean and be placed before the King. A 
 few years later, when the controversy thickened, the Governor 
 of Massachusetts and the Assembly of that colony were continu- 
 ally at loggerheads. The disallowance by the former of the bill 
 passed in 177 1, taxing the new Customs Commissioners, served 
 not only to increase the existing feeling of irritation at having 
 such a body of foreign and uncontrolled officers in their midst, 
 but also tended to interfere seriously with the necessary legis- 
 lation of the colony. The disallowance of naturalization laws 
 need not detain us here, for we shall have occasion to speak of 
 them below. 
 
 Passing, then, to the second charge, we find it but a refine- 
 ment, or rather an elaboration, of the preceding. The first inti- 
 mation that a closer control over colonial legislation was intended, 
 came when Parliament addressed the King, in 1740, requesting 
 that governors of the colonies be instructed to assent to no law 
 that failed to contain a clause suspending its action until trans- 
 mitted to England for consideration. Then followed the royal 
 instruction of 1752 calling for a revision of the laws in force in 
 all the colonies and ordering, at the same time, their transmis- 
 sion to England, and the insertion in each of a clause " sus- 
 pending and deferring the execution thereof until the royal will 
 and pleasure may be known thereon." A case in point arose in 
 New York, in 1759, when Governor DeLancey was instructed 
 to assent to no law empowering justices of the peace to try minor 
 cases, unless such act contained the suspending clause. The 
 most serious of all the rules enforcing this policy, however, was 
 that aimed at the suppression of lotteries, then so great a factor 
 in the economic and social life of the colonies. Down to 1769, 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 5 
 
 they flourished unrestricted, but in that year the royal governors 
 were prohibited from assenting to any law of this kind that lacked 
 the suspending clause, — a practical veto upon all attempts at raising 
 funds by such means. Special instructions (1771) prohibited 
 Governor Martin of Virginia from signing any law of this char- 
 acter, on the reasonable ground that the practice " doth tend to 
 disengage those who become adventurers therein from that spirit 
 of industry and attention to their proper callings and occupations 
 on which the public welfare so greatly depends." 
 
 As respects the latter portion of this second charge, — the 
 neglect of laws suspended in their action until the royal assent 
 be obtained, — we have a typical instance in four laws passed in 
 Virginia, in 1770, and transmitted to England at once. They 
 were not even considered by the Lords Commissioners for Trade 
 and Plantations until nearly three years after their enactment. 
 Three were then confirmed, but a fourth was set aside for final 
 action at a later date, until more information respecting it might 
 be obtained from the Governor of Virginia. Jefferson denounced 
 this policy at some length and with great vehemence in his 
 "■Summary View," for he was fully aware how heavily its practice 
 bore upon his own colony. 
 
 With the third charge, however, we reach the first grievance in 
 the list that meant everything to the men of that time, but to 
 which our historians have paid no attention. It has to do with 
 the erection of additional counties out of newly settled districts and 
 of their representation in the colonial assemblies. The colonists 
 claimed this power as a right. But the King regarded it as a 
 privilege to be procured only through the royal grace and favor. 
 A clash was inevitable. It came in New Hampshire, New 
 York, New Jersey, and Virginia, the colonies most actively 
 engaged in peopling their western lands. New York tried to 
 give representation to two newly erected counties, Cumberland 
 (1766) and Albany (1768), but was prevented in each case. 
 Not only that, but in the latter instance the King graciously con- 
 sented to the division of the county and the election of two new 
 members from it to the Assembly ; only on condition, however, 
 
6 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 that in the law establishing the new county no mention should 
 be made of representation. The year 1767 witnessed the issu- 
 ance of a royal instruction embodying this law in its most 
 stringent form, designed to control absolutely the whole matter 
 of representation in the assemblies, and the qualifications of 
 electors and elected as well. Virginia felt that this bore with 
 particular severity upon her, and her leading men knew well that 
 Governor Martin had, in 1771, received explicit orders to carry 
 out this instruction to the letter. Jefferson regarded it as a 
 great grievance and an infringement on the rights of freemen. 
 According to his view, the people living on the western 
 borders and having no local courts, nor any local government, 
 found the administration of justice almost an impossibility. 
 " Does his Majesty seriously wish," wrote he, " and publish it 
 to the world, that his subjects should give up the glorious right 
 of representation, with all the benefits derived from that, and 
 submit themselves the absolute slaves of his sovereign will ? " 
 
