WEBVTT NOTE 30. The Drive Toward Independence 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Volume 4, Chapter 30, The Drive Toward Independence 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:11.000 As we have already learned, although New England was ready for independence from Great Britain, 3 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:15.000 Torpor reigned in the Continental Congress through February. 4 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.000 Cushing retained his steed until February so that the Massachusetts delegation 5 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.000 was not yet under control of the pro-independence faction. 6 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:33.000 And Virginia, the great mainstay of radicalism outside New England, was torn with dissension on this issue. 7 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Furthermore, the radical leaders, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson, were temporarily back home, 8 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:48.000 and the other independent stalwarts, George Washington and Patrick Henry, were serving in the armed forces, 9 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:55.200 so that the majority of the Virginia delegation remaining in Philadelphia were arch-conservatives. 10 00:00:55.200 --> 00:01:04.560 In late February 1776, opinion in the Continental Congress shifted sharply leftward toward independence. 11 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:09.860 The shift was spurred by news of the British Prohibitory Act as well as the proclamation 12 00:01:09.860 --> 00:01:17.420 of rebellion and the impact of common sense, and was quickened by the arrival in Philadelphia 13 00:01:17.420 --> 00:01:24.340 of Elbridge-Garry, an arrival which swung the opportunistic Hancock back to the radical 14 00:01:24.340 --> 00:01:31.340 line. Furthermore, Lee returned to his seat at Philadelphia to lead the Virginia Radicals 15 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:37.700 and the conservative Virginia oligarch, Benjamin Harrison, shifted into the Radicals camp, 16 00:01:37.700 --> 00:01:43.660 thus giving them the vital majority of their delegation. The Continental Congress then 17 00:01:43.660 --> 00:01:50.820 Washington had a probable majority for independence, a majority intensified by the good news of 18 00:01:50.820 --> 00:01:53.880 the British evacuation of Boston. 19 00:01:53.880 --> 00:02:00.820 On March 20, Congress urged Canada to set up a new government and join the united colonies, 20 00:02:00.820 --> 00:02:06.820 and significantly, there was no mention of eventual reconciliation. 21 00:02:06.820 --> 00:02:11.820 This was a move hinting strongly of independence. 22 00:02:11.820 --> 00:02:16.540 The hint became stronger still in the Great April decisions, including winning French 23 00:02:16.540 --> 00:02:22.460 aid and throwing open American ports to all countries, all of which did everything up 24 00:02:22.460 --> 00:02:29.500 to the brink of a Declaration of Independence itself. Beyond this, Congress could not go, 25 00:02:29.500 --> 00:02:35.420 for it could not bind the separate colonies to independence. Indeed, some of the provincial 26 00:02:35.420 --> 00:02:41.800 delegations were instructed against independence by their constituencies. The final push for 27 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:55.380 After New England, the next region where independence came to the fore was the South. Paradoxically, 28 00:02:55.380 --> 00:03:01.840 the first virtual authorization came from Georgia, once the most laggard of all the 29 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:07.960 colonies. Reacting to Lexington and Concord against its former indifference, Georgia had 30 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:14.360 established a Revolutionary Provincial Congress and a Subordinate Council of Safety. 31 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:20.520 Urged by the Continental Congress in November to step up military resistance to royal arms, 32 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:26.880 the merchants and artisans of Savannah led the Georgia rebels to establish more formal 33 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:31.560 government by the end of January 1776. 34 00:03:31.560 --> 00:03:38.040 The government fulfilled the crucial radical requirements, a unicameral elected legislature 35 00:03:38.040 --> 00:03:45.920 to which the Executive Council of Safety, the courts and the militia were strictly subordinate, 36 00:03:45.920 --> 00:03:50.880 and the legislature was selected by universal taxpayer suffrage. 37 00:03:50.880 --> 00:03:55.760 The President of the Council of Safety, in turn, was strictly subordinate to the Council 38 00:03:55.760 --> 00:03:58.900 and could not act without its consent. 39 00:03:58.900 --> 00:04:05.260 The stalwart, militant Archibald Bullock was chosen for this position, and five radicals 40 00:04:05.260 --> 00:04:09.660 were soon selected as delegates to the Continental Congress. 41 00:04:09.660 --> 00:04:16.340 In April, the Georgia rebels adopted a temporary constitution formalizing this regime, and 42 00:04:16.340 --> 00:04:22.260 on April 5, the Provincial Congress authorized its delegates to vote in whatever way they 43 00:04:22.260 --> 00:04:24.740 wished on independence. 