Amendment II

And THIS [pdf] from Homeland [In]Security:

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(U//FOUO) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment

Get ready, cause here it comes....

Alarm & Muster

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Welcome to the official site of the Alarm & Muster. Here you will find an elected official database, a members-only forum, and more. Here, you're among friends.

The Alarm & Muster project has always been concerned with the creation of a network of communication of like minded men and women nationwide that would refuse the infringement of their freedoms. It is our unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and we will allow no man, no one, to infringe upon these. We are the children of 1775, if not by blood, then by spirit; and we extend our hand of welcome....

"...intended to be an expression of the American mind..."

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"...That George Mason was the author of the [Virginia] bill of rights, and the constitution founded on it, the evidence of the day established fully in my mind. Of the paper you mention, purporting to be instructions to the Virginia delegation in Congress, I have no recollection. If it were anything more than a project of some private hand, that is to say, had any such instructions been ever given by the convention, they would appear in the journals, which we possess entire. But with respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c. The historical documents which you mention as in your possession, ought all to be found, and I am persuaded you will find, to be corroborative of the facts and principles advanced in that Declaration...."

- Thomas Jefferson, May 8, 1825 letter to Henry Lee.

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"No people can long remain loyal unless they have the means of defending themselves against their oppressors."

- William B. Carter, August 01, 1861 letter to Abraham Lincoln. [Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois.]

Opinions of Governor Shelby and Colonel A. Bowman, [1825]

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REPORTER EXTRA.

OPINIONS OF GOVERNOR SHELBY AND COLONEL A. BOWMAN.

From the Reporter.

We lay before our readers with great pleasure the following correspondence between Col. Bowman and Governor Shelby, two old soldiers of the revolution, on the reorganizing act and other measures of the Legislature. They both think that the constitution has been violated. The opinions of such men are surely worth something, and ought to have some influence with those of less experience, who have hastily adopted the false doctrines of the young politicians of the present day. We rejoice that these patriots of the revolution still live to serve their country.

From Col. Bowman to Gov. Shelby.

Fayette county, June 14th, 1825.

Dear Col.--Although age and infirmity almost disable me from writing, yet I cannot forbear addressing a few lines to you on the interesting occasion which caused my last visit to our county town. Yes, La Fayette has been with us. I met and accompanied our beloved friend to Lexington, where he was received with every demonstration of joy. The feelings of a great multitude appeared highly excited, yet all seemed to be actuated by one sentiment, which was, to render honor to the brave and patriotic La Fayette, a hero of our revolution. You who know so well how to appreciate the services of this venerated soldier, can imagine what my feelings were, on again meeting and taking him by the hand. I cannot describe them--I enjoyed with him a day and night of mental pleasure, the next day he left us perhaps forever.

After returning to my peaceful home, I was led back to contemplate the scenes of our youth--our revolution, the causes that produced it, and above all, its happy termination. We fought for, and gained that which is set forth in the Declaration of Independence, and for the permanent security of those blessings, we formed constitutional governments, which are governments of written laws, attested by the virtue of the nation, and the whole transactions sealed with the most precious blood of our country.

You, my dear Colonel, have largely participated in the administration of our state government, of course are better acquainted with its details than myself; however, I cannot refrain from expressing my great surprise at the doctrines of some of our young politicians. They appear strange to me perhaps from their novelty. There are also some laws passed by the legislature, that appear to me partial in their effects, and if so, are unjust. I cannot see how a government like ours, that is bottomed on right and justice, can, in pursuance of those principles, bestow favours on some at the direct expense of others, and those too from whom they take, have as much right to solicit and receive favour, as those selected as the proper objects of the country's bounty. In fine, the governments are not authorized to take from one to give to another. I may be wrong, but this seems to me to be the practical operation of some of our late laws.

Although I have not long to remain the subject of any human laws, yet my dear friend, I cannot but feel much solicitude on the subject of my country's good. The great mass of society, whose prosperity and happiness depend mainly on the honest administration of all the departments of the government, must, like me, feel much solicitude at this time. It appears that men of reputed talents differ on the subject of the late act of assembly, that puts down one Court of Appeals, and at the same time erects another.

I have read our constitution over and over--I have rigidly taxed my memory, and from the best of my recollection, from the time of the formation of American Constitutions and termination of the Revolutionary War, I never heard till now such opinions on the subject of the Judiciary as I have lately read in some of our newspapers. I do consider the power exerted by the legislature, in the erection of a new Court of Appeals, an unwarrantable usurpation, and that it is fraught with the utmost danger, and if persisted in, must eventuate in the destructirn of constitutional liberty. I hope you will favour me with your opinion on these subjects. I gave my feeble aid to Gen. Washington, the father of our country, in the wars that secured its independence, and am willing to adopt the sentiments given in his Farewell Address as my political creed: "It is important that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another; the spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create a despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal, has been evinced by the experiments, ancient and modern, some of them in our country, and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to establish them. If in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the constitution designates--but let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary means by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil, any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield."

I hope the eve of your life may be as tranquil as it has been long and useful to our common country.

A. BOWMAN.

Gov. Shelby's Answer.

Traveller's Rest, 20th June, 1825.

My Dear Sir.--Your favour of the 14th inst. has been received, in which you mention the visit of Gen. La Fayette to Lexington, and the great pleasure you derived from once more meeting with him. There is a sympathy existing between old men who had braved danger together in early life, that none others feel. I would certainly have paid my respects to him at some point on his tour through our State, but my advanced age and infirm condition made it impracticable.

In taking a review of our country up to the present time, you express great surprize at the novelty of the doctrines of some of our "Young Politicians," (as you please to style them,) and of that particularly which places the Court of Appeals, an equal and co-ordinate department, under the thumb of the Legislature--and you hope that I will favour you with my opinions on these subjects.

The policy pursued for several years past, in establishing the Commonwealth Bank and the Relief system generally, is proved by its enervating effects upon our country, independently of its unconstitutionality, to be the child of folly and inexperience. It has always appeared to me, sir, that Kentucky stood less in need of relief than any other portion of the Union--individual industry, perseverance and economy, were all that were necessary to extricate us from our difficulties, and to make us one of the most independent communities on the face of the globe. But the interference of the Legislature has paralyzed the exertions of the people, and effected an entire destruction of all confidence between man and man. Although this system was sanctioned by the will of the majority of the Legislature, that did not justify it--the constitution must be but a shadow if it be made to yield to the will of each impassioned majority; and those essential principles of a free government, equality, liberty of conscience, the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, the inviolability of contracts, etc. etc. for which we fought and bled, must cease to be our pride and boast.

The constitution is express as to the course to be pursued, and the majority required to remove a judge; and I have never entertained a doubt, but that the act of the last Legislature, creating a new Court of Appeals, was unconstitutional. The constitution prescribes the landmarks or boundaries of Legislative power, and it is a fundamental principle, that controled by it the will of the majority properly ascertained is the law of the land. But to attempt to enforce a legislative enactment contrary to the constitution, is treason against the State.

Obliged as I am to employ an emanuensis (from a paralysis of my right arm) I have given you, sir, but my naked opinions without entering into a detailed argument in support of them. I have been long endeavouring to withdraw myself from all cares and considerations of a public nature, circumscribed as I am by the limits of my farm, which alone yields me any satisfaction.

With much respect,
I remain, your friend,
ISAAC SHELBY.

Fellow-citizens.

YOU have before you the opinions of Governor Shelby and Col. Bowman. Compare them with those of the Young Stump Orators who are endeavoring to inculcate their visionary notions and wild theories of government. Contrast the plain common sense doctrines of Shelby and Bowman with the artful sophistry of the New Court Candidates, and you will feel indignant at the bare-faced attempts of these candidates to mislead you. Of Governor Shelby it is unnecessary to speak. You all know his worth--you all appreciate his talents, his patriotism and disinterested services. Col. Bowman like Col. Shelby, is one of the heroes of the Revolution; he was the friend and companion of La Fayette; the citizens of Fayette county, for thirty years have known his merit as a neighbour and the steadiness of his principles as a Democratic Republican.

The lessons of experience and the results of a long life of virtuous and successful exertion, should be heeded. The opinions of age covered with honours, and sanctified by vast services and uninterrupted confidence, should be almost oracular.

My countrymen, let me implore you to pause for one moment and listen to these men of other times. Standing on the confines of eternity, and surveying the great scenes in which they have acted, and the great results which they have aided in achieving--the battles they have fought--the sufferings they have endured--the triumphs they have won--the freedom and happiness they have helped to establish--they behold the reward of their labours torn from their children--and warn you that you stand on the brink of a precipice, ready to make havoc of all that you should cherish and revere.

Who can resist the solemnity of this appeal? Who can withstand this awful invocation? These men have no private ends to accomplish--no unhallowed ambition to gratify--no faction to support--no offices to secure--no rivals to traduce and ruin--no rancorous passions to indulge. They stand disconnected as it were with time and earth, recalled to it by the impending desolation of their cherished country.

Listen to their admonitions, retrace their lives, contemplate their characters and services, and then ask yourselves, is it these men, and such as these, who are branded by the organs of a desperate faction, as the enemies of liberty and republicanism? as federalists--aristocrats--royalists--oppressors of the poor--advocates of Judicial corruption and supremacy? Is it these men, and such as these, on whom every epithet of contempt is heaped--and by whom? Look around you on the exclusive patriots of Relief and Whiggism, and then contrast them with the men they labour to degrade, and answer who are the most worthy to be believed and trusted?

Fellow-Citizens, the crisis is one of danger and terror. All is not well, when the voice of enlightened experience warns you to beware! Listen to that voice and save yourselves the remorse of deliberate individual and national degredation.

The REAL ORIGINAL INTENT behind the Second Amendment:

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The Shay's Insurrection, "These the Legislature could not infringe, without bringing upon themselves the detestation of mankind, and the frowns of Heaven", Jan. 12, 1787

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, "and shall obtain an order for the re-delivery of such arms", Feb. 16, 1787

Journals of the Continental Congress, "...impolitic and not to be reconciled with the genius of free Govts...", Feb. 19. 1787

Letters of Delegates to Congress, "...An Act to disarm and Disfranchise for three years...", Feb. 27th, 1787

Letters of Delegates to Congress, "...this act has created more universal disgust than any other of Government...", March 6, 1787

Journals of the Continental Congress, "That a large body of armed insurgents, did make their appearance...", March 13, 1787

James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, "a great proportion of the offenders chuse rather to risk the consequences of their treason, than submit to the conditions annexed to the amnesty", March 19, 1787

A Proclamation, "and of being again renewed to the arms of their country, and once more enjoying the rights of free citizens of the Commonwealth", June 15, 1787

The Debates in the Federal Convention, "...let the citizens of Massachusetts be disarmed. . . . It would be regarded as a system of despotism.", Aug. 23, 1787

James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, "A constitutional negative on the laws of the States seems equally necessary to secure individuals agst. encroachments on their rights", Oct. 24, 1787

"The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted."

- Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 13, 1787 letter to William S. Smith.

That's RIGHT people, it was intended to SECURE the God-given, Natural, Inherent and Inalienable Right of those that HAD transgressed the law. ALL 'gun control laws' are REPUGNANT to the U.S. Constitution.

James Watson Webb to Abraham Lincoln

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Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois.

James Watson Webb to Abraham Lincoln, Wednesday, February 06, 1861 (Political affairs and threat to Washington).

[Webb, James Watson (1802-1884): American journalist and diplomat; owner/editor or Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, New York City (1829-61); U.S. minister to Brazil (61-69).]

Pokahoe

February 6. 1861

My Dear Sir,

By this time, you have doubtless, become accustomed to being troubled about a thousand matters, which, if not official, still indirectly, appertain to the Presidency. Among these is the being bored to sit for your Portrait. We are all pleased that you intend to take New York in your way to Washington; and of course, you must expect to be bored with applications to sit for your Photograph. Brady is the best known to fame; but beyond all question, within a year, Messrs. " Lockwood and Rantoul," will be admitted to be without any equals on either side of the Atlantic; & simply because they are the most scientific & best artists, and young & full of enterprise. Already they have the largest business in this City; and in time, must have the best reputation. In their behalf, and because I want to see you Photographed in the best manner, I venture to request that when here, you will give them half an hour at such time as will best suit your convenience.

When Mrs Lincoln was first announced to be at the Astor, Mrs Webb accompanied me to town, to pay her respects to her, taking with us, a large basket of Flowers from our Green House; but we could not find her at the Astor, Metropolitan, or any other Hotel.-- When subsequently, Mrs Lincoln was at the Metropolitan, I was confined to my House, & Mrs. Webb, could not get to town, which is 30 miles distant. Will you make our apologies to her.