 Leaving that question undecided, we come to the three charges 
 respecting the removal of assemblies, their dissolution, and the 
 failure to convoke them after long periods. These need not 
 detain us more than a moment. The details of the removal 
 of the Massachusetts Assembly to Cambridge and Salem, and 
 that of South Carolina to Beaufort, are many and varied, and are 
 to be found in all histories of the times. Moreover, we are all 
 quite familiar with the dissolution of the Virginia Assembly, in 
 1765, after the passage of Patrick Henry's famous resolutions ; 
 with that of Massachusetts, in 1768, for refusing to review the 
 action on the Circular Letter ; and that of South Carolina and 
 Georgia for daring to withstand Lord Hillsborough's order to treat 
 that letter " with the contempt it deserves." In a like manner, the 
 passage of the ringing Virginia Resolves, in 1769, led to another 
 dissolution. And when a Continental Congress was in question, in 
 1 774, all but three of the colonies had to elect delegates by means of 
 provincial conventions or committees of correspondence, because 
 their assemblies had been dissolved by the royal governors. The 
 last of these three charges relates undoubtedly to the calling of the 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 7 
 
 Boston town meeting of September, 1768, to urge upon the 
 governor the necessity for convening the Assembly, which had 
 been dissolved because of its action on the Circular Letter, while 
 troops, but recently ordered to Boston to quell the disturbances 
 there, " exposed the citizens to all the dangers of invasion from 
 without and convulsion within." And in New Hampshire and 
 South Carolina and Virginia, in the autumn of 1775, affairs of 
 Government had come to such a pass that an appeal to Con- 
 gress was made for advice. The answer came to establish 
 governments that will " best promote the happiness of the 
 people," and " most efFectually secure peace and good order." 
 
 We turn now from the familiar details of dissolved assemblies 
 to the little known affairs relating to land grants and naturalization. 
 The proclamation of the autumn of 1763, in which the King 
 expressed his intention to erect new colonies out of lands that 
 the colonists claimed by right of charter, meant the serious cur- 
 tailment of these claims and the obstruction of the migration 
 westward. It marked the initiation of a new policy. It restricted 
 the limits of the colonies claiming rights to the South Seas to 
 " the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the 
 Atlantic Ocean." Beyond the " heads or sources " was a 
 reserved domain out of which the governors were prohibited 
 from making any grants whatever. Worse still, those who 
 had settled in these regions were peremptorily ordered to vacate, 
 on the pretext that the lands were reserved for the Indians. But 
 the movement had already set towards the west, and no such 
 restrictions could check it. Land companies, in which Franklin 
 and men of his stamp were interested, made petition for the right 
 to found colonies, but met only with refusal. Yet the westward 
 migration could not be stayed, although the attempt was made 
 by means of the Order in Council of 1773 prohibiting the 
 royal governors from issuing any patents until further instruc- 
 tions were issued. These followed a year later, and were 
 even more grievous, in that they raised the "conditions of 
 new appropriations of lands." The royal lands were to 
 be sold at specified times to the highest bidders at the upset 
 
8 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 price of sixpence the acre, and with the reservation of an annual 
 quit rent of one half penny the acre to the King. No lands were 
 to be disposed of except in this way. Jefferson had this in mind 
 when he wrote the Declaration and when he said, in 1774, 
 "• His Majesty has lately taken on him to advance the terms of 
 purchase, and of holding to the double of what they were, by 
 which means the acquisition of lands being rendered difficult, the 
 population of our country is likely to be checked." Only the 
 advance of the Revolution prevented the carrying out of these 
 provisions, which were everywhere regarded as harsh and unjust. 
 