44 00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:33.740 Thus, Georgia was the first colony to explicitly authorize its delegates to vote for independence, 45 00:04:33.740 --> 00:04:39.660 and considering the composition of its delegation, this itself was tantamount to an affirmative 46 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:46.820 vote. By April, there were no worries about Georgia's readiness for independence. Georgia, 47 00:04:46.820 --> 00:04:53.820 however, was very small and one of the least significant colonies. 48 00:04:53.820 --> 00:04:59.160 More and more important was North Carolina. As was the case in most of the other provinces 49 00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:08.160 in 1775, North Carolina was run by a spontaneous network of county committees capped by a provincial 50 00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:16.240 congress. Several factors served to embolden North Carolina opinion in the spring of 1776. 51 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:22.360 One was the rebel triumph of the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge on February 27, where 52 00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:28.280 The Tories of the province were crushed. Another was the threat of invasion by General Sir 53 00:05:28.280 --> 00:05:35.360 Henry Clinton's fleet off Cape Fear and the inspiration provided by General Charles Lee. 54 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:41.020 Lee's assumption of an independent southern command that March had a vital military as 55 00:05:41.020 --> 00:05:47.500 well as political impact. This scourge of the Tories was as well-versed and radical 56 00:05:47.500 --> 00:05:52.380 in Political Warfare, as he was in military matters. 57 00:05:52.380 --> 00:05:59.460 His arrest of Maryland's royal governor, the popular Robert Eden, galvanized the struggle. 58 00:05:59.460 --> 00:06:04.740 And this was followed by his sending an aide, General Robert Howe, to a convention of North 59 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:10.820 Carolina radicals meeting in Halifax in early April, chaired by the ordinarily cautious 60 00:06:10.820 --> 00:06:17.180 and conservative Samuel Johnston, the political leader of the colony, and influenced by General 61 00:06:17.180 --> 00:06:33.180 You know how the convention took a noteworthy and climactic step, sending positive instructions on April 12 to its congressional delegation to vote for independence and for any necessary foreign alliances. 62 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:45.180 Here was the first frank instruction for independence in America, albeit the instruction was to concur in independence rather than take the initiative. 63 00:06:45.180 --> 00:06:50.180 Lee warmly congratulated North Carolina on this promising step. 64 00:06:50.180 --> 00:06:55.180 While the North Carolina Instruction for Independence passed without difficulty, 65 00:06:55.180 --> 00:07:03.180 the April Convention for Writing a Constitution rent the province in bitter ideological conflict. 66 00:07:03.180 --> 00:07:10.180 The first local resolution for independence had been made as early as May 31, 1775, 67 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:17.820 2005 in Mecklenburg County in the far western frontier of North Carolina. The Mecklenburg 68 00:07:17.820 --> 00:07:24.000 Resolution had declared all British laws and commissions, as well as the royal government 69 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:31.260 of the province, to be null and void, and coupled this early call for independence with 70 00:07:31.260 --> 00:07:37.500 the establishment of a county-wide court as the local government elected by universal 71 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:40.100 Manhood Suffrage. 72 00:07:40.100 --> 00:07:45.380 The following August, Mecklenburg County spelled out its comprehensive domestic radicalism 73 00:07:45.380 --> 00:07:50.660 in its instructions to its representatives at the Provincial Congress. 74 00:07:50.660 --> 00:07:56.260 They called for suffrage by all free men, the abolition of property qualifications for 75 00:07:56.260 --> 00:08:02.440 members of the assembly, and the correction of apportionment in the assembly in accordance 76 00:08:02.440 --> 00:08:04.540 with population. 77 00:08:04.540 --> 00:08:11.340 Plural office holding was to be prohibited, and local officials elected by the people, 78 00:08:11.340 --> 00:08:18.580 and there was to be no oligarchical veto over the decisions of the elected legislature. 79 00:08:18.580 --> 00:08:24.980 True to its democratic liberal position, the county urged disestablishment of the Anglican 80 00:08:24.980 --> 00:08:32.320 Church, but they were able to go only so far in their libertarianism, and pagan or papal 81 00:08:32.320 --> 00:08:38.840 religions were decried as false and could not be tolerated in the province. 82 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:46.640 At the Constitutional Convention in April 1776, the pro-independence forces split sharply 83 00:08:46.640 --> 00:08:54.040 on the issue of domestic democracy versus conservatism. A furious struggle ensued over 84 00:08:54.040 --> 00:09:01.680 bicameralism, popular election of local judges and suffrage restrictions, with Samuel Johnston, 85 00:09:01.680 --> 00:09:07.680 and his brother-in-law James Iredell and William Hooper leading the conservative forces. 86 00:09:07.680 --> 00:09:15.680 A deadlock between the two factions forced postponement of the attempt to write a constitution for North Carolina. 