My nephew, Col. Morell,1 who graduated No. 1. at West Point, and is now the Engineer of our first Division, has reported to Genl. Scott,2 full details of this Division, the probable time it would require to get to Washington &. &. He called yesterday, and showed me a private letter from a member of Genl. Scott's staff, communicating the intelligence, that Mr. Buchanan peremptorily refuses to call for the aid Genl. Scott requires, and that the Genl. anticipates the loss of the Capital if the border slave states secede! And such will be the case unless they are greater fools than I give them credit for being. If they have worked up a Southern Confederacy, they ought to know that they can only succeed by bold measures. Being in strength in Washington, they can attack it with five times the force, and carry it; and then having the capital & archives, they become the Government de facto; and of course, evry foreign Representative must & will acknowledge them as such. True, we can & would recapture Washington & make all right; but the prestige would be with them. Now, I have never for a moment, felt that Disunion is possible -- & have no such fears. But from the beginning, I have felt that Washington is in danger, and that its loss would disgrace & dishonor the Country. I know that if I was a secessionist, I could & would get possession of the capitol; & I am in the habit of judging others by myself. Surely they cannot fail to discern all the advantages of getting possession of Washington; and it is equally certain that if absolutely resolved upon seperation, they will not be so weak as to shrink from striking the first blow. And if this be so, why will they not like reasonable men, knowing precisely our strength, take the necessary steps to insure success? So I have argued from the beginning; and so argues Genl. Scott, as I judge from the confidential letter from his Private Secretary.

What is to be done? Buchanan blocks all official actions in behalf against the Traitors; & what is done must be accomplished through concert on the part of your friends & the Wide-Awakes. I yesterday, sent for several of our active young men, and suggested to them the state of affairs; and that the only mode which occurred to me of counteracting the contemplated movement, is to arrange to have at least five thousand persons in Washington, a week previous to the inauguration, ready in case of necessity, to offer their services to Genl. Scott, to be organized by him -- he having plenty of arms in the U. S. Arsenal.

If a movement be made on the Capital, it will be known there some two or three days in advance of its taking place, but not time enough to get troops to its relief. If therefore, our friends be in force as spectators of the coming inauguration, they can be organized in time to meet the crisis. It is the right of all our people to be at Washington on the 4" March; & it is usual on such occasions; and bearing in mind that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," I would have you place this letter in the hands of a confidential friend, and I would have him tell our friends in evry place where you stop, that it is desirable to have as many of our reliable friends at Washington a week in advance of the fourth of March as can be collected there -- not for assaults upon or to irritate the South, but for defense if necessary, and with the means of defense on their persons. There can be nothing wrong in being prepared to protect the property & to defend the Institutions of the Country.

I have only to repeat, that Genl. Scotts private secretary, in acknowledging the official report of Col. Morell, says distinctly, that the Genl. expects to see the capital fall, & that Buchanan peremptorily refuses to furnish the means to protect & defend it. Most assuredly, it can and will be taken from us if they desire it; & they would indeed be fools were they not to seize it, [bent?] as they are [on?] Rebellion.

Yours very Truly

J. Watson Webb.

[Note 1 ID: George W. Morell was a West Point graduate who commanded a division in Fitz John Porter's corps during the Civil War. Morell rose to the rank of major general but his loyalty to Porter after the fiasco at Second Bull Run effectively ended his career as a field commander and he resigned from the army in 1864.]

[Note 2 Winfield Scott]

"...as would be a citizen without a pistol..."

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"...These cases are really very hard. If we need an army at all we must provide it with the requisites of an army. The first of military necessities, or, if anybody chooses to insist upon the prior claim of ardent spirits, the second, is the game of poker. A well regulated militia being, according to the Constitution of the United States, "essential to the security of a free State," that instrument goes on to provide that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Granted the necessity of a regular army, and the right of its officers to play poker follows with the same inexorable logic that secures the right of a freeman to a hip-pocket. An officer who does not play poker is in the same pitiable position in a frontier post as would be a citizen without a pistol during an excited political canvass in Texas. The penalty of not shooting in Texas, when it is not that of being shot, is the same as that of not betting money at cards or any game of hazard in the army of our country. It is the terrible penalty of "social ostracism." ..."
- Excerpted from a New York Times article titled "Irregularities" And Poker, published: May 24, 1883.

The Pretense For The Rebellion. [N.Y. Times, Sept. 15. 1874]

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The Pretense For The Rebellion.

.
(From the Archives of the New York Times)

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New-Orleans, La., Sept. 14.--The following is the call, signed by fifty business men and firms, under which the Canal street meeting of to-day assembled:
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Citizens of New-Orleans: For nearly two years you have been the silent but indignant sufferers of outrage after outrage, heaped upon you by an usurping Government. One by one your dearest [r]ights have been trameled upon, until at last, in the supreme height of its insolence, this mockery of a republican government has dared even to deny you that right, so solemnly guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, which, in article two of amendments, declares that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon. In the same instrument, to whose inviolate perpetuity our fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, it was also declared that even Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petititon the Government for redress of grievances. It now remains for us to ascertain whether this right any longer remains to us. We therefore call upon you, on Monday, the 14th day of September, 1874, to close your place of business, without a single exception, and at 11 o'clock A.M., to assemble at the Clay Statue, on Canal street, and in tones loud enough to be heard throughout the length and bredth of the land, declare that you of right ought to be and mean to be free.
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The Canal street meeting to-day adopted the following resolutions:
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Whereas, At a general election held in Louisiana on the 4th day of November, 1872, Jno. McEnery was elected Governorby a majority of nearly 10,000 votes over his opponent, Wiliam P. Kellogg, and D.B. Penn, Lieutenant Governor, by a majority of 15,000 over his opponent, C.C. Antoine; and, whereas, by fraud and violence, those defeated seized the executive chair, and from time to time, by other irregular, fraudulent and violent acts, in the face of the report of the Committee of the Senate of the United States appointed to investigate the affairs of Louisiana, that the existing Government of the State is an usurpation, the result of a violent abuse of judicial functions and sustained by force. W.P. Kellogg has continued himself in power, to the gross wrong and outrage of the people of the State of Louisiana, and to the imminent danger of Republican institutions throughout the entire country; and, whereas, with a view to controlling and determining the results of the approaching election to be held in Louisiana in November next, he has, under an act known as the Registration act, and passed for the purpose of defeating the popular will, secured to himself and his party the power of denying registration to bona fide citizens, whose applications before the courts for a mandamus to compel the Assistant Supervisors to enroll and register them has been refused, the registration law, indeed, punishing courts if they dare to take cognizance of such appeals; and, whereas, by false and infamous misrepresentations of the feelings and motives of our people, he has received promise of aid from the Federal army placed at the order of the Attorney General of the United States, and subject to the calls of the United States Marshals, for the purpose of overawing our State and controlling the election; and whereas, in the language of the call for the meeting, "one by one our dearest rights have been trampled upon, and at last, in the supreme height of its insolence, this mockery of a Republican Government has dared even to deny that the right so solemnly guaranteed by the very Constitution of the United States, which in article eleven [II] of the amendments, declares that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon; be it
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Resolved, That we reaffirm solemnly the resolutions adopted by the white people of Louisiana, in convention assembled, at Baton Rouge, on the 24th of August, 1874; that the white people of Louisiana have no desire to deprive the colored people of any rights to which they are entitled, that A.P. Kellogg is a mere usurper, and we pronounce him as such, that his government is arbitrary, unjust, and oppressive, and can only maintain itself through Federal interference; that the election and registration laws under which this election is being conducted were intended to perpetuate usurpation by depriving the people, and especially our naturalized citizens, of an opportunity to register and vote, and therefore in the name ofthe citizens of New Orleans, now in mass-meeting, and of the people of the State of Louisiana, whose franchise has been wrested from them by fraud and violence, and all of whose rights and liberties have been outraged and trampled upon; we demand of W.P. Kellogg his immediate abdication.
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Resolved, That a committee of five be immmediately appointed by the chairman, who shall be a member of the saidcommittee, to wait on Mr. W.P. Kellogg, to present to him these resolutions, to demand of him an immediate answer,and report the result of such interview to this meeting.

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The New York Times

Published: September 15. 1874

__________

Also See:

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NEW ORLEANS, Tho. Q. Moore - Governor, Feb. 14, 1862

TO THE PEOPLE OF LOUISIANA, "all the arms in the State, not absolutely indispensable for protection at home", New Orleans, 1862

Speech Of Richard H. Dana, Jr., "First, the right to bear arms, fortunately, does not depend upon the decision of any State", June 21, 1865

Speech of Hon. A.P. Dostie, "which refuses freemen the right to hold public meetings, to preach, or to carry arms", Jan. 27, 1866

Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, “to arm themselves and prepare for the shedding of blood.”, March 4, 1868

LETTER OF GOVERNOR WARMOTH, OF LOUISIANA, TO SENATOR KELLOGG,"the whole force would not be sufficient to withstand the onslaught of the armed citizens", Dec. 20, 1868

Journals; U.S. Senate 4/5/1871, 12/04/1871, and President Grant to U.S. House of Representatives - "...to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms...", 4/19/1872

The Coushatta Times, "had presented as many double-barrel shot-guns in their faces", Sept. 5, 1874

Rousseau And Grinnell. [N.Y. Times, July 22, 1866]

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Rousseau And Grinnell.

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Mr. Raymond's Remarks in the House of Representatives, July 17, 1866, on the Assault of Hon. L.H. Rousseauupon Hon. J.B Grinnell.

From the Congressional Globe.

(Excerpted from N.Y. Times Article Published: July 22, 1866)

"...Now Pennybaker was informed by Rosseau of the probable assault, but there is nothing whatsoever to show that hewas invited there for the purpose of taking any part in the affair or in any other capacity than as a witness of the assault. Col. Pennbaker has been in the army and was in the habit of carrying arms, and he testifies that on hearing of this contemplated assault he went to his room and took a pistol and came with it to the House. With the exception of that single incident, there is not a shadow of suspicion that anybody was informed by Gen. Rousseau of his intended assault upon the member from Iowa.

Col. Grigsby, who was the second party present who is named here, testifies in answer to Gen. Roussuau's questions as follows:

Q.--I ask you if anything had ever occured between you and myself which led you to believe that the thing was to take place?

A.--Nothing whatsoever, I only arrived in the city a day or two before. I had not seen Gen. Rousseau until I saw him at the Capitol since 1862, when we were in the army together, and I only was with him three minutes before we went outat the door.

Q.--Did I even know you were present on the portico until you came up to me?

A.--I had no reason to suppose you did at all. I was following Col. Pennybaker. I supposed you were running to get into a car. I never dreamed of anything of the sort occuring.

I read further from his testimony: By Mr. Banks:

Q.--Do you ever carry arms upon your person?

A.--Yes, Sir.

Q.--Were you armed on this occasion?

A.--I had a small Deringer pistol in my pocket.

Q.--How long had you had that?

A.--I had carried it ever since I left the army. I do not suppose it has been out of my pocket in twelve months.

By Mr. Rossuea:

Q.--You did not have it with you for this particular occasion?

A.--No, Sir; for I did not know any such occasion. The condition of society has been such in our town that it would not be safe to be unarmed. It is rather the exception than the rule for gentlemen not to carry arms, especially one who has been in the Federal Army.

Q.--I understand you to say distinctly that you had no knowledge or intimation that anything of this sort was to occur?

A.--Not the slightest. I was very much surprised when I saw you raise your hand, and I had no idea who you were striking.

But it is said that Col. Pennybaker told Col. Grigsby of this affair, and that in consequence the latter was there. That, Sir, is negatived distinctly by the declaration of Col. Grigsby himself, in reply to a question by Mr. Wilson.

Q.--You stated that Col. Pennybaker came up with you?

A.--Yes, Col. Pennybaker went over to my room to take a drink with me. He was talking about matters, and said he must go to the House. I told him I would go with him if he had no objections.

And in a subsequent part of the testimony he states that what he came for was to see Mr. Harding, of Illinois, a member of the House, and that he simply went out with Pennybaker because he supposed he was going.

Q.--Did any one else ever intimate to you after that time that probably he would assault Mr. Grinnell?

A.--No, Sir; I never heard anything of the case until the day it occured.

Q.--When you followed Mr. Rousseau from the rotunda that day was it with the expectation of any such occurence?

A.--He seemed to pass me without answering, and I followed him out more to know what was the matter.

Q.--Then when you followed Mr. Rouseau out you had no thought of a collision?

A.--No, Sir; none at all.

By the Chairman: Q.--Did you have an interview with Col. Pennybaker that evening or that day with reference to this transaction?

A.--Not until afterward.

Again:

Q.--Did it strike you at the moment there might be some personal difficulty, and was that the reason for your following?

A.--No; it was not for that reason at all that I followed him. I followed him for the express purpose of knowing whetherhe was going to New-York.

That is all there is about those three men. Col. Pennybaker was told that there might be a collision, and came up. As to the other two parties, the testimony of every witness--uncontradicted, undoubted, not a shadow of suspicion thrown upon it--tends to show that they were there accidentally. Why, then, it may be asked, were they armed? Simply, as they have already have explained, because it was their custom to be armed. But why, it may be asked, was nobody else armed? If any one will tell me what reason he has for supposing that nobody else was armed, then I may think it worth while to answer that question. It must be recollected that out of the fifteen or twenty persons who, according to the testimony, were present, these three and no others were singled out aand examined on that point. But I think gentlemen understand pretty well that it has become quite fashionable--quite too fashionable--a fashion much "more honored in the breach than in observance," to carry arms on the person. These three men did it and were detected. How many more did it and were not detected it is not for me to say. But I submit that, whatever may be the disposition by the House of these gentlemen themselves, whatever view the House may take of their conduct, there is nothing whatever in this evidence to show that they were there by procurement of Gen. Rousseau--nothing whatever to show that they knew aught of his purposes; that he had lifted a finger or done a thing to have them there at that particular time; and the coincidence which the gentlemen from Iowa referred to yesterday is simply acoincidence, and nothing more....