 Closely allied to the question of granting lands was that of the 
 naturalization of aliens. This was very generally practiced by 
 the colonies, not so much with a view to conferring political 
 rights as for the purpose of attracting desirable immigrants to 
 open up their undeveloped territory. Where the right to transmit 
 his property to posterity was accorded him, there would the immi- 
 grant settle. Such acts of naturalization met with no comment 
 from the homegovernment till the proclamaiion of 1763 was issued. 
 From that time on, however, few of these acts passed the ordeal 
 of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations without recom- 
 mendation for disallowance. Finally, in November, 1773, came 
 the royal instruction prohibiting absolutely the naturalization of 
 any aliens and the passage of any acts to that end. It was a 
 heavy blow to the prosperity of the larger land-holding colonies : 
 Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the settle- 
 ment of which bade fair now to be seriously interfered with. 
 
 That part of the same charge that mentions the refusal to assent 
 to laws encouragmg immigration had reference to an act passed in 
 North Carolina in 1771. It exempted persons coming imme- 
 diately from Europe from all forms of taxation for four years. 
 It was disallowed, however, by the King, in February, 1772, on 
 the ground that it related especially to certain Scotch immigrants, 
 since its provisions applied only to persons coming immediately 
 from Europe, and thus might have an evil effect upon the 
 " landed Interests and Manufacturers of Great Britain and Ire- 
 land." 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 9 
 
 Going a step farther, we search our histories in vain for an 
 explanation of the complaint that the administration of justice 
 has been obstructed by the refusal of assent to laws for establish- 
 ing judiciary powers. Our first thought, on endeavoring to 
 account for this, is likely to be of the long-standing controver- 
 sies in New York and Massachusetts over the payment 
 of the salaries of the judiciary and the conditions of their 
 tenure of office. The question at issue, in both instances, 
 hinged upon granting salaries by colonial appropriation or 
 permitting payment to be made from the crown funds. By a 
 policy, adopted at an early date (1761), Great Britain persistently 
 refused to permit the judges to hold office during good behavior, 
 as in England, and insisted, instead, that they must hold only 
 during the King's pleasure. Forced to yield with no good will 
 to this extension of the royal prerogative, the colonists resisted 
 to the utmost the additional encroachment, that made it possible 
 to enforce obnoxious laws and decrees by the whole power of a 
 judiciary dependent not only for its tenure, but for its stipends as 
 well, upon the absolute good will of the crown. The tenure 
 established, to fix salaries was but a repressive step in advance, 
 although the question did not develop till 1767. Then that ill- 
 advised Townshend Act, known as the "glass, lead, and paint " 
 act, passed Parliament, and became the law of the realm. Its 
 preamble stated boldly its design to make " a more cer- 
 tain and adequate Provision for defraying the Charge of the 
 Administration of Justice and the Support of Civil Government, 
 in such Provinces where it shall be found necessary." A para- 
 graph in the bill, explaining how this was to be carried out, 
 showed that it was no idle declaration of intention merely. To 
 the inhabitants of these colonies, already goaded to the point of 
 rebellion because of excessive control of their internal affairs, 
 this meant an intolerable interference with their just rights, and 
 was not to be borne. 
 
 Furthermore, the extension of the jurisdiction of the Admiralty 
 courts, in 1764 and 1768, with the great enlargement of their 
 powers, foreshadowed the possible extinction of trial by jury in 
 
lo THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 civil as well as maritime causes. No case was ever tried in an 
 Admiralty court before a jury, and the judges of these courts were 
 royal appointees receiving their salaries, supposedly, from fines 
 and the proceeds of the sale of condemned vessels ; but, as this 
 source failed to bring in any revenue, they were paid directly out 
 of the royal exchequer. The greatest of the controversies over 
 judicial salaries, however, is the famous one begun in Massachu- 
 setts when, on that evil day in February, 1773, Governor Hutch- 
 inson announced to the Assembly of the province that the King 
 had made provision for the justices of the Superior Court, and 
 that consequently no appropriation was necessary for their main- 
 tenance. As its details are well known, we need not stop to 
 recount them. 
 