87 00:09:15.680 --> 00:09:22.680 The road to independence was not nearly so smooth in the neighboring colony of South Carolina. 88 00:09:22.680 --> 00:09:30.120 Throughout 1775, this province had a formidable block of conservatives deeply opposed to any 89 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:32.540 hint of independence. 90 00:09:32.540 --> 00:09:38.240 Even the Provincial Council of Safety, dominated by conservatives, rejected the plea of the 91 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:44.560 radicals to fortify Charleston Harbor against the expected British attack that finally came 92 00:09:44.560 --> 00:09:47.520 in June 1776. 93 00:09:47.520 --> 00:09:52.100 In early November, the Continental Congress suggested that South Carolina establish a 94 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:57.060 It's a new government for the duration of the conflict, a suggestion that it had also 95 00:09:57.060 --> 00:09:58.980 made to New Hampshire. 96 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:03.620 At the February meeting of the South Carolina Provincial Congress, the conservatives and 97 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:06.580 radicals battled furiously. 98 00:10:06.580 --> 00:10:13.980 The right wing, led by the influential planter Rollins-Lounds, even objected to any new government 99 00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:17.860 as a possible step toward independence. 100 00:10:17.860 --> 00:10:29.860 The New Government was finally adopted at the end of March, spurred by news of the hard-line British Proclamation of Rebellion and the Prohibitory Act. 101 00:10:29.860 --> 00:10:35.860 Even then, the South Carolinians took pains to dissociate this step from independence. 102 00:10:35.860 --> 00:10:42.740 Heard by news of the hard-line British Proclamation of Rebellion and the Prohibitory Act. 103 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:48.580 Even then, the South Carolinians took pains to dissociate this step from independence, 104 00:10:48.580 --> 00:10:53.480 and the irrepressible Gadsden was rebuked by the bulk of the Provincial Congress when 105 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:58.540 he read passages from Common Sense to the Assemblage. 106 00:10:58.540 --> 00:11:06.300 The South Carolina Constitution of March 1776 was, unsurprisingly, a highly conservative 107 00:11:06.300 --> 00:11:08.140 instrument. 108 00:11:08.140 --> 00:11:13.260 The representative assembly was to choose an upper house, and both houses would in turn 109 00:11:13.260 --> 00:11:19.740 select the third body, the privy council, to exert administrative and judicial authority 110 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:23.380 in place of the old royal council. 111 00:11:23.380 --> 00:11:30.140 Both houses would also choose a president who would have veto power over the legislature. 112 00:11:30.140 --> 00:11:36.500 Before the revolution, South Carolina had had perhaps the most badly apportioned representation 113 00:11:36.500 --> 00:11:38.100 in the colonies. 114 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:43.220 Three-quarters of the white population of the province living in the back country were 115 00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:46.460 unrepresented in the assembly. 116 00:11:46.460 --> 00:11:53.740 The new constitution allowed the back country 40 representatives out of 184, but while a 117 00:11:53.740 --> 00:12:00.140 considerable improvement, this representation was still weighted outrageously on behalf 118 00:12:00.140 --> 00:12:02.740 of the lowland areas. 119 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:08.980 This constitution was severely criticized by the democratic forces for its hasty adoption 120 00:12:08.980 --> 00:12:14.900 without explicit approval by the people, for the presidential veto which smacked strongly 121 00:12:14.900 --> 00:12:20.500 of the Royal Prerogative, and for the oligarchic Upper House. 122 00:12:20.500 --> 00:12:26.740 The outlook for independence in South Carolina was not bright, but the radical actions of 123 00:12:26.740 --> 00:12:32.400 the Continental Congress, the news of the victory at Boston, and the bold move of North 124 00:12:32.400 --> 00:12:37.660 Carolina for independence strongly influenced the province. 125 00:12:37.660 --> 00:12:43.540 As Chief Justice of the new government, William Henry Drayton selected a new judicial structure 126 00:12:43.540 --> 00:12:49.860 Free of Royal Authority, and at the end of April, he took it upon himself in a charge 127 00:12:49.860 --> 00:12:57.080 to a Charleston grand jury to proclaim South Carolina's independence of Great Britain. 128 00:12:57.080 --> 00:13:04.340 He declared that the colony was pursuing its right to revolution against a tyrannical government. 129 00:13:04.340 --> 00:13:09.380 Treating the temporary constitution of South Carolina as an act of permanent separation, 130 00:13:09.380 --> 00:13:14.740 He defended it as a reflection of the laws of nature and reason. 131 00:13:14.740 --> 00:13:19.940 South Carolina's President, John Rutledge, who had shifted to the side of independence 132 00:13:19.940 --> 00:13:26.620 along with other moderate conservatives, officially sent Drayton's printed statement to the Continental 133 00:13:26.620 --> 00:13:28.040 Congress. 