New York Times Archives

Note: The whole article is well worth reading as it provides detailed summaries of various assaults and acts of violence committed by our [supposed] 'representatives' throughout the years....

THE REBEL CONSCRIPTION. [N.Y. Times, July 7, 1862]

2008-05-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

Correspondence Between Jeff. Davis and Gov. Brown, of Georgia.

Executive Department, Richmond, May 29, 1862.

Dear Sir: I received your letter, of the 8th inst., in due course, but the importance of the subject embraced is it required careful consideration; and this, together with other pressing duties, has caused delay in my reply.

The constitutional question discussed by you in relation to the Conscription Law has been fully weighed before I recommended to Congress the passage of such law; it was fully debated in both Houses, and your letter has not only been submitted to my Cabinet, but a written opinion has been required of the Attorney General. The constitutionality of the law was sustained by very large majorities in both Houses. This decision of Congress meets not only the concurrence of my own judgment, but of every member of the Cabinet; and a copy of the opinion of the Attorney General, herewith inclosed, develops the reason on which his conclusions are based.

I propose, however, from my high respect for yourself, and for other eminent citizens who entertain opinions similar to yours, to set forth somewhat at length my own views on the power of the Confederate Government over its own armies and the militia, and will endeavor not to leave without answer any of the views maintained in your letter.

The main, if not the only purpose for which independent States form Unions or Confederations, is to complete the power of the several members in such a manner as to form one united force in all relations with foreign Powers, whether in peace or war. Each State, amply competent to administer and control its own domestic Government, yet too feeble to successfully meet powerful nations, seeks safety by uniting with other States in like condition, and by delegating to some common agentthe combined strength of all, in order to secure advantageous commercial relations in peace, and to carry on hostilities with effect in war.

Now, the powers delegated by the several States to the Confederate Government, which is their common agent, are enumerated in the 8th article of the Constitution, each power being distinct, specific, and enumerated in paragraphs respectively numbered. The only exception is in the 18th paragraph, which, by its own terms, is made depedent on those previously enumerated, as follows:

No. 10. "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers," etc.

Now, the war powers granted to the Congress are conferred in the following paragraphs:

No. 1 gives authority to raise "revenue necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government," etc.

No.11. "To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water."

No. 12. "To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years."

No. 13. "To provide and maintain a navy."

No.14. "To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces."

It is impossible to imagine a more broad, ample, and unqualified delegation of the whole power of each State, than is here contained, with the solitary limitation of the appropriations to two years. The States not only gave power to raise money for the common defense, to declare war, to raise and support armies, (in the plural,) to provide and maintain a navy,to govern and regulate both land and naval forces, but they went further, and covenanted by the third paragraph of the 10th section, not to engage in war unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

I know of but two modes of raising armies in the Confederate States, viz.: voluntary enlistment or draft and conscription. I perceive in the delegation of power to raise armies no restrictions as to the mode of procuring troops. I see nothing which confines Congress to one class of men, nor any greater power to receive volunteers than conscripts into its service. I see no limitations by which enlistments are to be received of individuals only, but not of companies, or battalions, or squadrons, or regiments. I find no limitation of time of service, but only of duration of appropriation. I discover nothing to confine Congress to waging war within the limits of the Confederacy, nor prohibit offensive war. In a word, when Congress desires to raise an army and passes a law for that purpose, the solitary question is under the eighteenth paragraph, viz.: "Is the law one that is necessary and proper to execute the power to raise armies?"

On this point you say: "But did the necessity exist in this case?" The conscription act cannot aid the Government in increasing the supply of arms or provisions, but can only enable it to call a large number of men into the field. The difficulty has never been to get men. The States have already furnished the Government more men than it can arm, &c.

I would have very little difficulty in establishing to your entire satisfaction, that the passage of the law was not only necessary, but that it was absolutely indispensible; that numerous regiments of twelve months men were on the eve of being disbanded, whose places could not be supplied by raw levies in the face of superior numbers of the foe, without entailing the most disasterous results; that the position of our armies was so critical as to fill the bosom of every patriot with the liveliest apprehension; and that the provisions of the law were effective in warding off a pressing danger; but I perfer to answer your objections on other and broader grounds.

I hold that when a specific power is granted by the Constitution, like that now in question, "to raise armies," Congress is the judge whether the law is "necessary and proper." It is not enough to say that armies might be raised in other ways, andthat therefore this particular way is not "necessary." The same argument might be used against every mode of raising armies. To each successive mode suggested, the objection would be that other modes were practicable, and that therefore the particular mode used was not "necessary." The true and only test is to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to carry out the object; whether it devises and creates an instrumentality for executing the specific power granted; and if the answer be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional. None can doubt that the Conscription law is calculated and intended to "raise armies." It is therefore, "necessary and proper" for the execution of that power, and is constitutional, unless it comes into conflict with some other provision of our Confederate compact.

You express the opinion that this conflict exists, and support your argument by the citation of those clauses which referto the militia. There are certain provisions not cited by you, which are not without influence on my judgment, and to which I call your attention. They will aid in defining what is meant by "militia," and in determining the respective powers of the State and the Confederacy over them.

The several States agree "not to keep troops or ships-of-war in times of peace." [Art. 1, sec. 10, par. 3.]

They further stipulate that "a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." [Sec. 9, par. 13.]

That "no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictmentof a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of waror public danger," &c. [Sec.9, par. 16.]

What, then, are militia? They can only be created by law. The arms-bearing inhabitants of a State are liable to become its militia, if the law so order; but, in the absence of a law to that effect, the men of a State capable of bearing arms are no more militia than they are seamen.

The Constitution also tells us that militia are not troops, nor are they any part of the land or naval forces, for militia exists in time of peace, and the Constitution forbids the States to keep troops in time of peace; and they are expressly distinguished and placed in a seperate category from land or naval forces, in the 16th paragraph above quoted; and the words land or naval forces are shown, by paragraphs 12, 13, and 14, to mean the army and navy of the Confederate States.

Now if militia are not citizens taken singly, but a body created by law; if they are not troops, and they are no part ofthe army and navy of the Confederacy, we are led directly to the definition quoted by the Attorney-General that militia are a "body of soldiers in a State enrolled for discipline." In other words, the term "militia" is a collective term, meaning a body of men organized, and cannot be applied to the separate individuals who compose the organization.

The Constitution divides the whole military strength of the States into only two classes of organized bodies--one, the armies of the Confederacy; the other, the militia of the States...."

"...Of what is the army to be composed? If this Government cannot call on its arms-bearing population more than as militia, and if the militia can only be called forth to repel invasion, we should be utterly helpless to vindicate our honor or protectour rights. War has been well styled "the terrible litigation of nations." Have we so formed our Government that in litigation we may never be plaintiff? Surely this cannot have been the intention of the framers of our compact...."

The New York Times [Archives]

Published: July 7, 1862
Copyright The New York Times

__________

Mr. Jefferson Davis was representative of Mississippi in the Congress of the United States. "Mr. Davis took his seat in Congress December 8, 1845, at a period when certain great questions were in issue, and with only a brief and commendable delay, took a foremost place in the discussions. The Oregon question, the tariff, the Texas question, were all exciting issues. It is especially noticeable in view of his after life that in these debates he evinced a devotion to the union and glory of his country in eloquent speeches, and in a consistent line of votes favorable to his country's growth in greatness. One of his earliest efforts in Congress was to convert certain forts into schools of instruction for the military of the States. His support of the "war policy," as the Texas annexation measure was sometimes designated, was ardent and unwavering, in the midst of which he was elected colonel of the First Mississippi regiment of riflemen. His decision to re-enter military life was quickly carried into effect by resignation of his place in Congress June, 1846, and the joining of his regiment at New Orleans, which he conducted to the army of General Taylor on the Rio Grande. He had succeeded in arming his regiment with percussion rifles, prepared a manual and tactics for the new arm, drilled his officers and men diligently in its use, and thus added to Taylor's force perhaps the most effective regiment in his little army. He led his well disciplined command in a gallant and successful charge at Monterey, September 21, 1846, winning a brilliant victory in the assault on Fort Teneria. For several days afterwards his regiment, united with Tennesseeans, drove the Mexicans from their redoubts with such gallantry that their leader won the admiration and confidence of the entire army. At Buena Vista the riflemen and Indiana volunteers under Davis evidently turned the course of battle into victory for the Americans by a bold charge under heavy fire against a larger body of Mexicans. It was immediately on this brilliant success that a fresh brigade of Mexican lancers advanced against the Mississippi regiment in full gallop and were repulsed by the formation of the line in the shape of the V, the flanks resting on ravines, thus exposing the lancers to a converging fire. Once more on that day the same regiment, now reduced in numbers by death and wounds, attacked and broke the Mexican right. During this last charge Colonel Davis was severely wounded, but remained on the field until the victory was won. General Taylor's dispatch of March 6, 1847, makes special complimentary mention of the courage, coolness and successful service of Colonel Davis and his command. The Mississippi regiment served out its term of enlistment, and was ordered home in July, 1847. President Polk appointed Colonel Davis brigadier-general, but he declined the commission on the ground that that appointment was unconstitutional.
.
"In August, 1847, the governor of Mississippi appointed Mr. Jefferson Davis to the vacancy in the United States Senate caused by the death of Senator Speight, and he took his seat December 5, 1847. The legislature elected him in January for the remainder of the term, and subsequently he was re-elected for a full term. His senatorial career, beginning in December, 1847, extended over the eventful period of 1849 and 1850, in which the country was violently agitated by the questions arising on the disposition of the common territory, and into which the subject of slavery was forcibly injected...."
.
"...He did not believe the Northern States would respect any of its provisions which conflicted with their views and interests. His attitude, however, toward the measures of Mr. Clay was not positively hostile, though it was emphatically distrustful. But during the perilous discussions of those times Mr. Davis did not align himself with any disunionists North or South. He says for himself, "My devotion to the Union of our fathers had been so often and so publicly declared; I had on the floor of the Senate so defiantly challenged any question of my fidelity to it; my services, civil and military, had now extended through so long a period and were so generally known, that I felt quite assured that no whisperings of envy or ill-will could lead the people of Mississippi to believe that I had dishonored their trust by using the power they had conferred on me to destroy the government to which I was accredited. Then, as afterward, I regarded the separation of the States as a great, though not the greater evil." The votes and speeches of Mr. Davis accorded with the instruction of the Mississippi legislature, and his public record is entirely consistent with this avowal of his devotion to the whole country and his patriotic desire to preserve it from the evils of fanaticism. Reference to this Union sentiment is not made in this sketch or elsewhere in this general work as apologetic in its bearings. But it is in rebuke of those careless or vicious statements often made against Mr. Davis and other Confederate leaders that they were for many years engaged in a conspiracy to break up the Union.
.
"Senator Davis entered upon his new and full term as senator from Mississippi March 4, 1851, from which date there were before him six years of honor in the position he preferred to all others. There was a strong probability also that if living he would be continued in the Senate, since the Southern States were accustomed to the retaining of their eminent men in office. No man had less reason than himself for conspiracy against the government. With this advantage and under the influence of strongly conservative feeling he canvassed the State of Mississippi in 1851, bravely advocating the policy of determined resistance to sectional aggressions, and insisting that the country should be defended from the perils of Congressional usurpation. His argument was that reverence for the constitutional reservations of power would alone save the Union, and upon this view he taught that statesmen who revered the Constitution most, loved the Union best. The overwhelming sentiment of Mississippi that year was to accept the compromise measures of 1850 as a finality, and consequently the State rights party which had been organized upon a vague platform proposing to devise some undefined method of securing guarantees against sectional usurpations, was defeated. Mississippi accordingly joined the other Southern States in acquiescence with the settlement of 1850 "as a finality."
.
"The election for governor of the State was to occur later in the same year. Governor Quitman had been nominated for re-election, but his political antecedents so decidedly committed him to disunion as to imperil his success. Therefore he withdrew from the nomination, and Senator Davis was called on by the executive committee to take his place, because his conservative record accorded more nearly than Governor Quitman's with the recent ballot of the people. It was only six weeks to the day of the election, the State rights party had been lately beaten by a majority of over 7,000 votes, Davis was at that time too sick to leave home, and acceptance of the nomination required his resignation of the high office he then held secure for nearly six years. Nevertheless he accepted the trust, resigned the senatorial office and was defeated by less than one thousand votes. Mr. Davis retired for a short time to private life, from which he was called by President Pierce, who had been elected to the presidency in 1852. At first the tender of a place in the cabinet of the new President was declined, but on further consideration he accepted the office of secretary of war. Mr. Davis had ably supported Pierce in the race of the previous year upon the platform which emphasized beyond all else the finality of the compromise measures, and the cessation of sectional hostilities. He was therefore in this as in other respects in complete agreement with the President from the beginning to the closing of his administration The duties of the war office were discharged with characteristic energy and ability, and at its close his portrait was added to others of eminent men who had enjoyed the same distinction, and it remains suspended in its proper position to this day. A few years later the friendly and confiding letter of the President to Mr. Davis expressed his painful apprehension concerning the Southern movement for secession, accompanied with the kindest expressions of regard for his former able associate in the executive department of government.
.
"Mr. Davis went now from the cabinet of President Pierce, March 4, 1857, to re-enter the United States Senate by the election of the legislature of Mississippi. He was there assigned to the chairmanship of the committee on military affairs, opposed the French spoliation measures, advocated the Southern Pacific railroad bill, and antagonized Senator Douglas on the question of popular or "squatter" sovereignty in the territories, while on the other hand he disputed the claim set up by the Free-soilers of power in Congress to legislate against those territorial domestic institutions which were not in conflict with the Constitution. During the Kansas troubles he aligned himself with those who endeavored to prevent the dangerous hostilities which the opening of that section to occupation had produced, and when the settlement of 1858 was made by the passage of the conference Kansas-Nebraska bill, he wrote hopefully to the people of Mississippi that it was "the triumph of all for which he had contended." At that moment he believed that the danger of sectional discord was over, that peace would reign, and the Union be saved through the policy pursued by the Buchanan administration. From this date, 1859, he was nationally acknowledged as a statesman in counsel, a leader of the people, ranking among the most eminent living Americans...."
.
- Excerpted from "Jefferson Davis (1808 - 1889) President of the Confederate States of America". [Home of the American Civil War.]