 By this time the careful reader of the Declaration will have 
 discerned that instead of making clear the charge respecting the 
 obstruction of judiciary powers, in reality the next succeeding 
 grievance has been explained. We must, therefore, take up the 
 thread where it was dropped and elucidate one of the obscurest 
 of the historical references. The man whose mind evolved the 
 Declaration knew that in such a state paper the most crying 
 wrongs of each colony must in some measure be enumerated. 
 That while it would be best, for the most part, to confine the 
 charges to those restrictive measures that concerned all alike, the 
 most crying local grievances of each colony must not be disre- 
 garded. The colony whose cause is here advocated is North 
 Carolina. And unquestionably, political considerations occa- 
 sioned this recognition of the fact that she had been the earliest 
 to declare in favor of independence. Outside of local histories 
 we seek in vain for the explanation of this important episode 
 in her history, even though it attained a prominence so great as 
 to find a place in the Declaration. 
 
 The controversy held in mind by Jefferson was an old one, 
 and began when, in January, 1768, Governor Tryon signed a 
 law, passed at a previous session of the Assembly of North 
 Carolina, that provided, among other things, for establishing 
 Superior Courts of justice. The law was to be in force for 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. ii 
 
 five years only, and from then to the end of the next regular ses- 
 sion of the Assembly. For three years, all went well because the 
 Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations paid little atten- 
 tion in the interval, to colonial laws. Fault was then found with 
 this " Superior Court Act " because of a clause that made the 
 property of persons who had never been in the colony liable to 
 attachment on the suit of the creditor. This was in contraven- 
 tion of the laws of England. While the Lords Commissioners 
 considered it a serious departure from legal form, they agreed, 
 nevertheless, that if the Assembly would amend the act in this par- 
 ticular, they would not recommend its disallowance. No action 
 in response to this hint was taken by the North Carolina Assem- 
 bly, and after waiting a due season, — about a year, — the King 
 was persuaded to issue a royal instruction prohibiting his gover- 
 nor from giving his assent to any law containing the attachment 
 clause, unless it included a provision suspending its operation 
 until the royal pleasure was made known. This came in Feb- 
 ruary, 1772, and was well timed, for the law was to expire by 
 limitation the next year, and, consequently, if proper provision 
 were not made by the Assembly, no courts would exist in the 
 province. In February, 1773, therefore, when the Assembly 
 passed a new Court Act, making provision for Superior and 
 Inferior courts retaining the objectionable attachment clause, the 
 contest was on in bitter earnest. The first law enacted con- 
 tained no suspending clause. This the Governor, Martin, 
 vetoed. Then the Assembly yielded so far as to add the sus- 
 pending clause, but retained the attachment provision. This 
 was, of course, disallowed by the King, and meanwhile, as there 
 were no courts in the province, the governor was instructed to 
 establish them on his own responsibility. This he did, but the 
 Assembly refused to recognize his authority, and made no appro- 
 priation for the salaries of the judges. Persisting in their 
 determination to have the kind of bill they wanted and to con- 
 trol their own affairs, they passed the one previously disallowed, 
 when they convened again in March, 1774. They were then 
 prorogued for their obstinacy, and practically did not sit again 
 