134 00:13:28.040 --> 00:13:33.300 This act was properly received as tantamount to a call for independence by the province 135 00:13:33.300 --> 00:13:34.900 itself. 136 00:13:34.900 --> 00:13:40.960 The Southern accession to the cause of independence meant little, of course, without the adherence 137 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:45.300 of Virginia, the preeminent province of the South. 138 00:13:45.300 --> 00:13:49.820 This province, despite its leadership in the resistance movement to Great Britain, would 139 00:13:49.820 --> 00:13:52.340 not be an easy mark. 140 00:13:52.340 --> 00:13:56.760 While it had been eager to resist Great Britain and had thrown itself into battle against 141 00:13:56.760 --> 00:14:03.160 Lord Dunmore's raids, its revolutionary bodies were in the hands of thoroughgoing conservative 142 00:14:03.160 --> 00:14:11.000 of Oligarchs, who balked strongly at independence, especially Edmund Pendleton, President of 143 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:17.640 the Virginia Committee of Safety, and Robert Carter Nicholas, the Committee's treasurer. 144 00:14:17.640 --> 00:14:23.080 Patrick Henry, leader of the Radical Forces, was repeatedly humiliated by the Committee 145 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:30.240 of Safety, in his post as Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia Militia, and, embittered, 146 00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:37.480 Henry temporarily retired to private life at the end of February 1776. One of the reasons 147 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:45.040 for this treatment of Henry was his belief in an individualistic and democratic army. 148 00:14:45.040 --> 00:14:50.920 The Conservative Committee of Safety realized in dismay that he did not seem too conscious 149 00:14:50.920 --> 00:14:56.320 of the importance of strict discipline in the army, but regarded his soldiers as so 150 00:14:56.320 --> 00:15:01.620 So many gentlemen who had met to defend their country and exacted from them little more 151 00:15:01.620 --> 00:15:08.360 than the courtesy that was proper among equals. The attitude of the Virginia Conservatives 152 00:15:08.360 --> 00:15:15.400 toward independence may be gauged by their vituperative reaction to common sense. The 153 00:15:15.400 --> 00:15:22.320 eminent planter Landon Carter was at no loss for words to vent his spleen. It was dangerous, 154 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:29.080 absurd, scandalous, rascally, nonsensical, and brutish. 155 00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:36.120 Like so many arch-conservative sins, he raised a social argument against Paine's individualism. 156 00:15:36.120 --> 00:15:42.520 Realizing that Paine grounded his doctrine on the individualistic theory of natural law, 157 00:15:42.520 --> 00:15:50.000 he wrote, This man writes for independency, and is under the necessity of stating an independence 158 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:57.000 is in man at his creation when it is evident he must be a social being. 159 00:15:57.020 --> 00:16:03.440 In early 1776 Pendleton, Nicholas and the conservative forces of Virginia managed to 160 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:08.880 send as a delegate to the Continental Congress the extremely wealthy planter and merchant 161 00:16:08.880 --> 00:16:15.200 Carter Braxton of the Carter family who was the Virginia associate in Robert Morris's 162 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:22.780 his rapidly burgeoning financial empire. Braxton's mission was to block independence, and this 163 00:16:22.780 --> 00:16:29.820 he set out to achieve with great diligence. During April, however, sentiment in Virginia 164 00:16:29.820 --> 00:16:36.880 veered ever more toward independence. The news of the victory at Boston, the bold moves 165 00:16:36.880 --> 00:16:42.740 of the Continental Congress, and the decisions for independence by the rest of the South 166 00:16:42.740 --> 00:16:48.280 all played their part. Added to this were pressures for independence by Richard Henry 167 00:16:48.280 --> 00:16:55.460 Lee and by George Washington through his brother John, the fact of Washington's being a Virginian 168 00:16:55.460 --> 00:17:01.780 being highly important in attracting the patriotism of fellow Virginians. Finally, at the end 169 00:17:01.780 --> 00:17:06.380 of March, Charles Lee took up his post at Williamsburg as head of the Southern Military 170 00:17:06.380 --> 00:17:13.340 Department and added his determined and fiery personality to the pressure upon the Virginians. 171 00:17:13.340 --> 00:17:21.020 Indeed, Lee stayed at Williamsburg largely to rouse the inhabitants and press for independence. 172 00:17:21.020 --> 00:17:25.500 His presence was especially needed for the crucial April elections for the critical meeting 173 00:17:25.500 --> 00:17:33.180 of the provincial convention starting on May 6, elections that hinged on the issue of independence. 174 00:17:33.180 --> 00:17:39.620 So overwhelming was the sentiment of the new Convention for Independence that on May 15, 175 00:17:39.620 --> 00:17:45.160 Virginia unanimously instructed its delegates to urge the Continental Congress to declare 176 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:52.300 the United Colonies free and independent states absolved from all allegiance to or dependence 177 00:17:52.300 --> 00:17:57.540 upon the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain. 178 00:17:57.540 --> 00:18:04.300 Here significantly was not simply an agreement, as in most of the other provinces, to concur 179 00:18:04.300 --> 00:18:08.100 in any congressional resolution for independence. 