Citizen or subject?

by Francis X. Hennessy

The Americans of an earlier generation, who created the American nation of men and all governments in America, accurately knew the status of the American citizen and his relation to all governments. Their accurate knowledge was an insistent thing which guided their every act as a people in the period between 1775 and 1790, in which latter year the last of the Americans became citizens of America. Their knowledge came to them from their own personal experience in those fifteen years. They were a people, born subjects of government, who died citizens of a great nation and whose every government, in America, was their servant. This great miracle they themselves had wrought in the fifteen years between 1775 and 1790. Their greatest achievement, as the discerning mind has always realized, is what they did in the last four of those momentous years. They brought to its doing their valuable experience and training of the previous eleven years. That is why they succeeded, so far as human effort can secure human liberty by means of written constitutions of government, in securing to themselves and their posterity the utmost measure of protected enjoyment of human life and happiness. That we, their posterity, may keep their legacy intact and transmit it to the generations to come, it is necessary that we, the average Americans, should share somewhat with them their amazingly accurate knowledge of the simple but vital facts which enabled them to create a nation and, by its American Constitution, to secure to themselves, its citizens, protected enjoyment of life, liberty and happiness.

When they were actually engaged in this work of creation, it was truthfully said of them that “The American people are better acquainted with the science of government than any other people in the world.” For over a hundred years the history of America attested the truth of that statement. As they were a simple people, their knowledge of the science of government was derived from their accurate understanding of a few simple facts. It is a certainty that we can keep their legacy by learning those same facts. Let us quickly learn them. The accurate knowledge of them may best be acquired by briefly living again, with those simple Americans of an earlier generation, through their days from 1775 to 1790.

The individual Americans of that generation were all born subjects of the British government. We do not understand the meaning of that statement until we accurately grasp the vital distinction between a “subject” of a government and a “citizen” of a nation.

It is hardly necessary to point out, but it is amazingly important to remember, that a “subject,” as well as a “citizen,” is first of all a human being, created by an omnipotent Creator and endowed with human rights. All would be well with the world, if each human being always accurately knew the difference between right and wrong and if his accurate knowledge invariably controlled his exercise of his human freedom of will. In that case, no human government would be needed to prescribe and to enforce rules of personal conduct for the individual. As such is not the case, human government must exist. Its sole reason for existence, therefore, is that it may prescribe and enforce rules for those whom it can compel to obey its commands and that it may thus secure the utmost measure of protected enjoyment of human rights for those human beings whose government it is.

Time does not permit and necessity does not require that we dwell upon the various types of government which have existed or which have been created supposedly to meet this human need. It is sufficient to grasp the simple and important fact that government ability to say what men may or may not do, in any matter which is exercise of human freedom, is the very essence of government. Where a government has no ability of that kind, except what the men of its nation grant to it, where those men limit and determine the extent of that ability in their government, the men themselves are citizens. Where a government claims or exercises any ability of that kind, and has not received the grant of it directly from the men of the nation, where a government claims or exercises any ability of that kind, without any grant of it, or by grant from government to government, the men of that nation are subjects.

In the year 1775, under the British law, the Parliament at Westminster claimed the unqualified right to determine in what matters and to what extent laws should be made which would interfere with individual freedom. From such decision of the legislative part of the British Government there was no appeal save by force or revolution. For this reason, that every human being under that Government must submit to any interference with individual freedom commanded by that Legislature, all British human beings were “subjects.” And, as all Americans were then under that British Government, all Americans were then “subjects.” Such was their legal status under the so-called British Constitution. Curiously enough, however, until a comparatively short time prior to 1775, such had not been the actual status of the Americans. In this sharp contrast between their legal and their actual status, there will be found both the cause of their Revolution and the source of their great and accurate knowledge of the sound principles of republican government which they later made the fundamental law of America.

From the day their ancestors had first been British colonists in America their legal status had been that of subjects of the British Government. But, so long as they remained merely a few widely scattered sets of human beings in a new world, struggling to get a bare existence from day to day, they offered no temptation to the omnipotent British Government to oppress them, its subjects. They still had to show the signs of acquiring that community wealth which has always been the temptation of government to unjust exaction from the human beings it governs. For that reason, their legal government concerned itself very little about them or their welfare. It thus became their necessity to govern themselves for all the purposes for which they locally needed government as security to their individual welfare.

Only thirteen years after the first permanent English settlement in Virginia, “Sir George Yeardley, then the Governor of the colony, in 1619 called a general assembly, composed of representatives from the various plantations in the colony, and permitted them to assume and exercise the high functions of legislation. Thus was formed and established the first representative legislature that ever sat in America. And this example of a domestic parliament, to regulate all the internal concerns of the country, was never lost sight of, but was ever afterwards cherished [until 1917] throughout America, as the dearest birthright of freemen.” (1 Ell. Deb. 22.)

“On the 11th of November, 1620, those humble but fearless adventurers, the Plymouth colonists, before their landing, drew up and signed an original compact, in which, after acknowledging themselves subjects of the crown of England, they proceed to declare: ‘Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, we do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid. And by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.’ This is the whole of the compact, and it was signed by forty-one persons.

“It is, in its very essence, a pure democracy; and, in pursuance of it, the colonists proceeded soon afterwards to organize the colonial government, under the name of the Colony of New Plymouth, to appoint a Governor and other officers and to enact laws. The Governor was chosen annually by the freemen, and had at first one assistant to aid him in the discharge of his trust. Four others were soon afterwards added, and finally the number was increased to seven. The supreme legislative power resided in, and was exercised by, the whole body of the male inhabitants, every freeman, who was a member of the church, being admitted to vote in all public affairs. The number of settlements having increased, and being at a considerable distance from each other, a house of representatives was established in 1639, the members of which, as well as all other officers, were annually chosen.” (1 Ell. Deb. 25.)