12 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 while North Carolina was under British rule. Thus, as a result of the 
 controversy, not only was the Assembly dissolved, because it failed 
 to do as it was bid, but from 1773 until North Carolina assumed 
 State government, in 1776, there were no courts in the province. 
 From the controversy over judges to that over commissioners 
 for the enforcement of customs laws is but a step. Their 
 appointment is made the basis of the grievance charging that a 
 multitude of new officers had been sent to America " to harass 
 the people and eat out their substance." For, with the decision 
 of Townshend to pass an act of taxation, was combined the 
 determination to enforce it at all hazards. As there was no gov- 
 ernmental machinery in America to support this policy, a new 
 engine of oppression was instituted by the first of the Townshend 
 Acts. Its provisions were exceedingly modest in that they simply 
 authorized the King to appoint Commissioners of Customs to 
 reside in America, v/ith power and jurisdiction similar to the 
 British Commissioners. They in turn were empowered to appoint 
 an indefinite number of deputies, and it was this multiplication 
 of officers that aroused the hostility of the colonists. Their 
 salaries, moreover, were to be paid out of the receipts from the 
 customs, and constituted the most serious aggression, of this nature, 
 to which the colonists took exception. Yet one that caused but little 
 less irritation was the policy initiated by Grenville, in 1764, 
 when he determined upon rigorously enforcing the existmg trade 
 laws with a view to putting an end to smuggling. In accordance 
 with this intention, he placed Admiral Colville, naval commander- 
 in-chief on the coasts of North America, virtually at the head of 
 the revenue service. And each captain of a vessel was instructed 
 to take the customs house oath, and aid in the seizure of those 
 engaged in the illicit trade, which had been connived at for years. 
 Further, as offences against the revenue acts were to be tried in 
 courts of Admiralty or vice-Admiralty, their increase with new 
 officers became necessary. The first of the new courts with 
 previously unheard of jurisdiction was opened at Halifax, in 1764, 
 while the act of 1768 made provision for their extension 
 throughout the other colonies. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 13 
 
 The next charge has to do with the maintenance of troops in 
 the colonies without the consent of the legislatures. With this 
 we may couple the later accusation of quartering troops upon the 
 people. As the facts respecting each are so well known, we 
 need not stop to consider them. The same may be said of the 
 grievance in which complaint is made of rendering the military 
 independent of and superior to the civil power. This has refer-, 
 ence, of course, to the appointment of General Gage as Gover- T i" 
 nor of Massachusetts in the spring of 1774. The powers con- 
 ferred on him were so extensive, that, upon the abrogation of the 
 charter by the Massachusetts Act, he exercised an absolute 
 authority that could not fail to excite armed resistance. 
 
 Thus we have come to the end of the first division of grievances. 
 The master mind of JefFerson perceived that he must adopt a 
 manner of accusation that was sufficiently emphatic to inspire 
 enthusiasm, and yet not weary with the long recital of 
 "abuses and usurpations," — all of the same character and 
 recounted in the same style. Therefore, after the enthusiasm of 
 the reader has been kindled by the nervous, terse sentences, there 
 is a sudden break, and the form of indictment undergoes a brief 
 change. The attack is resumed, after only a moment's pause, 
 not, however, against the King alone. For Parliament now 
 shares jointly with him the burden of ofFence. 
 
 Of the first of the new order of grievances we have already 
 sufficiently spoken. The next, however, which complains that 
 soldiers escaped through mock trials the consequences of any 
 murders they might commit, needs some comment, for it is not 
 free from ambiguity. Yet it must refer to the trial of Captain 
 Preston and his men for the deaths resulting from what is known 
 as the " Boston Massacre." This trial was, however, full and 
 free, and the acquittal of all but two of the accused by the Bos- 
 ton jury is a high tribute to their dispassionate fairness. Despite 
 it all, the memory of the dead men, who were looked upon as 
 martyrs, was always cherished, and for long years afterwards the 
 day was observed by the dehvery of orations in commemoration 
 of the occasion. The event aroused feelings of horror through- 
 
14 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 out the colonies, for it marked the first occasion on which blood 
 had been shed in the contest with England, that was so rapidly 
 drifting into war. Yet Jefferson had the cause of the Revolu- 
 tion too dearly at heart to permit him so to distort the appear- 
 ance of any of the acts of aggression as to give them a face that 
 was not theirs. What, therefore, must have been uppermost in 
 his mind when penning this clause was the recent act for the 
 " impartial administration of Justice," (May, 1774,) which was 
 designed to provide for just such contingencies as had arisen in 
 the case of the Boston Massacre, — the trial of persons accused 
 of murder while in the discharge of their official duties. In 
 accordance with its provisions, all persons in the service of his 
 Majesty, military as well as civil, accused of murder com- 
 mitted while executing the laws of the realm in the colonies, 
 might in order to ensure a fair trial obtain a change of venue to 
 some other colony, or to Great Britain. Provision was made for the 
 transportation of witnesses as well, and most grievous of all, the 
 person thus accused might be admitted to bail, it mattered not 
 how flagrant the crime charged against him. As the likelihood 
 of a British official, military or civil, being brought to trial in 
 England for a crime committed in executing the law in America 
 was extremely remote, this was considered as an unwarrantable 
 invasion of colonial rights. 
 