180 00:18:08.100 --> 00:18:14.500 Here was an instruction for actually proposing the final break with Great Britain. 181 00:18:14.500 --> 00:18:19.540 Congress was also urged to form whatever foreign alliances or confederation of the erstwhile 182 00:18:19.540 --> 00:18:22.740 colonies that might be necessary. 183 00:18:22.740 --> 00:18:30.220 The conservatives of the convention bent easily with the wind and endorsed the resolution. 184 00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:35.540 Having opted for independence, the Virginians believed they had to settle on a constitution 185 00:18:35.540 --> 00:18:41.180 for the province, and upon its nature furious battles ensued. 186 00:18:41.180 --> 00:18:47.100 The internal struggle was not, however, as it was in such provinces as Massachusetts, 187 00:18:47.100 --> 00:18:54.940 between pain-type Democrats on the left and Adams-like adherents to mixed government on the right. 188 00:18:54.940 --> 00:19:02.020 So conservative were all the leaders of Virginia that the debate shifted sharply rightward. 189 00:19:02.020 --> 00:19:06.300 The Virginia left held views similar to the Massachusetts right. 190 00:19:06.300 --> 00:19:11.940 Of its leaders, Patrick Henry hailed thoughts on government as fully expressing his own 191 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:16.220 views and Thomas Jefferson's doctrines were quite similar. 192 00:19:16.220 --> 00:19:21.300 Other leaders of the Virginia moderates were Richard Henry Lee and the eminent lawyer George 193 00:19:21.300 --> 00:19:23.260 Mason. 194 00:19:23.260 --> 00:19:29.780 Bitterly opposing these moderate forces were the ultra-conservatives headed by Pendleton, 195 00:19:29.780 --> 00:19:34.500 Nicholas and their chief theoretician, Carter Braxton. 196 00:19:34.500 --> 00:19:41.260 Braxton quickly published in An Address to the Convention of Virginia, specifically designed 197 00:19:41.260 --> 00:19:46.300 is a reactionary rebuttal to Adams' thoughts on government. 198 00:19:46.300 --> 00:19:51.660 The pamphlet brusquely hailed the current British constitution as ideal and urged on 199 00:19:51.660 --> 00:19:55.460 Virginia a similar government. 200 00:19:55.460 --> 00:20:01.180 Braxton insisted that the popularly elected assembly choose a governor and members of 201 00:20:01.180 --> 00:20:07.260 an upper house of the legislature, both of these to hold their positions for life. 202 00:20:07.260 --> 00:20:12.780 that they might possess all the weight, stability and dignity due to the importance of their 203 00:20:12.780 --> 00:20:18.560 office. In this way both the governor and the upper house would be totally independent 204 00:20:18.560 --> 00:20:26.440 of the people and hence avoid the evils, the tumult and riot of democracy. Braxton was 205 00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:33.780 here simply taking the concept of Adams, Jefferson and Mason of some independent governing bodies 206 00:20:33.780 --> 00:20:40.660 and pushing it to its logical conclusion, life terms for everyone outside the lower house. 207 00:20:40.660 --> 00:20:45.540 The Virginia moderates, however, did not see the connection between Braxton's plan and 208 00:20:45.540 --> 00:20:52.300 theirs and they dismissed his pamphlet as silly and contemptible. 209 00:20:52.300 --> 00:20:57.940 Patrick Henry, leading the moderates of the committee appointed to draft of Virginia Constitution, 210 00:20:57.940 --> 00:21:04.460 Despaired for a time of triumphing over the great bias to aristocracy among most of our 211 00:21:04.460 --> 00:21:11.100 opulent families, when he poured out his worries to his friend John Adams, Adams answered with 212 00:21:11.100 --> 00:21:17.500 an eloquent and thundering denunciation of Virginia's ultra-conservative and highly aristocratic 213 00:21:17.500 --> 00:21:18.500 Nabobs. 214 00:21:18.500 --> 00:21:26.860 The Dons, the Bashaws, the Grandees, the Patricians, the Soccums, the Nabobs, curse, but all in 215 00:21:26.860 --> 00:21:37.860 The decree has gone forth and it cannot be recalled that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America. 216 00:21:37.860 --> 00:21:51.860 That exuberance of pride which has produced an insolent domination in a very few, opulent, monopolizing families will be brought down nearer to the confines of reason and moderation. 217 00:21:51.860 --> 00:22:13.860 Dominating the committee drafting the Virginia Constitution was Henry's right-hand man in leading the Virginia moderates, George Mason. Mason, who had drafted the Fairfax Resolves, put through the Fairfax County meeting by Washington, had played an important role in leading the Revolutionary Forces in Virginia. 218 00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:22.860 The Constitution, as submitted by the Committee and adopted unanimously on June 29, signaled a victory for the moderates. 219 00:22:22.860 --> 00:22:30.860 An elected lower house would consist, inequitably, as in colonial days, of two members from each county. 220 00:22:30.860 --> 00:22:36.860 An upper house, or Senate, would also be elected annually by the people. 221 00:22:36.860 --> 00:22:46.860 A Governor would be elected annually by joint ballot of both Houses of the Legislature, as would a Privy Council or Council of State, to assist the Governor. 