The Predominance Of Slavery, N.Y. Times, Oct. 3, 1856

2008-05-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Predominance Of Slavery

_______

Speech of Wm. H. Seward at Detroit, Michigan, Oct. 2, 1856

[SEWARD, William Henry, a Senator from New York; born in Florida, Orange County, N.Y., on May 16, 1801; after preparatory studies, graduated from Union College in 1820; studied law; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Auburn, N.Y., 1823; member, State senate 1830-1834; unsuccessful Whig candidate for governor in 1834; Governor of New York 1838-1842; elected as a Whig to the United States Senate in 1849; reelected as a Republican in 1855 and served from March 4, 1849, to March 3, 1861; unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1860; Secretary of State in the Cabinets of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson 1861-1869; while Secretary of State concluded the convention with Great Britain for the settlement of the Alabama claims and the treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska; died in Auburn, Cayuga County, N.Y., October 10, 1872; interment in Fort Hill Cemetery. - Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.]

.(From the Archives of The New York Times)

"...It is my purpose to show you on this occasion that the slaveholding class of the American people is systematically and successfully perverting the administration of the Government, especially in regard to the Territories, so as to change the Constitution, and endanger the stability, welfare and liberty of the Union.

.
First, insomuch as this proposition must seem to you bold, if not new, I shall show from general principles that it may possibly be true, and secondly, I shall establish its truth by undeniable demonstration.

.
First--The proposition may be true. Property* is an essential element of civil society. So is liberty, which properly understood is only the equal security of all citizens against oppression. How to adjust the balance between property and liberty in States is the great problem of government. Property is always jealous of enlarged liberty, and especially so when it is based on relations subversive of natural justice, which is nothing more than equality among men. Property, therefore, has always a bias towards oppression, and it derives power to oppress from its own nature, the watchfulness of its possessors, and the ease with which they can combine. Liberty is exposed to the danger of such oppression by means of the inconsiderateness and the jealousies which habitually prevail among subjects or citizens. In every State all the property classes sympathize with each other through the force of common instincts of fear, cupidity and ambition, and are easily marshalled under the lead of one which becomes dominant, and represents the whole.

.
Wherever the rights and duties of the property classes are defined and regulated, with sufficient constraints to prevent oppression, and liberty is at the same time so bounded as to secure property against social or individual aggression, there the people are free and the State is Republican. When this balance is not accurately adjusted liberty is abridged and a property class administers the government, in the form of an aristocracy, or a monarchy, or a despotism. The mere mention of the names of Switzerland, Venice, France, (her various alternations being remembered,) Great Britain and Russia furnishes all needful illustrations of these positions. Human nature and the physical elements of society are everywhere the same. It is, therefore, possible that social and political errors and evils which have frequently existed elsewhere may find entrance here.

.
Secondly.--The allegation of perversion of the Government by the slave property class which I have made is true. First, let us see whether such a direction of Government as it describes was designed or expected by its founders. On the contrary, they laid the foundation of the States, not in property--much less in slave property--but in the natural rights or political equality of men. They establish few safeguards of property, knowing how apt it is to take care of itself, while they built strong bulwarks around liberty, knowing how easily Liberty is overthrown. The Declaration of Independence, which no weak or wicked citizen then dared to pronounce a series of abstractions, recited as the fundamental truth of the great political society which it ushered into the presence of nations, that "All men are created equal"--"endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights" of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and that "Governments are instituted among men to secure those rights," and derive their powers only "from the consent of the governed."

.
The Convention which framed the Constitution submitted it to the American people by a letter bearing the signature of George Washington, in which its character was defined with a steady hand in a clear light. "Individuals," said the Convention, "entering into society must give up a share of Liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstances as on the object to be attained. In all our deliberations on this subject, the object which the Convention has kept steadily in view was the consolidation of the Union, in which is involved our posperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each State in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude than might have been otherwise expected." An analysis of the Constitution, especially including its amendments, justifies this declaration, that the points on which liberality of concession to property was exercised were only those of inferior magnitude, and that neither prosperity, felicity, safety nor national existence was intended to be put at hazard for the preservation of a mere remnant of shadow of liberty. The people, speaking in the Constitution, declared their high objects in that great transaction in words simple, majestic and comprehensive,"To form a perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity." They boldly and directly laid the axe to the roots of privileges and of classes, they broke the very mainsprings of aristocracy, or at least they attempted to do so by ordaining that "no title of nobility shall be granted by the United States or by any State," and that "Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Although the people well know that nearly every fourth person in the new Republic was actually a slave, and that perhaps one of every twenty persons was a slaveholder, and so they well understood the existence among themselves of a caste and class, yet they pertinaciously refused to recognize either, and on the contrary treated of all the subjects of the Government under the common and promiscuous description of "persons," thus confounding classes, and recognizing only men. While they aimed at an ultimate extinction of that caste and the class built upon it by authorizing Congress to prohibit the importation of "persons" who were slaves after 1808, and to tax it severely in the meantime, and while they necessarily left to the individual States the management of the domestic relations of all classes and castes existing therein, they especially declared what should be the rights and relations of all "persons," so far as they were to be affected by the action of the Federal Government which they were establishing. "The privilege of the writ of habeus corpus shall not be suspended unless when in case of rebellion or invasion the public security shall require it." "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed." "No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportionto the census." "The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government." "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, homes, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." They ordained "trial by jury," prohibited "excessive bail and excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments," and "reserved to the States and to the people the powers of government not expressly delegated to the United States." ..."

.
Published: October 3, 1856

___________________________________

* - Speaking of "Property" -

"...All property, indeed, except the savage's temporary cabin, his bow, his match coat, and other little acquisitions absolutely necessary for his subsistence, seems to me the creature of public convention. Hence the public has the right of regulating descents and all other conveyances of property, and even of limiting the quantity and uses of it. All the property that is necessary to a man for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the species is his natural right, which none can justly deprive him of; but all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the public, who by their laws have created it, and who may, therefore, by other laws, dispose of it whenever the welfare of the public shall demand such disposition. He that does not like civil society on these terms, let him retire and live among savages. He can have no right to the benefits of society who will not pay his club towards the support of it...."
- Benjamin Franklin, Dec. 25, 1783 letter to Robert(?) Morris. [The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Volume 6.]
The Debates in the Federal Convention, "...the love of power, and the love of money...", June 02, 1787
The Debates in the Federal Convention, "Life & liberty were generally said to be of more value, than property.", July 05, 1787
The Debates, "Personal Rights Vs. Property Rights", August 7, 1787
The Debates in the Federal Convention, "...they will become the tools of opulence and ambition...", Aug. 7, 1787
"...Suppose one of our Indian Nations should now agree to form a civil Society; each Individual would bring into the Stock of the Society little more Property than his Gun and his Blanket, for at present he has no other. . . . Private Property therefore is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing . . . but the important ends of Civil Society, and the personal Securities of Life and Liberty, these remain the same in every Member of the society; and the poorest continues to have an equal Claim to them with the most opulent, whatever Difference Time, Chance, or Industry may occasion in their Circumstances..."
- Benjamin Franklin, Queries and Remarks respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1789 Writings 10:55--60.
James Madison, “Property,” - "He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person", March 29, 1792
"...It was aimed at restraining and checking the powers of wealth and privilege. It was to be a charter of liberty for human rights against property rights. The transformation has been rapid and complete. It operates today to protect the rights of property to the detriment of the rights of man. It has become the Magna Charta of accumulated and organized capital.' ..."
- Adamson v. People Of State Of California, U.S. Supreme Court, (Justice Black, Douglas and Swayne in Dissent), June 23, 1947.

"...and that in self-defense any man has a right to bear arms...", NY Times, 9/22/1852

2008-05-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

The New York Times Archives

Published: Sept. 22, 1852

They have been making an unco' noise in Boston about the carrying on concealed weapons, to which certain parties, in consequence of the Liquor Law, have felt obliged to resort in self-defense. A man named Richardson, whose zeal on behalf of temperance had outstripped his discretion, and concentred much angry feeling upon him, bore arms in preparation for the worst; and having been arrested upon the charge, was taken before Mr. Justice Timperly for examination. The Justice, after a fair hearing, dismissed the charge, on the ground that the man had serious reason for apprehension; and that in self-defense any man has a right to bear arms.

While this learned dictum conflicts oddly with the supposition that the law is fully equal to the protection of the citizen, we receive it as a singularly useful precedent. Street difficulties in New York are not so much the result of the exclusion as of the abuse of ardent spirits. But they are at least as frequent as in Boston; and probably the need of triple steel is as pressing here as there. Under the Aldermanic regime, our bullies have fallen into bad habits, which it will take some time for the present improved order of things to correct. In the meantime, we have Mr. Justice Timperly for it, that we may bear revolvers; that their use is justifiable in self-defense; and, in short, that the social organization is so far dissolved, that justice itself stands ready to utter the warning, sauve que peut [a frantic rush to escape]. Alas, for the times and the manners!

Would Not Take It Away as a Preventive of Crime

2008-04-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.

________

(N.Y Times article from August 23, 1910, retrieved from the N.Y.T. Archives)

Would Not Take It Away as a Preventive of Crime.

To The Editor of The New York Times:

It is not pleasant to take up what seems to be the unpopular side of a matter under discussion, but your editorial article of the 17th and Mr. Goldberg's letter on carrying firearms seem to me to be based on wrong premises.

When a man has made up his mind to set so far at defiance the laws of his country and all considerations of right and wrong, how much consideration is he likely to give to a city ordinance prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons? And if he could not buy the firearms here, would it be much trouble for him to run up to some of the towns in Connecticut or Massachusetts, where they are made, and where no such restrictions can ever prevail? Or, worse yet, if he couldn't get firearms, think of the numerous and (to the average man) far more certain implements he could buy in any hardware store! A butcher's cleaver, a reaping hook, a knife, or a sharpened icepick would make a more deadly weapon in the hands of most assassins than a revolver, for the simple reason that accurate shooting with the latter weapon is next to impossible after a long period of practice or at very close range. If Mayor Gaynor had been hit in the neck with a sharp cleaver he would not be recovering.

Of all the short-sighted notions, this idea of blaming the instrument for the crime seems to me the worst. It is a good deal like a dog which is struck with a stick biting the stick instead of the person who attacks him. What is needed is more prompt and certain punishment for the murderers, and the closing of the avenue through the insane asylum to liberty, the road that is so easy to tread when the murderer has wealth.

The trouble with legislation ahainst carrying weapons is that the law-abiding citizen pays attention to it, while, as before pointed out, the criminal does not. I should think the hold-up man and murderer would be highly in favor of having his victim thus disarmed. The criminal would be careful never to have a "gun" about him except for the brief time when he was "on the job," so that the chances for causing him annoyance by a rigid enforcementof such a law would be slight. On the other hand, a citizen whom circumstances made a likely object of attack would have to go armed all the time, in order to be prepared when the time came.

But there are few persons who would find it necessary or agreeable to go about continually with a revolver in their pockets. The smallest revolver that is really an effective weapon makes a heavy and uncomfortable lump in one's pocket, and in any event it is probable that one whose business puts him in constant danger of attack would not have a great deal of trouble in getting a permit. But there are frequent occasions when you, or I, or our sisters or daughters, may be exposed for brief periods to situations where attack might mean the loss of money, life, or honor. Having no permit, nor time to get one, is it right for us or those dear to us to walk unarmed into such perhaps - unavoidable situations?