 Having thus far dealt in the main with the political side of the 
 grievances, Jefferson, in order that nothing of importance should 
 be omitted, now turns to those oppressions that bore most heav- 
 ily upon the economic life of the people. And if there is a weak 
 point in the whole Declaration, it is the failure to dwell to any 
 extent upon the narrow British economic policy towards the col- 
 onies, which meant simply using them for the benefit of the 
 manufacturers and traders at home. This is all the more sur- 
 prising since in the beginning the opposition to the enforce- 
 ment of trade laws and the right to taxation was based as 
 largely upon economic as upon political grounds. All attention 
 was soon centred, however, upon that side of the controversy 
 that gave the greater opportunity for appeals to the passions of the 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 15 
 
 multitude, — the rights claimed as theirs by reason of being free- 
 born English subjects. To cut off the trade of the colonists with 
 all parts of the world, as written in the Declaration, was a policy 
 first adopted in the days of Cromwell and Charles II. and per- 
 sisted in to the end. But the acts of aggression particularly 
 offensive were those instituted by Grenville, in 1764, when he 
 revived the Molasses Act of 1733, by which an end was intended 
 to be put to the rum traffic of New England, and the rigorous 
 measures already referred to for enforcing obsolete trade laws. 
 An idea of the full meaning of this intention may be gathered 
 when we recall that, all in all, about thirty acts had been passed 
 by Parliament at various times for the purpose of binding the 
 colonial trade. Up to this time, however, they had been so 
 loosely enforced as to cause little inconvenience. Coming down 
 to a later day, we have the well known acts of 1774, which 
 closed the port of Boston, and the acts of March, April, and 
 December, 1775, which effectually prohibited all trade with the 
 colonies, thereby cutting them off from all the world. 
 
 We need not stop to consider the chiefest of the familiars of 
 our history, the complaint of taxation without consent, but may 
 turn to that which is not so well known, and which deals with 
 transportation for trial beyond the seas. This meant the 
 revival of an old law, passed in the reign of Henry VIII., by 
 which it was made possible to send any person, accused of trea- 
 son in any part of the realm, to England for trial. The first 
 intimation that this act was to be extended to America came in 
 1769, after the failure of Massachusetts to rescind her circular 
 letter, and the riots that took place upon the seizure of John 
 Hancock's sloop the " Liberty." Parliament in that year, in an 
 address to the King, made the suggestion that then was a favor- 
 able time for the revival of this law. Matters rested in this 
 uncertain state until June, 1772, when after the revenue vessel 
 " Gaspee " was burned to the water's edge at Newport, the 
 determination to punish violators of the revenue acts, and these 
 destructive rioters in particular, was greatly intensified. A com- 
 mission was therefore instituted, in the autumn of 1772, to 
 
i6 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 investigate this offence. These commissioners had extensive 
 powers, yet the weightiest part of their instructions was that 
 which ordered them to transport the offenders to England for 
 trial. 
 
 In the autumn of 1772, just previous to the appointment 
 of this commission, and before the knowledge of the " Gaspee " 
 incident had even reached England, an act had been passed 
 " for the better securing and preserving His Majesty's Dock 
 Yards, Magazines, Ships, Ammunition and Stores." In this 
 was included the detested transportation provision. It aroused 
 great opposition, for it deprived the colonists of their dearly cher- 
 ished right of " a constitutional trial by a jury of the vicinage." 
 The law, already referred to, "for the impartial administration of 
 Justice," while designed to protect the revenue and other officials 
 also belongs to this category of ills, because of its transportation 
 clauses. 
 