222 00:22:46.860 --> 00:22:57.860 To check entrenchment of an Executive in power, no more than three terms in succession were allowed a Governor, and he could not act without the consent of the Privy Council. 223 00:23:27.860 --> 00:23:33.980 Studies, which had larger plantations and fewer eligible voters than the Piedmont and 224 00:23:33.980 --> 00:23:41.260 Valley areas. Thus, tiny Warwick County in the Tidewater, with a few hundred voters, 225 00:23:41.260 --> 00:23:46.260 had a delegation in the lower house equal to large Western counties containing a few 226 00:23:46.260 --> 00:23:54.340 thousand voters each. As time went on and emigration continued westward, this disproportion 227 00:23:54.340 --> 00:24:01.660 would grow still greater. Virginia's restrictive qualifications for voting were retained intact 228 00:24:01.660 --> 00:24:09.540 despite proposals by Mason and Jefferson to broaden the suffrage. In their desire to demonstrate 229 00:24:09.540 --> 00:24:15.840 that A, Colonial Virginia was thoroughly democratic except for the impositions of Great Britain 230 00:24:15.840 --> 00:24:22.860 and B, that the American Revolution was in no sense an internal social revolution, Robert 231 00:24:22.860 --> 00:24:31.660 R.D. and B. Katherine Brown became mired in a grave inner contradiction. If, for example, 232 00:24:31.660 --> 00:24:37.380 representation was wholly undemocratic because of British coercion, then how is it that this 233 00:24:37.380 --> 00:24:43.860 imposition was cheerfully continued in the new Constitution by the supposedly democratic 234 00:24:43.860 --> 00:24:51.280 Virginia leadership? One cannot pin the responsibility for aristocracy in colonial Virginia upon 235 00:24:51.280 --> 00:24:58.280 on Great Britain insist with some justice that there was no internal revolution in Virginia 236 00:24:58.280 --> 00:25:05.360 and then conclude that Virginia was democratic before and after the revolution. 237 00:25:05.360 --> 00:25:11.600 In his brilliant review of the Browns' work, Stephen Saunders Webb writes that they insist 238 00:25:11.600 --> 00:25:17.600 that the prevalence of appointive office in Virginia was owing to imperial control rather 239 00:25:17.600 --> 00:25:20.720 than to aristocratic dominance. 240 00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:26.160 They fail to consider that the appointive system was not significantly altered by the revolution, 241 00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:30.360 which eliminated imperial control. 242 00:25:30.360 --> 00:25:37.040 As for the absence of an internal revolution in Virginia, this is a fact which they attribute 243 00:25:37.040 --> 00:25:40.720 to a general acceptance of democracy. 244 00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:46.240 It is at least as logical and more consistent with the fact that almost every revolutionary 245 00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:53.900 leader in Virginia was an aristocrat to conclude that this remarkable quietude was the result 246 00:25:53.900 --> 00:25:57.740 of a continuing aristocratic hegemony. 247 00:25:57.740 --> 00:26:03.460 He justly adds that to take such quietude and lack of widespread public protest as a 248 00:26:03.460 --> 00:26:11.720 sign of democracy would mean that Louis XIV of France was not undemocratic either. 249 00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:17.480 Due to a determined fight by the Henry forces, the power of the governor was set as subordinate 250 00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:23.640 to the legislature. Only the House could originate legislation, and the Senate could not amend 251 00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:29.920 an appropriations bill. In selecting the governor, the moderates put up Patrick Henry, while 252 00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:36.760 the arch-conservatives selected the virtually outright Tory Thomas Nelson. Henry was elected 253 00:26:36.760 --> 00:26:43.760 by a vote of 60 to 45, the Council of State chosen to aid him was dominated by the conservatives. 254 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:50.920 As a preamble to the Constitution, the Provincial Convention inserted a list of bitter charges 255 00:26:50.920 --> 00:26:56.960 against the person of King George III, sent by Jefferson from his post in the Continental 256 00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:03.680 Congress. On the basis of these charges, leveled squarely and boldly against the King, Virginia 257 00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:09.840 Virginia repeated its assertion of independence and declared its connection with the British 258 00:27:09.840 --> 00:27:16.720 Crown totally dissolved. If the Virginia Left was middle of the road on the structure of 259 00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:22.100 government, the same caution and moderation were not shown on another critical struggle 260 00:27:22.100 --> 00:27:28.560 waged in the provincial convention. In one of the monumental libertarian advances of 261 00:27:28.560 --> 00:27:43.560 In the political history, the Virginia Left decided to enact a declaration of rights committing themselves, at least in theory, to protect and not to invade the natural rights of each individual. 262 00:27:43.560 --> 00:27:53.560 Thus was born the monumental concept of a Bill of Rights designed to prevent government from invading the rights of the individual. 