Finally, I am not a lawyer, but I cannot understand how such ordinances stand in court, in view of the Constitutional provision regarding the carrying of arms. The Constitution does not say that "the right of citizens to carry arms shall not be abolished," but even says this right "shall not be infringed." If these city ordinances do not infringe that right, then I don't know what would.

New York, Aug. 22, 1910. .38 COLT.

The Right to Bear Arms. Thinks It Should Be Admitted In New York City

2008-04-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.

(N.Y Times article from Aug. 24, 1910, retrieved from the N.Y.T. Archives)

Thinks It Should Be Admitted In New York City.

To the editor of The New York Times:

As it strikes me, " .38 Colt" has scored a bull's-eye on "The Right To Bear Arms." Present regulations with respect to pistol-carrying as a habit in this city are more than sufficient if properly enforced. I say "more than sufficient" advisedly, because the ordinary peaceably inclined citizen cannot now lawfully, even if constitutionally, avail of the protection afforded by a pistol on his person without a red tape process of doubtful issue, while the criminally inclined sets those regulations at defiance, as he does the law generally. Get a pistol he will, despite restrictions on the sale of firearms.

Here was recently instance of an affray in an eat side neighborhood between the police and a gang of "toughs," in which a policeman was shot and seriously wounded while "frisking" one of the "gangsters" for his weapon. Now, suppose you or I, Mr. Editor, had had business in that spot a while before the affray, would either of us, as decently dressed men, have been allowed to pass unmolested? And what chance would either of us have had unarmed and defenseless?

I know that there is a theory in "wild and woolly" communities, where the inhabitants are "quick on the trigger," a "tenderfoot" is safer unarmed, the supposition being that no mean advantage will be taken of an unarmed man. That, however, does not apply to New York, where in certain neighborhoods even police protection seemingly exists in name only. The gangster is a born coward or he wouldn't be a gangster, and he will take all the mean advantage he can get. A defenseless citizen is "meat" to him. But let an apparently defenseless citizen "flash a gun" on him and chances are he and his gang will "beat it" precipitately. The police are at a discount with this element because it is known that their orders are not to draw their revolvers except in extremities.

What we need particularly is a severer court handling of those of known criminal proclivities, and even of those of disorderly tendencies.

There is no necessity for further encroachment upon the American citizen's right to bear arms.

J.W.E.

New York, Aug. 24. 1910.

"Owning a gun is a precious, fundamental right"

2008-03-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

Found the following article of the Mansfield News Journal:

(Links and highlighting added)

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

If "people" above refers only to the militia, then "We The People" in the preamble of the Constitution, has to refer to the militia only.
.
If you study the history of the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment, there were many reasons our forefathers wanted the people to have firearms. Some called it the keystone amendment, the one that protected all the other freedoms. First, if all the people have firearms common to the time, they can repel any aggressor. With our military stretched thin, and the border and terrorist problems, do you want to take a chance?
.
Second, they wanted the people to have the ultimate power over government. Paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence, government derives its power from the consent of the governed; and when the government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to abolish it and form a new one. Every dictator in modern history has disarmed the citizens first.

Third is the right to protect yourself and your property. Check out what happened in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. The authorities confiscated all registered guns. The criminals had never registered theirs, so the crime rate skyrocketed.

Fourth, hunting. The animal population would be totally out of control without hunting, and many people count on this food.

Some, including the U.N., are trying to take our gun rights. Listen to our forefathers before you give them up.

"No free man shall be debarred the use of arms." Thomas Jefferson.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason.

"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self-defense." John Adams.

And finally, Benjamin Franklin: "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

George Schneider

In all REALITY, instead of A.T.F., it should be: A.T.P.;

2008-03-26T15:56:00.001-07:00

Alcohol
Tobacco
& Pornography
For, "Firearms" are NOT a 'vice', but a Right....

"you will be ready in arms to defend your country, your liberty, your wives, your children and possessions, from rapine, abuse, and destruction"

2008-03-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

State of Massachusetts-Bay.

In the House of Representatives, January 26th, 1777.

ORDERED, That the following ADDRESS be printed, and a copy thereof sent to each minister of the gospel within this State, to whom it is recommended to read the same the next Lord's day after he shall receive it to his people, immediately after the religious exercises of the day are over. And also that a copy thereof be sent to the commanding officer of each company of the militia in each town in this State, to be read to the companies of militia while they are under arms, for the purpose of recruiting the Army.

To the People of Massachusetts-Bay.

Friends and Countrymen!

WHEN a people within reach of the highest temporal happiness human nature is capable of, are in danger of having it wrested from them by an enemy whose paths are marked with blood, and an insupportable load of misery; which succeeding generations must bear through painful centuries of time, is offered instead of it; to rouse the brave, invite the generous, quicken the flow, and awaken all to a sense of their danger, is a measure as friendly as it is important.
The danger of having your towns, your families, your fruitful fields, and all the riches and blessings derived from the industry and wisdom of your venerable ancestors, who may justly be ranked among the most virtuous and brave men that the world ever produced, ravished from you, and possessed by a banditti whom no laws can controul, and whose aim is to trample upon all the rights of humanity, would be sufficient to give the coward courage, and animate to the greatest feats in arms the most supine and indolent.--Surely then, while America, the asylum of happiness and freedom, is infested with a foe whose sole aim is to rifle her sons of every enjoymentt that can render life desireable; you will be ready in arms to defend your country, your liberty, your wives, your children and possessions, from rapine, abuse, and destruction.

For this grand and noble purpose, so worthy of the virtuous and brave, and we humbly trust so pleasing to Almighty God, you have by your delegates assembled in counsel for several years past;--For this in April 1775, you arrayed yourselves in arms, defeated and put to flight that band of Britons, who uninjured and unoffended, like robbers and murderers dared to assault your peaceful mansions;--and for this we trust you will be at all times ready to spend your blood and treasure.

In addressing you upon the important subject of your own defence, should we attempt a narration of the causes of your danger; the many petitions you have presented, praying but for peace, liberty and safety, and to avoid the necessity of shedding the blood of your fellow men, and the unexampled indignity and contempt with which those petitions were treated--it would be undeservedly to impeach you of inattention to your own safety.

Let it suffice then to say, That when every other method taken by you was productive of nothing but insults;--and that flames in your houses, murders on your persons, and robberies upon your property, were returned in answer to your peaceable, humble and dutiful petitions.

When the force of Britain, with that of her allies, was collected and drawn into exertion, to reduce you from ease and affluence, to slavery and vassalage; the Congress of the United States, despairing otherwise to establish your safety upon principles which would render it durable, made that declaration by which you become independant of Great-Britain, and in which character alone you can be secure and happy.

But as the increasing power and opulence of the United States, are now the dread and envy of those whose avaritious and ambitious minds had laid a plan for the monopoly and enjoyment of them, a large army is necessary for your defence; and the Congress have therefore determined upon eighty-eight battalions, of which fifteen are to be raised by this State.--The militia who have been marched to aid the army under the conduct of that man whose fortitude, virtue and patience, is perhaps without example, (and who hourly without any reward but the approbation of his own mind) is risquing his all in your cause, will soon be on their return--The enemy angry at the chastizement justly given them for their unprovoked cruelties to our brethren in the Jersies, are watching an opportunity to return the blow.

A farther draft from the militia would so much burthen the people of this State, that this court cannot think of it without pain and anxiety--We have therefore, being sensible that you need no other stimulous to your duty than having the line of it drawn for you, directed that a number of men, amounting to one seventh part of all the male persons of sixteen and upwards, should be immediately engaged in the Continental army, upon the encouragement given by government--this encouragement we conceive to be greater than any ever yet given, even to the greatest mercenaries--Surely then a people called to fight not to support crowns and principalities, but for their own freedom and happiness, will readily engage.

That the encouragement given might fully answer the designs of government, and the expectation of the soldiery, this court have settled the price of every necessary and convenient article of life produced in this country, and also the price of foreign goods in a just proportion to their price in the place from which they are imported, considering the risque of importation--And nothing is now wanting to give value to the soldiers wages and stability to our currency, but the vigorous and punctual execution and observance of that act; which we hope to see speedily effected by the public virtue and zeal of this people in the cause of their country.

But left some of you should be deceived by the misrepresentations of designing men, we must remind you that all the pretensions to peace and reconciliation, so pompously dealt out in the insidious proclamations of the commissioners of the king of Great-Britain, amount to nothing more than an invitation to give up your country and submit unconditionally to the government of the British Parliament--They tell you that their king is graciously disposed to revise all acts which he shall deem incompatible with your safety--But your good sense will lead you to determine, that if he is a Prince worthy to reign over a free people, and a friend to the rights of mankind, he would long ago have determined as to the justice of the those acts, and must have seen them founded on despotism, and replete with slavery--but they do not tell you that their Sovereign has the least intention to repeal any one of those acts--surely then a revision of them can never restore your freedom or in the least alleviate your burthens.

But those Commissioners, although they offer themselves as the Embassadors of peace, and, invite you to what they call the mild and gentle government of Britain, mark their footsteps with blood, rapine and the most unexampled barbarities, distributing their dreadful and savage severity, as well to the submissive as the obstinate, while neither rank, sex or age exempts any from the effects of their brutal passions.

Should America be overcome by or submit to Britain, the needy and almost perishing tenant in Ireland, disarmed and having but little property in the production of his toil and labour, selling the bread for which his tender infants are suffering, to pay the naughty landlord's rent or insulting collector's tax, would be but a feint resemblance of your calamity.

Society, where no man is bound by other laws than those to which he gives his own consent is the greatest ornament, and tends most of all things to the felicity of human nature, and is a priviledge which can never be given up by a people without their being exceedingly guilty before Him who is the bestower of every good and perfect gift.

We therefore for the sake of that religion, for the enjoyment whereof your ancestors fled to this country, for the sake of your laws and future felicity, entreat and urge you to act vigorously and firmly in this critical situation of your country--and we doubt not but that your noble exertions under the smiles of Heaven, will insure you that success and freedom, due to the wise Man and the Patriot.

Above all, we earnestly exhort you to contribute all within your power to the encouragement of those virtues--for which the supreme Being has declared that he will bestow his blessings upon a nation, and to the discouragement of those vices for which he overturns kingdoms in his wrath; and that at all proper times and seasons--you seek to Him by prayer and supplication for deliverance from the calamities of war, duly considering that without his powerful aid and gracious interposition all your endeavours must prove abortive and vain...........Sent up for Concurrence.

Samuel Freeman, Speaker, P. T.

In Council, January 28, 1777...........Read and Concurred.

John Avery, Dep'y Sec'ry.

An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

Library of Congress - American Memory

Also See:

Right to Keep and Bear Arms -
Historical Directories:

Origins

Precedent

After The Fact

Amendment II and the Law

At a General Assembly, "That such as arm and equip themselves with a good Firelock", May, 1780

2008-03-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

At a General Assembly of the Governor and Company of the State of Connecticut, holden at Hartford, on the second Thursday of May, 1780.

WHEREAS a Requisition has been made on this State by the Honorable Committee of Congress and by his Excellency General Washington, as appears by their Letters of the second of June 1780, for Two Thousand Five Hundred and Twenty Men of the Militia of this State, to co-operate with the Army of the United States for the Term of Three Months, from and after the 15th Day of July next, if necessary; a full Compliance with which appears to this Assembly necessary for the public good.

THEREFORE, it is Resolved by this Assembly, That 2520 able-bodied effective Men, of the Militia of this State, Rank and File, to be formed into five Regiments, be forthwith raised in the several Brigades of Militia, in the following Proportions, viz. 371 from the first Brigade, to be formed into fix Companies of 62 Men each; 533 from the second Brigade, to be formed into eight Companies of 66 Men each; 341 from the third Brigade, to be formed into five Companies of 68 Men each; 496 from the fourth Brigade, to be formed into eight Companies of 62 Men each; 378 from the fifth Brigade, to be form into fix Companies of 64 Men each; 401 from the 6th Brigade, to be formed into seven Companies of 58 Men each. That each of said Companies be furnished with one Drum and Fire, and officered with one Captain, one Lieutenant, one Ensign, and four Serjeants, to be designated from the several Brigades where the same are raised, except where there are a Field Officer or Officers, who are respectively to command Companies in the room and stead of a Captain. That there be appointed one Lieutenant-Colonel in the first Brigade, one Lieutenant-Colonel, and one Major in the second Brigade, one Lieutenant-Colonel in the third Brigade, one Lieutenant-Colonel and one Major in the fourth Brigade, two Majors in the fifth Brigade, and one Lieutenant-Colonel and one Major in the sixth Brigade. That three Companies from the fifth Brigade joined to five Companies in the first Brigade, make one Regiment, to be commanded by the Lieutenant-Colonel in the first Brigade, and one of the Majors in the fifth Brigade. That the eight Companies in the second Brigade be a Regiment under the Lieutenant-Colonel and Major in said Brigade. That the remaining three Companies in the fifth Brigade, be joined to the five Companies in the third Brigade, and be a Regiment to be commanded by the Lieutenant-Colonel in the third Brigade, and one of the Majors in the fifth. That the eight Companies in the fourth Brigade be a Regiment under the Command of the Lieutenant-Colonel and Major in said Brigade. And that the seven Companies in the sixth Brigade, and one Company from the first Brigade, be a Regiment under the Command of the Lieutenant-Colonel and Major in said sixth Brigade. That the Commanding Officers of said Regiments appoint the Adjutants and Quarter-Masters for said Regiments out of the Subaltern Officers of the Line. That each Adjutant shall have an additional pay of Three Pounds per Month; and each Quarter-Master of Two Pounds Ten Shillings, the whole to be under the Command of one Brigadier-General.