 The possible enforcement of the Quebec Act of 1774, with 
 its far-reaching provisions for extending the use of the civil as 
 against the common law, was made the ground of the next griev- 
 ance. As it never went into force in any respect, however, it is 
 difficult to tell exactly what its effects might have been. Yet the 
 extension of the limits of the province created by the proclama- 
 tion of 1763, so as to include all the country west of the AUe- 
 ghanies and as far south as the Ohio River, meant a further 
 encroachment upon the territory of those colonies that claimed 
 charter rights to much of the land thus included. The reasons 
 already given, therefore, added to the opportunities for further 
 aggression that the enforcement of this act might offer, rendered 
 it one of the laws that was looked on with the greatest disfavor 
 by the colonists. It appeared to them as one more exten- 
 sion of the royal prerogative against which they had for so long 
 a time been contending without avail. 
 
 What the Quebec Act lacked in clearness, however, was 
 more than supplied by the very evident intent of the bill regulat- 
 ing the government of Massachusetts. If any one act of aggres- 
 sion can be set down as the cause, immediate or remote, of the 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 17 
 
 Revolution it is this. None carried with it so much consterna- 
 tion and dismay. None aroused at the same time so much stern 
 opposition. Its great importance, therefore, made it necessary that 
 reference should be made to it in the Declaration. If the power to 
 take away or alter a single charter was once recognized, the rights 
 of no colony were safe from destruction. The principle, if carried 
 out to its logical conclusion, meant the possible abolition of all 
 the laws developed by the English in America through a period 
 of a hundred and fifty years, and the substitution in their stead 
 of such manner and form of government as the will of an arbi- 
 trary sovereign might dictate. When, therefore, this act abol- 
 ished, with one stroke, the Council as it had been developed ; 
 curtailed the power of the Assembly ; practically put an end to 
 that great institution for the redress of grievances, the town 
 meeting ; made serious changes in the manner of selecting the 
 judiciary and jurors ; and virtually made the governor the 
 supreme power in the province, we cannot wonder that this act 
 of revenge upon Massachusetts, which foreshadowed what might 
 be expected to happen elsewhere, aroused a spirit of opposition 
 throughout the colonies such as had never before been called forth. 
 Herein lay the main part of the grievance. Yet the earlier decision 
 (1772) to sever the Governor of Massachusetts completely 
 from any dependence upon the Assembly for his salary, and 
 thereby to make his freedom of action the greater, was also an 
 innovation in settled custom that was viewed with naught but 
 disfavor. And when the great contest was waging in North 
 Carolina over the establishment of courts, the attempt of the 
 Governor to pay no heed to the recalcitrant Assembly by endeav- 
 oring to establish courts on his own responsibility, was likewise 
 regarded as " altering fundamentally " an established form of 
 government. 
 
 Nor could the colonies ever become reconciled to that short- 
 sighted policy that, because of the spirited resistance of the New 
 York Assembly to the demands made upon it, could offer no 
 other solution of the difficulty than the suspension of the legisla- 
 ture until it bent the knee and yielded. The colonists were 
 
1 8 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 accustomed to the exercise of the governor's power of veto and 
 prorogation. This had been submitted to from the beginning, 
 and was regarded as a constitutional mode of enforcing royal 
 authority. But to go so much further, and for a trivial action on 
 the part of the New York Assembly, to suspend indefinitely its 
 legislative functions by act of Parliament, was regarded as an exer- 
 cise of unwarranted authority to which the colonists never became 
 reconciled. Although forced to yield, New York's cause was 
 made the cause of all, and the voice of protest against this act, 
 resounding so far as the halls of the Continental Congress of 1 7 74, j| 
 was to be reechoed in the immortal Declaration of 1776. It 
 was, moreover, an enforcement of the Declaratory Act ot 1766, 
 little heeded at first, but now seen to be fraught with the utmost 
 danger to colonial rights. And the Tea Acts of 1770 and 1773 
 were regarded as but other isolated instances of the policy thus 
 announced. 
 