263 00:27:53.560 --> 00:27:57.560 On this issue, the Virginia Left proved to be radical indeed. 264 00:27:57.560 --> 00:28:02.560 The Convention had assigned to the Committee, with the job of drawing up a Declaration of 265 00:28:02.560 --> 00:28:08.680 Rights, the man best suited to the task, George Mason, who threw himself into the work with 266 00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:12.420 a will aided by Thomas Ludwell Lee. 267 00:28:12.420 --> 00:28:17.120 In an effort to prepare the climate for the Declaration, numerous county petitions were 268 00:28:17.120 --> 00:28:22.080 circulated, vaguely calling for democratic and liberal measures. 269 00:28:22.080 --> 00:28:27.420 Drafted almost completely by Mason, the Declaration of Rights was introduced by the Committee 270 00:28:27.420 --> 00:28:33.340 and Modified by the Convention. Some of the changes strengthened the Declaration, but 271 00:28:33.340 --> 00:28:39.700 the central struggle grew out of the determined attempt by the arch-conservatives led by Nicholas 272 00:28:39.700 --> 00:28:47.460 to weaken or block it altogether. Patrick Henry's disquieting defection on forbidding 273 00:28:47.460 --> 00:28:54.180 ex post facto laws and bills of attainder cut these clauses from the Declaration, but 274 00:28:54.180 --> 00:29:01.180 The major battle was waged over its magnificent first clause. Mason had there written that 275 00:29:01.220 --> 00:29:08.220 all men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, 276 00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:17.200 of which they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity, among which are 277 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:23.640 and which are the enjoyment of life and liberty with the means of acquiring and possessing 278 00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:31.040 property and pursuing and attaining happiness and safety. 279 00:29:31.040 --> 00:29:37.800 Here in a scintillating and compact form was the essential statement of the radical libertarian 280 00:29:37.800 --> 00:29:41.360 theory of natural rights. 281 00:29:41.360 --> 00:29:46.160 The conservatives, possessed of the clarity given to them by their vested interest, saw 282 00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:53.460 How immediately the main danger of this clause, if every person has a natural right to be 283 00:29:53.460 --> 00:29:59.880 equally free and independent, what happens to the institution of slavery on which rested 284 00:29:59.880 --> 00:30:05.680 the power and pelf of the Virginia planter aristocracy? 285 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:11.120 Undoubtedly Mason knew what he was about for as early as 1765. 286 00:30:11.120 --> 00:30:17.200 He had criticized the institution of slavery on moral and economic grounds. 287 00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:23.600 Nicholas and his set of aristocrats and masters, in the words of Thomas Ludwell Lee, fought 288 00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:25.800 the clause fiercely. 289 00:30:25.800 --> 00:30:32.240 To declare all men created free and independent would invite a slave revolt, they argued. 290 00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:37.000 The conservatives were able to force modifications of the clause. 291 00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:44.400 Individual was excised from inherent rights and God in nature was excised from another 292 00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:53.120 important clause, namely was substituted for among which are to restrict the scope of individual 293 00:30:53.120 --> 00:31:01.520 rights, but most important the clause when they enter into a state of society was inserted 294 00:31:01.520 --> 00:31:07.080 between Of Which and They Cannot. 295 00:31:07.080 --> 00:31:12.440 This made it possible for the conservatives to rest content with interpreting natural 296 00:31:12.440 --> 00:31:19.520 rights as belonging only to those men who had entered into a state of society. 297 00:31:19.520 --> 00:31:26.280 Clearly, the slaves had never been given a chance to make this entrance. 298 00:31:26.280 --> 00:31:30.920 Despite these modifications, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, unanimously adopted 299 00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:38.680 by the Convention on June 12, 1776 is one of the great documents in American history. 300 00:31:38.680 --> 00:31:45.280 It set the pattern for all future state and national and foreign bills of rights and stamped 301 00:31:45.280 --> 00:31:52.180 the libertarian doctrine of natural rights, at least in theory, upon the American Republic. 