That his Excellency the Captain-General be, and he is hereby desired to give the necessary Orders to the Brigadiers General of the respective Brigades, for the apportioning, inlusting, or if need be, detaching, officering, arming, equipping, and marching said men, for the Purpose of carrying the provisions of this Resolve into Execution. That the said Regiments so ordered to be raised, be ordered to march and rendezvous at Danbury, by the 15th day of July next, or such other Place as the Governor and Council of Safety shall direct; from thence to proceed on the Orders of General Washington, and to continue in Service for the Term of three Months from the Time of their Arrival at the Place of their Destination, unless sooner discharged. That all such able-bodied effective Men who shall by the 5th day of July next voluntarily inlift into said Service, shall be entitled to receive, as a Bounty, the Sum of Three Pounds Lawful Money, in Bills of Credit of this State. That such as arm and equip themselves with a good Firelock, Blanket, Knapsack and Cartouch Box, shall be entitled to receive therefor the following Bounties, viz. For a Firelock 12 s. For a Blanket 12 s. For a Knapfack 3 s. and for a Carrouch Box 3 s. Lawful Money aforesaid; and that the Select Men of the several Towns within this State be, and they are hereby directed to furnish such of the Troops hereby ordered to be raised, belonging to their respective Towns as are unable to furnish themselves; and the Owner or Owners of the Arms, Blankets, Knapsacks and Cartouch Boxes supplied by the Select Men, shall be allowed the same Bounty for the use of each as in the Cafe of the Soldier who shall furnish himself as abovesaid.

And it is further RESOLVED, That in Case the full Complement of Men herein ordered to be raised shall not be compleated by Inlistment by the said fifth day of July, the Remainder to make up said Complement shall be raised by peremptory Detachment, of such able-bodied effective Men as are by Law liable to do Duty out of this State; and all such Persons so detached as aforesaid, who shall inlist within three Days after such Detachment for the Term aforesaid, shall be entitled to two Thirds of the Bounty aforesaid.

A true Copy of Record,
Examined, by
GEORGE WYLLYS, Sec'ry.

An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

Library of Congress - American Memory

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Right to Keep and Bear Arms -
Historical Directories:

Origins

Precedent

After The Fact

Amendment II and the Law

THE Selectmen, by the order of the Town, "surely the voice of the people may be taken without flying to arms", Sept. 11, 1786

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{Begin handwritten}Sharp Rebellion{End handwritten}
{Begin handwritten}No 87{End handwritten}

Gentlemen,

THE Selectmen, by the order of the Town, have directed me to inclose the following Address, to be communicated to the Inhabitants of your Town, with their wishes that it may produce those conciliatory effects that the Town of Boston are ever desirous to cultivate with their Brethren in every Town throughout the Commonwealth.

WILLIAM COOPER, Town-Clerk.

Boston, Sept. 11, 1786.

Friends and Fellow Citizens,

THE inhabitants of the town of Boston can never remain the unconcerned spectators of the distress and calamity of their fellow citizens in any part of the commonwealth.
Your generous friendship to us, evidenced as well by your liberal donations as otherwise, when we were particularly suffering in the great cause of our country, can never fail to warm our hearts with the highest sentiments of friendship for you;--and we are persuaded that the exertions we were then called to make, for our common safety, have yet a place in your kind remembrance.

Thus united, as we conceive, in sentiment and affection, as well as in interest, with that cordiality which must and ever will subsist amongst a virtuous and enlightned people in a free country, we take the liberty to address you on those commotions which have too widely spread within the commonwealth. You will suffer us to reason on this occasion with a freedom which is the part of sincere friendship; for we do assure you, that our country can never feel a political or civil evil which we will not chearfully bear a part of, until our joint exertions can obtain a constitutional redress.

We do not conceive it to be our duty to decide whether the grievances, mentioned by the conventions in some of the counties of the state, really exist or not; but we beg leave to submit it to your dispassionate and candid decision, whether, if they have a real existence, the tumultuous methods adopted by some assemblies of men within the government, are the proper measures to obtain redress.

When we dissolved our connection with the empire of Britain, we then (politically speaking) had it in our election to remain in a state of nature, or to ordain for ourselves such form of government as we chose. We were then in a state recognized by the first article of the declaration of rights, "free and equal," and nothing but our own voluntary consent, given in a solemn compact, could reduce us to a form of civil government. It required no great share of wisdom, however, to discern, that unless we threw ourselves into that state, we could neither defend ourselves against a foreign invasion, or be preserved from the depredations of wicked and abandoned men amongst ourselves. Therefore "the people inhabiting the territory" "called the Province of Massachusetts-Bay," by a voluntary association, formed a social compact; and, in a solemn appeal to the great Legislator of the universe, "the whole people "covenanted with each citizen, and each citizen "with the whole people, to be governed by "certain known and established laws, for the common good and security of all." By the same solemn compact, the powers of legislation, and the authority for the due execution of the laws, were provided and established; and we then did, and as yet do conceive, that all was done with such caution and restrictions, that no man, or body of men, who shall oppress or invade the rights of the smallest individual, can pass with impunity. In the same compact, the people solemnly agreed to support the constitution for the space of fifteen years, and made ample provision for the revision of it at the end of that period, if it should then be thought necessary.--There is no officer, either high or low, within the commonwealth, who does not derive his whole authority from the people, and who is not amenable to a proper and adequate tribunal for his conduct.

There are indeed evils which are common to the whole human race, founded in the depravity and imperfection of mankind; and there are others, the unhappy lot of some countries, arising from their situation, or the deep-rooted habits of the people possessing them; both which are alike incapable of being cured by any acts of government, or exertions of human power, but must be left to the accidents and changes of time for a remedy. Should corrupt and designing men inflame the spirits of the people to demand of their rulers, the removal of such evils, their own reflections would sooner or later point them to their mistake.

If grievances have arisen in the government, surely the voice of the people may be taken without flying to arms:--and no one can wish to dissolve our happy constitution, unless another is substituted in it's place;--for a state of anarchy is to be dreaded above all other calamities, because there is no evil which it does not involve. But to us, as we shall take leave by and by to submit to your consideration, consequences would flow from such a state which would cause each true American, within the commonwealth, even to regret that he had ever tasted the sweets of civil freedom

If the citizens of the state labour under grievances which can be redressed by the acts of the legislature, we conceive that their privileges in this case can never be enlarged, for the General Court are chosen annually by the people; and though in one year our complaints are not attended to, yet we can in the next election place men in power who will answer our reasonable expectations; and we are constrained to say, that we are ignorant of the time when the representatives of the people in this state have not duly attended to the instructions of their constituents. Some towns have indeed given instructions contrary to the sentiments of the majority in the state, and they therefore have not succeeded;--but is not this always the case when in society the compact is for the minority to submit to the majority? Let the majority be ever so much in the wrong, is there any remedy, within the reach of nature, compatible with the ideas of society and government? To say, the majority shall not govern, is saying, either that we will reduce ourselves to a state of nature, or reject the ideas of civil liberty, establish a despotism, and be subject to the sovereign pleasure of one man.

We then beg you to consider, whether instructing our representatives, who serve us in the legislature, is not our great remedy against any ills we suffer, and which are within the compass of human power to redress.

As we have taken leave to hint to you the mode in which, under the government established by our commonwealth, we conceive all grievances ought to be remedied; we will now beg your patience, and earnestly solicit your candor, while we mention some of the consequences which we think must flow from a continuance of the present commotions.--As an introduction to this part of our Address, we will take a retrospective view of our late situation, and compare our present with that in which we should have been, had not the noble exertions of America, in defence of the dearest rights of mankind, prevented it.

Taxed by Great-Britain, unconstitutionally and illegally, the quantity demanded was not the object of the important stand then made--but the obvious intention of reducing to absolute slavery, to a Prince on an island at three thousand miles distance, the people of an whole continent, demanded an opposition worthy of the blood and treasure expended in it.--Our publick assemblies, in towns and elsewhere, were prohibited; and every precaution taken to deprive us of the enjoyment even of social pity and joint complaint--a standing army, cruelly hostile, as well from their deep-rooted prejudices as the sanguinary nature of their errand, supported at our own expense, was employed to prostrate us before each haughty minion who chose to insult and plunder us.--Where then was the dignity of man! and where, had they succeeded, could the heaven-born idea of civil freedom been entertained? even a sigh for the sweets of liberty would have been treason!--How reverse of this is our now happy situation? subjected to no laws, but such as are made by a Legislature of our own election, agreeably to the form of government established by our own consent, taxed by our own representatives only, and controlled by no authority but what is derived from ourselves.

While we contended for a jewel of this immense value, still invaded on every side by the scourging arm of despotism, how solemnly did we appeal to that Being who sees the inmost recesses of our hearts? and how sacredly did we pledge our lives and fortunes to each other, and to our Congress, in the glorious contest?--And shall we now accomplish the wishes and fulfill the prediction of our enemies, in meanly receding from all our engagements?

Is it possible that any considerate man should suppose that we, as a people, ought to, or can be exempted from the calamities and difficulties incident to human life? Were we not at all times aware that there is no medium between a state of government and a state of nature? and that the latter is at all times a state of warfare, where no man has a property in even the produce of his own labour, but only a precarious possession, maintained by force? Or did any among us vainly believe that we could enjoy the blessings of government without an expence attending it? As well might they expect that the earth would yield her fruits without tillage, and that man could subsist without labour and pain.--The unalterable laws of nature have fixed it, that the path to political, public or private happiness is directed alone through industry and frugality; and we surely ought to submit to the common lot of humanity without repining, because it is one of the first dictates of religion.

We are very sensible that the habits of luxury contracted in the late war, from the vast quantity of goods imported, and the too great profusion of money, together with receiving and giving unlimited credit, have involved many families in distress, and have much diminished our abilities for paying those just debts, contracted in the day of our trouble, as the price of our freedom:--but shall we, because many of us are now distressed, entail ruin upon our posterity! let us lay aside the destructive fashions and expensive superstuities of the day; be sober, temperate and industrious; and, by the blessing of propitious heaven, we shall soon {Omitted text, 1w} our circumstances, and establish our public credit.

When we consider the nature of the present commotions, it presents to us the very important question, whether we shall exist as a nation upon the earth? for we are by no means ignorant that Congress, by our consent, and to our inexpressible joy and satisfaction, procured from our allies a loan of specie, the interest whereof we are obliged annually to discharge.--The shutting up of the courts of justice, preventing the due execution of the laws, and arresting the collection of public taxes, annihilates our government, and loudly proclaims to our foreign creditors, their total insecurity. Should their lenity and patience, supported by a hope of our reclaiming ourselves, and correcting our error, keep their sword in the sheath, yet we may have an enemy who will embrace the unlucky moment, should there ever be one when he finds us without resources, without credit, and without an ally, and deeply revenge himself for the disgrace his arms have sustained. Were there any among us so depraved as to wish to return to the domination of Great-Britain, they may easily perceive that the nations of Europe would never permit such an union of power, but divide us amongst them. Our feelings would indeed, upon such an occasion, point us to a remedy, perhaps, less disgraceful, the establishment of a domestic, instead of a foreign despotism; supported by a standing army, maintained by our own toil, to awe us into such submission that every idea of freedom shall be finally and totally eradicated.

When we have seen the patriot close his eyes in death, with gratitude and rapture committing his posterity to the arms of liberty, shall we see others agonizing in their last moments at yielding their children to the chains of vassalage? Forbid it, that spirit of freedom, which has so long animated and enlightned America! Forbid it, Heaven!

Finding that his Excellency the Governour, pursuant to the duties of his office, by advice of Council, has called upon all the good people of the state to lend their aid in preventing the impending ruin, we can do no less than to recognize anew our solemn engagements to support the government we have so lately and deliberately established;--and we feel ourselves assured, that our numerous, well-affected fellow citizens, in every town, will shew their readiness to join in an effort so clearly pointed out, as the first duty in society.