 We have come now to the end of the political grievances. 
 The last five of all, for which the King is again held solely responsi- 
 ble, deal with the armed movement for suppression, begun at 
 Lexington and Concord, emphasized in the proclamation or 
 August, 1775, declaring the colonists in rebellion and announc- 
 ing the intention to suppress the revolutionists with a high hand, 
 and repeated in the speech from the throne in October of the 
 same year. This meant war in earnest, and with its beginnings 
 the royal governors, ever in a perplexing situation, were now 
 forced to flee for their lives. First Governor Dunmore of Vir- 
 ginia, soon followed by Tryon of New York, Martin of North 
 Carolina, and Campbell of South Carolina, " abdicated govern- 
 ment," as Jefferson euphemistically termed it, and left the inhabi- 
 tants of those colonies to their own devices in creating new forms 
 of government. 
 
 The other acts complained of need but little explanation, for 
 they all form part of the history of the commencement of the 
 war. With the burning of Falmouth and Charlestown, Norfolk 
 and Charleston, the employment of Hessians — " foreign mer- 
 cenaries " — to fight the cause of England, and the act of Parlia- 
 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 19 
 
 ment of December, 1775, which authorized the capture and 
 condemnation of trading ships, and compelled '' our fellow 
 citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear Arms against their 
 country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, 
 or to fall themselves by their Hands," — all are familiar. 
 
 The last grievance refers to a possible condition of affairs, 
 ever dreaded and against which precautions had been taken by 
 numerous acts of legislation. Those acquainted with life in 
 the South are aware of the fear engendered by the thought of 
 a servile war. Nothing more horrible could be imagined ; the 
 only thing to be compared with it was to let loose bands of 
 well-armed Indians to plunder and devastate the country. When, 
 therefore, Dunmore, in the spring of 1775, in order to enforce his 
 decree, threatened to arm the negroes and Indians, the alarm he 
 created was widespread, and had much to do with bringing into 
 existence a well-trained militia. The governors of North and 
 South Carolina were known to be adopting similar measures, 
 and the latter was denounced as " having used his utmost 
 endeavors to destroy the lives, liberties and properties of the 
 people." Along with this came the endeavor to engage the 
 Indians as allies, and Gage issued instructions to that effect in 
 the summer of 1775. The Indian agent Stuart, on the borders 
 of South Carolina, made overtures, and won to him the Creeks 
 and Chicksaws, while Sir Guy Carleton was making similar 
 progress with the Six Nations in the North. 
 
 Jefferson's task has now come to an end. No colony has 
 been overlooked. No grievances common to all are omitted 
 from the terrible arraignment. All must henceforth, as Franklin 
 put it, " hang together or hang separately." We cannot fail to 
 recognize, in the light of the interpretation of the various clauses 
 of the Declaration given above, and of the history of events up 
 to July, 1776, that a master political mind penned that document, 
 and a master spirit breathed vigor into its several parts. What 
 goes before is a fitting prelude to, an unanswerable argument in 
 behalf of, the right to declare that " We, therefore, the Repre- 
 sentatives of the United States of America, in General Congress 
 
20 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 assembled appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the 
 rectitude of our intentions, do in the Name and by Authority of 
 the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare. 
 That these United States are and of Right ought to be Free and 
 Independent States * * * *." 
 
 LofC. 
 
 kD-2aa 
 
1 neinLernauunai i loniniy, voi. ii 
 
 JANUARY, 1901. ^^i- H ]9t 
 
 England at the Close of the Nineteenth Century - _ _ Efnil J 
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 FEBRUARY, 1901. 
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 Nietzsche and Darwinism _______ Alfred Fa 
 
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 MARCH, 1901. j 
 
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 West Point _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ Col. C. W. La 
 
 A Tribute to Verdi ----_-__ Pietro Masi 
 
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 MAY, 1901. 
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 JUNE, 1901. 
 
 The American Woman : A German Point of View, - - Hugo MUnsfer 
 
 The Encroachment of the American College 
 
 Upon the Field of the University, _____ Simeon E. Bala 
 
 German Criticism (Concluded) _____ Richard M. M 
 
 The Declaration of Rights of 1789, _____ Andre L 
 
 The Principles of Modern Dietetics, and their 
 
 Importance in Therapeutics (Concluded) _ _ _ _ Carl von Noo) 
 
 Railway Alliance and Trade Districts of the United States, Charles H. 1 
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 Two Works on Decorative Art, _____ Russell Stu 
 
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