302 00:31:52.180 --> 00:31:57.000 The Preamble of the Declaration stated that the representatives of the people of Virginia 303 00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:04.000 assert a body of rights which do pertain to them and their posterity as the basis and 304 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:10.880 foundation of government. Following the first clause, the declaration included democracy, 305 00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:18.560 that all power is originally by God and nature vested in and consequently derived from the 306 00:32:18.560 --> 00:32:27.120 of People, that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times answerable 307 00:32:27.120 --> 00:32:28.840 to them. 308 00:32:28.840 --> 00:32:35.800 The right of revolution, when government fails to secure or violates proper aims, a majority 309 00:32:35.800 --> 00:32:44.400 of the people have an indubitable, inalienable and indefensible right to reform, alter or 310 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:46.960 abolish it. 311 00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:53.240 No right of special or hereditary privileges, separation of the judiciary from the other 312 00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:59.520 functions of government, rotation of office in the legislative and executive branches, 313 00:32:59.520 --> 00:33:05.920 free and frequent elections, no taxation without representation, the traditional rights of 314 00:33:05.920 --> 00:33:11.920 a defendant to know the nature of the charges against him to confront his accusers to have 315 00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:18.080 have a speedy trial by jury which must be unanimous to convict him of a crime, not to 316 00:33:18.080 --> 00:33:23.440 be forced to give evidence against himself, and to be free of excessive bail and cruel 317 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:29.560 or unusual punishments. The prohibition of general warrants, searches and seizures by 318 00:33:29.560 --> 00:33:36.960 government must be named in advance in special warrants and supported by advance evidence. 319 00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:43.700 Freedom of the Press, one of the great bulwarks of liberty, no standing armies, which are 320 00:33:43.700 --> 00:33:52.420 in time of peace dangerous to liberty, a people's militia as the proper form of defense, strict 321 00:33:52.420 --> 00:33:59.020 subordination of the military to the civil power and freedom of religion. Religion can 322 00:33:59.020 --> 00:34:05.540 be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and violence, and therefore all 323 00:34:05.540 --> 00:34:13.900 All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience. 324 00:34:13.900 --> 00:34:20.060 On this last point, the phrase free exercise of religion had been substituted for a far 325 00:34:20.060 --> 00:34:25.900 weaker stress on religious toleration at the suggestion of Mason's young colleague on the 326 00:34:25.900 --> 00:34:29.700 drafting committee, James Madison. 327 00:34:29.700 --> 00:34:34.780 Emboldened by the march of Southern opinion and action as well as by its own deeds of 328 00:34:34.780 --> 00:34:40.260 In the preceding months, the Continental Congress in mid-May took the penultimate steps toward 329 00:34:40.260 --> 00:34:44.180 a final state of independence. 330 00:34:44.180 --> 00:34:51.900 On May 10, led by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, it resolved to recommend to those legislatures 331 00:34:51.900 --> 00:34:58.060 of the United Colonies, which had not done so, to adopt suitable new governments of their 332 00:34:58.060 --> 00:34:59.420 own. 333 00:34:59.420 --> 00:35:05.920 No phrases hinting at eventual reconciliation with Great Britain appeared in this resolution 334 00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:12.480 as in the advice to New Hampshire six months before, but it was still sufficiently bland 335 00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:16.020 to win the support of the conservatives in Congress. 336 00:35:16.020 --> 00:35:21.980 The big battle was waged immediately afterward over the preamble to the resolution. 337 00:35:21.980 --> 00:35:27.540 Drawn up by John Adams and backed by Richard Henry Lee, the preamble began with a list 338 00:35:27.540 --> 00:35:34.060 of Grievances against Great Britain, directed against the King as well as Parliament, and 339 00:35:34.060 --> 00:35:39.780 then concluded with this crucial and devastating passage. 340 00:35:39.780 --> 00:35:48.780 It appears absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good conscience now to take the oath necessary 341 00:35:48.780 --> 00:35:54.580 for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain, and it is necessary 342 00:35:54.580 --> 00:36:03.000 that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed, 343 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:10.500 and all the powers of government exerted under the authority of the people of the colonies. 344 00:36:10.500 --> 00:36:16.580 Here the Continent was hurled at Great Britain. This preamble, attached to a call for new 345 00:36:16.580 --> 00:36:23.580 government, was nothing less than a de facto declaration of independence. Opposition to 346 00:36:23.580 --> 00:36:30.580 The Preamble was led by James Duane of New York, Carter Braxton and the brilliant young James Wilson. 347 00:36:30.580 --> 00:36:45.580 Wilson warned prophetically that passage of the preamble would put his province of Pennsylvania into an anarchic state of nature and dissolve its existing proprietary government. 348 00:36:45.580 --> 00:36:51.700 Congress, however, overrode the objections of the conservatives and adopted the preamble 349 00:36:51.700 --> 00:36:59.420 on May 15. The vote has been reported as six or seven to four, and assumedly among the 350 00:36:59.420 --> 00:37:06.660 four colonies in the negative were Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland. Adams was understandably 351 00:37:06.660 --> 00:37:12.340 jubilant writing that Congress had passed the most important resolution that ever was 352 00:37:12.340 --> 00:37:19.340 was taken in America, one that was total, absolute, independence, independence itself.