We are convinced that the present disturbances arise from British emissaries, residing among us, whose every with is for our overthrow and ruin; or from the machinations of wicked and unprincipled men, who seek their own emolument, to the destruction of their country; or from a combination of both. But though ??ny of our fellow citizens are deceived by them, and betrayed into a dangerous mistake, yet we trust that they will, on recollection, spurn from their counsels such base and infamous men; and that a careful discrimination will be made in every town between those who are, and those who are not, for the support of a government no less necessary to the happiness than to the security of the lives, liberty and properties of the people.
Fellow-citizens, we now entreat you, by the mutual ties of friendship and affection,--by the sacred compact which holds us in one society--by the blood of our brethren shed to obtain our freedom--by the tender regard we feel for our rising offspring, claiming freedom from our hands, as their inheritance by the grant of heaven--to use your endeavours that redress of grievances be fought for in a constitutional and orderly way only:--And we pledge ourselves to join our exertions with your's, in the same way, to obtain redress for any such as do really exist.--

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In Congress, "be empowered and directed to purchase, and, if they cannot purchase, to impress arms", Nov. 23, 1776

2008-03-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

IN CONGRESS, NOVEMBER 23, 1776.

RESOLVED, That a Committee of Five be appointed, with full powers to devise and execute measures for effectually reinforcing General Washington, and obstructing the progress of General Howe's army, and that they proceed immediately on this business.

The members chosen, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Smith, Mr. Chase, Mr. Clymer, and Mr. Stockden.

JOHN HANCOCK, PRESIDENT.

THE Committee before mentioned have come to the following Resolutions--

RESOLVED, That is be recommended to the Commanding Officers of the several battalions of Associators in Pennsylvania immediately to call together the battalions respectively under their command; and to select out of each battalion one company, or, if possible, two companies of Volunteers.

That each company consist of seventy-six privates, one Drummer, one Fifer, four Corporals, and four Serjeants, under the command of a Captain, two Lieutenants, and one Ensign.

That the field officers of each battalion, or such of them as shall be present, with the approbation and concurrence of the Volunteers, appoint the commissioned and non-commissioned officers of each company.

That the companies be engaged in the service of the United States till the tenth day of March next, unless sooner discharged by Congress; and be entitled to a pair of shoes and stockings, and to the same rations and the same monthly pay with the other troops on the Continental Establishment, to commence from the time of their enrolment.

That the form of the enrolment be as follows: I--hereby promise and engage to enter into the service of the United States, and to serve them till the tenth day of March next, unless sooner discharged by Congress; and to observe and obey the orders of Congress, and the orders of the Generals and Officers set over me by them.

That in order to supply the companies with arms, accoutrements, and other necessaries, the field officers of each battalion, or any of them, be empowered and directed to purchase, and, if they cannot purchase, to impress* arms, cartouch-boxes, blankets, shoes, stockings, and other necessaries for the use of the said companies.

That the articles impressed be appraised by persons to be appointed by the field officers or any of them for that purpose.

That the field officers or any of them give certificates of the value of the articles so purchased or appraised, which certificates shall be deemed sufficient vouchers to the persons to whom they shall be given, or to their assigns, for the respective sums therein mentioned, and shall be paid at the Continental Treasury.

That the Captains march their companies with the utmost expedition, and join the army under General Washington.

That the Council of Safety of Pennsylvania be empowered and directed to form the said companies into battalions; and to adopt such farther measures as they may find necessary for the march and equipment of the said companies; and particularly to collect, in the city of Philadelphia and its neighbourhood, blankets and other necessaries for their use, and to seize such articles, paying the value of them, if they cannot otherwise be procured.

That one month's pay be advanced to each Volunteer upon his enrollment; and that the Council of Safety be supplied with money for this purpose.

That the Council of Safety be requested to forward by express the foregoing Resolutions to the Commanding Officers of the several battalions of the State of Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia, November 24, 1776.

JAMES WILSON,
GEORGE CLYMER,
JAMES SMITH,
SAMUEL CHASE.

* - im·press(2) [v.
im-pres; n. im-pres] verb, -pressed or (Archaic) -prest; -
pres·sing; noun –verb (used with object)
1. to press or force into public service, as sailors.
2. to seize or take for public use.
3. to take or persuade into service by forceful arguments:
The neighbors were impressed into helping the family move.

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A Proclamation, "a number of people, armed, and mounted on horseback", Dec. 22, 1763

2008-03-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

BY THE HONOURABLE JOHN PENN, Esq;

Lieutenant-Governor and Commander in Chief of the Province of Pennsylvania, and Counties of New-Castle, Kent and Sussex, on Delaware,
A PROCLAMATION.

WHEREAS I have received Information, That on Wednesday, the Fourteenth Day of this Month, a Number of People, armed, and mounted on Horseback, unlawfully assembled together, and went to the Indian Town in the Conestogoe Manor, in Lancaster County, and without the least Reason or Provocation, in cool Blood, barbarously killed six of the Indians settled there, and burnt and destroyed all their Houses and Effects: AND WHEREAS so cruel and inhuman an Act, committed in the Heart of this Province on the said Indians, who have lived peaceably and inoffensively among us, during all our late Troubles, and for many Years before, and were justly considered as under the Protection of this Government and its Laws, calls loudly for the vigorous Exertion of the civil Authority, to detect the Offenders, and bring them to condign Punishment I HAVE THEREFORE, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Council, thought fit to issue this Proclamation, and do hereby strictly charge and enjoin all Judges, Justices, Sheriffs, Constables, Officers Civil and Military, and all other His Majesty's liege Subjects within this Province, to make diligent Search and Enquiry after the Authors and Perpetrators of the said Crime, their Abettors and Accomplices, and to use all possible Means to apprehend and secure them in some of the public Goals of this Province, that they may be brought to their Trials, and be proceeded against according to Law.

AND WHEREAS a Number of other Indians, who lately lived on or near the Frontiers of this Province, being willing and desirous to preserve and continue the ancient Friendship which heretofore subsisted between them and the good People of this Province, have, at their own earnest Request, been removed from their Habitations, and brought into the County of Philadelphia, and seated, for the present, for their better Security, on the Province-Island, and in other Places in the Neighbourhood of the City of Philadelphia, where Provision is made for them at the public Expence. I do therefore hereby strictly forbid all Persons whatsoever, to molest or injure any of the said Indians, as they will answer the contrary at their Peril.

GIVEN under my Hand and the Great Seal of the said Province, at Philadelphia, the Twenty-second Day of December, Anno Domini One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-three, and in the Fourth Year of His Majesty's Reign.

JOHN PENN.

By His Honour's Command, Joseph Shippen, junior, Secretary.

GOD Save the KING.

PHILADELPHIA: Printed by B. FRANKLIN, and D. HALL.

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"or by furnishing or supplying those engaged in Rebellion, or their Adherents with Arms, Ammunition"

2008-03-07T00:37:00.000-08:00

NORTH-CAROLINA, St.

By His Excellency JOSIAH MARTIN, His Majesty's Captain General, Governor and Commander in Chief in and over the said Province.

A PROCLAMATION.

WHEREAS great Numbers of his Majesty's Subjects within this Province, as in many other of the Colonies of North-America, have been incited and deluded by the flagitious Artifices of certain wicked, ill-designing, and traiterous Incendiaries, to array themselves in Arms, to levy rebellious War against the KING, and to deny, oppose, and resist the Laws and Constitutional Rights and Authority of His Majesty and the Parliament of Great-Britain, notwithstanding the most gracious and indulgent Invitations and Inducements, which His Majesty in his great Goodness, has been pleased from Time to Time to hold forth to them to engage them to return to their Duty, and to the enjoyment of those envied Rights*, and that inestimable Happiness which so pre-eminently distinguish the Condition of British Subjects from that of all other People of the known World; AND WHEREAS, this infatuated People instead of being reclaimed to their Duty by such Manifestations of His Majesty's tender Forbearance to punish, and of His Royal Disposition to Mercy and Forgiveness, have been impelled by the Delusions of their traiterous Leaders, rashly and insultingly to reject all the generous Advances to Accommodation that have flowed from the Justice, Moderation, and Tenderness of the KING, and His Parliament, and ungratefully as absurdly to ascribe the same to Weakness and Want of Power to chastise their Disobedience, and to maintain the Constitutional Rights heretofore claimed or exercised over the said Colonies: And whereas they have proceeded in a Succession of Violence beyond Detail to wage War, and to involve themselves in all the complicated Guilt of Treason and Rebellion against their Sovereign and the State, it is become the indispensible Part, and is therefore the determined Purpose of Government, to pursue the most vigorous and effectual Measures for the Suppression of such unnatural, and unprovoked Rebellion.

The Revolt of this Province and so many other of His Majesty's American Colonies, at first glossed over with shallow Pretexts of procuring Redress of imaginary Grievances, and marked with lavish Professions of Duty and Loyalty to the KING, now past all Disguise as to its End and Object, is declared by every violent Act of open Rebellion, and the Design of the flagitious Conspirators who have fomented this unnatural Rebellion manifested, if not avowed, is to sever these Colonies from their Relation to, and Dependance on the Imperial Crown and State of Great-Britain, with vain Intent to establish independant Empire; and in Prosecution of this attrocious Attempt, no Illusion, no Art of Seduction has been left unpractised, no Violence undone.

An illegal, monstrous Body called a Congress at Philadelphia has dared to usurp, and exercise every power of Government, over this Province and Twelve more of his Majesty's Colonies; it has proceeded to the Extravagance of raising Armies within the same for the express Purpose of opposing the KING's Authority, and in the Impotence of Weakness has uttered a creditless Paper Currency, as visionary as the Rest of their ill-digested System, to the nominal Value of Nine Millions of Dollars, for the Support thereof presuming in the fulness of its Power, to pledge the Substance of the People in the several Colonies for the Redemption of this ill devised Phantom of Money of such vast Amount, which is forced upon the Acceptance of the People, who find themselves equally exposed to Ruin, by the Refusal, or Receipt of it; the former Case subjecting them to the heaviest Penalties denounced by that Arbitrary Assembly, and the latter to the utter Loss of that Property which they barter for this imaginary Money during its Circulation; the Whole exhibiting a Plan of Republican Despotism, more weak, and more wicked, than ever Fraud and Rebellion attempted to impose on a Deluded People.

The Machinations above recited, and the other innumerable Artifices, too successfully practised upon the ignorant and credulous People, have been accompanied with every Act of open Hostility at Land and Sea; and Britain, brave, long-forbearing, generous Britain, challenged to Arms by her too kindly fostered and ungrateful Colonists, is at last compelled RELUCTANTLY to employ Her Might and Force in Chastisement of those, who have so lately owed to Her Guardian Power and Protection, their very existence as a free People; thus ungratefully requited, it now only remains to that Great Nation to prove that Tenderness and Affection, and not Want of Power hath so long suspended her just Indignation at her Recreant Colonists, and preserved them from the woful Experience of the Horrors of War, which they have so wantonly and so injuriously provoked. To the End therefore, That His Majesty's loyal and faithful Subjects within this Province, which I have Reason to compute in great Number, may be prepared for the Part to which their own good Principles lead, and their Duty calls them in this Extremity, and that the People thereof in General, may have Opportunity to avail themselves of His Majesty's Royal Disposition to receive his misled Subjects, in Tenderness and Mercy, when they shall become sensible of their Error and return to their Duty. I have thought proper to issue this my Proclamation, hereby to represent to them the dangerous Crisis to which a Set of wicked and desperate republican Spirits on this Continent, have urged and exposed them. And I do hereby in real Tenderness to the Inhabitants of this Country, most earnestly exhort and conjure Them, as they regard their dearest Interests, to rouse from the Infatuation with which they have been possessed, that has led Them blindly to bend their Necks to the intolerable Yoke of republican Despotism, which under specious Pretences of preserving their Liberty, has at this Moment reduced them to the violent State of Bondage, and by a prompt and immediate return to their Duty to their Sovereign, laying down their Arms, and renouncing the usurped Authority of Congresses, Committees, and all other the monstrous and unlawful Combinations engendered by the evil Spirit of Rebellion, entitle themselves to the effectual Securities of civil and religious Liberty, to be found only in the British Constitution.

And for the Encouragement of His Majesty's loyal and faithful Subjects to be aiding and assisting as far as in them lies, in the Suppression of the said unnatural Rebellion according to their bounden Duty and obvious Interests. I do hereby in the King's Name and by His Majesty's Royal Authority offer, promise and assure, to each and every Person or Persons, who shall join His Majesty's Forces and bear Arms against the Rebels in this Province (besides the Pay, and every other Encouragement allowed by His Majesty to his regular Troops) a Grant or Grants of Land in Proportion to their Circumstances, Merit and Pretensions without Charge, and with an Exemption of Quit-rent during ten Years from the respective Date of such Grant or Grants. And I do on the other Hand hereby proclaim all and all Manner of Persons who shall in any Wise aid, abet, or assist the present unnatural Rebellion against the King, either by bearing Arms against His Majesty's Forces, or by furnishing or supplying those engaged in Rebellion, or their Adherents with Arms, Ammunition, Money, Provisions, Cattle, Horses, Carriages, or any other necessary for Subsistence or Offence, or who shall hold any Correspondence with them open or secret, by Letter, Message, Signal, or otherwise, or in any Manner protect or conceal them, to be Rebels and Traitors, and to be treated accordingly with all the Rigour that such Enemies to the State are liable to by Law.

The very recent Instance of the ready Acceptance in Parliament of the Overtures of the loyal and dutiful Colony of Nova-Scotia, and the Resolutions of the House of Commons thereupon, evince the Disposition of that August Body to receive with the tenderest Consideration every Advance of the American Colonies; and cannot fail to excite Regret in every Well-wisher of this Country, as well as {Omitted text, 1w} , ?hat it did not pursue alike dutiful Conduct, instead of withstanding, and frowardly rejecting the reasonable Invitations to Peace, and Accommodation that were indulgently held forth to the Colonies by the Resolutions of the House of Commons in the last Session of Parliament,--while yet its Commerce flourished, was favoured, and unrestrained: In the former Case this Province had enjoyed the fulness of Peace and Prosperity, and now the chosen, fatal alternative of Rebellion, marks it for the Scourge of War, whose certain Consequences must bring the People to rue the dire Election to which they have been duped and deluded by their traiterous and flagitious Leaders. And it behoves the People of this Country at this critical Period, to consider well how they may retrieve the fair Opportunities they have lost, by giving the first Example among the Colonies in Rebellion, of an earnest Disposition to return to their Duty, to the King, and Obedience to the Laws;--and it cannot be doubted that the Colony which shall signalize Itself by such seasonable Example, will meet with every due Regard and Attention from the Grace of Majesty.

In the present most alarming State of Affairs, the People invited by their Sovereign on the one Hand to Freedom, Peace and Happiness, under the mildest of all Governments, and on the other threatened by Rebellion, Anarchy, Tyranny and Despotism, that must expose their Country to Desolation, and themselves to the forfeiture of Life, and Property, have yet a Choice of Happiness, by immediate and dutiful Submission to their lawful and rightful Sovereign, and Reliance on the Royal unbounded Clemency and Magnanimity of a most Gracious Prince.
This Opportunity those who neglect will rue the Consequence! Here then let the mis-guided Pause! In this instant awful Crisis, without a Moment Delay, while yet Felicity is attainable, and that they have experienced only some of the Inconveniences, without the Horrors of War, let them calmly compare their late unequalled Prosperity with their present self-made, deplorable, wretched, desperate State: and I am confident that every conspiring Motive of regard to Life, Liberty, and Property, will recal them to a just Sense of their Duty to their offended Sovereign, and the Laws of their Country, and unite the Strength of Thousands of the deluded people to those numerous, faithful, and loyal Subjects of the King in this Province, whose glorious and undaunted Spirits undismayed, and unsubdued by all the Power and Oppression of Rebellion, have given such recent Proof of Attachment to their Sovereign, and Affection to their late happy Constitution of Government, principled in perfect Freedom, and founded in certain Law: as leaves no Room to doubt they will come forth with redoubled Confidence to the Deliverance of their Country, and that supported by His Majesty's Troops, they will speedily, with the assistance of the ALMIGHTY, accomplish the Restoration of the public Tranquility, and change the horrid Face of War to grateful smiling Peace.

AND WHEREAS, The Regular Administration of Justice, and the Course of Law is obstructed and overthrown by the Machinations of Rebellion in this Province, and that many of the titular Magistrates therein lawfully appointed, are now leagued with the Rebels, and may and do employ the Power and Authority with which they are invested by their Offices to the Perversion of Justice, and the Oppression of His Majesty's Liege Subjects. And whereas it is expedient in the present State of Things to obviate the Mischiefs that may accrue from the Pervertion of Justice by the Civil Magistrates now in Office, and for the Maintainance of Order as well as to support the Measures, necessary to be taken for the Suppression of the present horrid and unnatural Rebellion, that some Mode be established for the Distribution of Justice and for the Protection of the Innocent, and Punishment of the Guilty. I Do hereby in Virtue of the Power and Authority in me vested by His Majesty's Royal Commission, under the Great Seal of Great-Britain, publish, proclaim, and order the Use and Exercise of the Law Martial, within and throughout this Province, for so long Time as the present unhappy State of Disorder shall necessarily require; whereof all Persons are hereby required to take Notice and govern themselves accordingly, as well to maintain Order, and Regularity, among the peaceable Inhabitants of this Province, as to resist encounter and subdue all REBELS and TRAITORS within the same.

Given under My Hand, and the Great Seal of the said Province on board the Snow Peggy, in Cape-Fear River, this Seventh Day of April 1776, and in the Sixteenth Year of His Majesty's Reign...........(Signed)..........JOSIAH MARTIN.

GOD save the King.

EXTRACT from the VOTES of the HOUSE of COMMONS of 29th November, 1775.

SIR Grey Cooper reported from the Committee of the whole House, to whom it was referred to consider of the Letter communicated to this House by Mr. Speaker upon the 26th Day of October last, dated, Halifax, Nova-Scotia, July 4th, 1775, and signed "William Nesbitt, Speaker," together with a Paper inclosed therein, entituled, "The Address, Petition, and Memorial, of the Representatives of the Freeholders of the Province of Nova Scotia, in General Assembly," the Resolutions which the Committee had directed to be reported to the House; which he read in his Place, and afterwards delivered in at the Table, where the same were read, and are as followeth, viz.

Resolved, that it is the Opinion of this Committee, that the Proposition contained in the Address, Petition, and Memorial, of the House of Assembly of the Province of Nova-Scotia, of granting His Majesty, in perpetuity, a duty on Poundage ad Valorem, upon all Commodities imported into the Province of Nova-Scotia, not being the Produce of the British Dominions in Europe and America (Bay Salt excepted) the said Duty to be disposed of by Parliament, is fit to be accepted, and that the Amount of the said Duty should be Eight Pounds per Centum, upon all such Commodities.

Resolved, that it is the Opinion of this Committee, that when and as soon as an Act, or Acts, shall have been passed by the General Assembly of the said Province of Nova-Scotia, conformable to the forgoing Resolution, and His Majesty shall have given his Royal Approbation to such Act or Acts, all and every Duty, Tax, and Assessment, upon any Goods, Wares, or Merchandize, imported into the said Province, and which Duty, Tax, and Assessment, hath been imposed and levied within the said Province, by any Act or Acts of Parliament now in Force, ought to cease and be discontinued; and that, for so long as Act or Acts of Assembly for granting to His Majesty the said Poundage Duty shall continue in Force, no other of further Duties, Taxes, or Assessments, ought to be imposed or levied by Act of Parliament, within the said Province, except such Duties only, as it may be expedient to continue to levy, or to impose for the Regulation of Commerce, the nett produce of the Duties last-mentioned to be carried to the Account of the said Province.

Resolved, that it is the Opinion of this Committee, that it will be adviseable to admit a direct Importation into the Province of Nova-Scotia, by His Majesty's Subjects, in Ships and Vessels qualified by Law, of all Wines, Oranges, Lemons, Currants, and Raisins, the Growth and Produce of any foreign Country whatsoever; provided such Wines, Oranges, Lemons, Currants, and Raisins, be imported directly from the Place of their Growth and Produce; and provided also, that the said Commodities be not imported into any other Port or Place within the said Province except the Port of Halifax.

Then the said Resolutions, being read a second Time, were agreed to by the House.

Ordered, that a Bill be brought in, upon the said Resolution; and that the Lord North, Lord George Germain, Mr. Charles Townshend, the Lord Beauchamp, Mr. Cornwall, Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General, Sir Grey Cooper, and Mr. Robinson, do prepare, and bring in the same.

* - Here's one of those "envied Rights":

That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law...

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"and Dollars to be taken out of their Pay in Case they dont appear with a good Firelock"

2008-03-06T22:46:00.001-08:00

By His Excellency
WILLIAM SHIRLEY, Esq;
Captain-General and Governour in Chief in and over the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England.

To {Begin handwritten}John Bark Goutr{End handwritten}

Sir,

AS you have receiv'd Beating-Orders from Me to enlist Men into His Majesty's Service for the Expedition intended,

In the Management of that Trust, I give you the following Directions;

1. You are to enlist no Person under the Age of eighteen Years, nor above Forty-five Years.
2. You are to enlist none but able-bodied effective Men, free from all bodily Ails, and of perfect Limbs.
3. You are to enlist no Roman-Catholick, nor any under five Feet two Inches high without their Shoes.
4. You are to assure such Persons as shall enlist, That they shall enter into Pay, {Begin inserted text}

{Begin handwritten}and subsistance{End handwritten}{End inserted text} {Begin deleted text}{Omitted text, 6w} {End deleted text}. {Begin inserted text}

{Begin handwritten}Upon their first general Rendezvous{End handwritten}{End inserted text}

5. That they shall at the Day of their Enlistment receive a good Blanket. {Begin inserted text}

{Begin handwritten}{Omitted text, 1w} Dollars and Dollars to be taken out of their Pay in Case they dont appear with a good Firelock{End handwritten}{End inserted text}

6. That their Pay will be Twenty-six Shillings and eight Pence, per Month, lawful Money, during their Service. {Begin inserted text}

{Begin handwritten}& one Month's advance Pay upon being mastered.{End handwritten}{End inserted text}

7. That they shall be exempt from all Impresses for Three Years next after their Discharge.
8. To such of them as shall be provided with sufficient Arms at their first Muster, they shall be allowed a Dollar over and above their Wages, and full Recompence for such of their Arms as shall be inevitably lost or spoiled.
9. You are to enlist no {Begin inserted text}

{Begin handwritten}P{End handwritten}

{End inserted text}erson but such as you can be answerable for that they are fit for Service; and whom you have good Reason to think will not desert the Service.
10. You are before your delivering the Blanket allowed, or any other Bounty that may be allowed by this Government to any Person, cause the second and sixth Sections of War to be read to them, and have them also sworn before, and their Enlisting attested by, a Justice of the Peace.

Given under my Hand at Boston, the {Begin handwritten}Seventeenth{End handwritten} Day of {Begin handwritten}April{End handwritten} 1755, in the Twenty-{Begin handwritten}Eight{End handwritten} Year of His Majesty's Reign.

{Begin handwritten}??Hutchinson by Govr. Shirley's ordr{End handwritten}

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"That if Provision cannot be made of Arms . . . a reasonable allowance will be made them in Money for the same"

2008-03-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

By His EXCELLENCY

Benning Wentworth, Esq;
Captain-General and Governour in Chief, in and over His Majesty's Province of New-Hampshire, in New-England.

A PROCLAMATION.

WHEREAS His Majesty has been graciously pleased to order a Number of Troops, under the Command of the Honourable Lieutenant-General St. Clair, to proceed from Great-Britain to Louisbourg, with a sufficient Convoy of Men of War, and with them a great Part of His Majesty's Troops now in Garrison at Louisbourg, and also with such Troops as shall be levied for that Purpose in His Majesty's Colonies in North-America, to attempt the immediate Reduction of Canada; and has signified His Royal Pleasure to Me, as also to the Governours of the several Provinces and Colonies of Virginia, Maryland Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts-Bay, by Letters dispatched from his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, That the necessary Dispositions should be forthwith made for the raising as many Men within this and the above-mentioned Governments as the thousands of the Time will admit, for proceeding on the said Expedition.

AND whereas the Members of the General Assembly of this Province, on a Special Convention for this Service, have, with the utmost Chearfulness and Unanimity, voted to give all necessary and proper encouragement for One ThousandVoluntiers that shall enlist into His Majesty's Service in this Expedition;

In Obedience therefore to His Majesty's said Commands;

I have thought fit, with the Advice of His Majesty's Council, to issue this Proclamation, in order to make known his Majesty's gracious Intentions and Declarations for the Encouragement of all able-bodied effective then that are inclined to inlist themselves into his Service of the said Expedition, together with the further encouragement which is offered by this Government, viz. That the said Voluntiers will be under as such Officers as I shall appoint; That they will be immediately entitled to his Majesty's Day, the Officers from the Time they shall engage in his Majesty's Service, and the Soldiers from the respective Days on which they shall be enlisted; That if Provision cannot be made of Arms and Cloathing for them, by reason of the Shortness of the Time, a reasonable allowance will be made them in Money for the same; That they shall be entitled to a Share of the Booty that shall be taken from the Enemy, and shall be sent back to their several habitations, when this Service shall be over, unless any of them shall desire to settle elsewhere.

AND for the further Encouragement of all Voluntiers that shall engage in this Service, It is provided, That they shall receive Thirty Pounds in Bills of Credit of the old Lenor, as a Bounty, as also for each Man a good Blanket, and a Bed for every two men; the said Bounty to the paid upon their Entitlement, and the Blankets, or Money in Lieu of the Blankets, and Beds at the Time of their Embarkation, or proceeding on the said Expedition. And that all such voluntiers as shall proceed on this Expedition, shall be exempted from all Impresses for two Years after their Return.

Given at the Council-Chamber in Portsmouth, the Fifth Day of June, 1746. In the Nineteenth Year of the Reign of Our Sovereign Lord GEORGE the Second by the Grace of GOD of Great Britain, France and Ireland, KING, Defender of the Faith, &c.

B. WENTWORTH.

By Order of His Excellency of the Governour, with the Advice of the Council, T. Atkinson, Secr.

GOD Save the KING.

BOSTON, Printed by Thomas Fleet.

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