A congress or convention of committees from the several colonies, constitutionally appointed by the supreme authority of the state, or by the several provincial legislatures, amenable to, and controulable by the power that convened them, would be salutary in many supposeable cases. Such was the convention of 1754; but a congress otherwise appointed, must be an unlawful assembly, wholly incompatible with the constitution, and dangerous in the extreme, more especially as such assemblies will ever chiefly consist of the most violent partizans. The prince, or sovereign, as some writers call the supreme authority of a state, is sufficiently ample and extensive to provide a remedy for every wrong, in all possible emergencies and contingencies; consequently a power, that is not derived from such authority, springing up in a state, must encroach upon it, and in proportion as the usurpation enlarges itself, the rightful prince must be diminished; indeed, they cannot long subsist together, but must continually militate, till one or the other be destroyed. Had the continental congress consisted of committees from the several houses of assembly, although destitute of the consent of the several governors, they would have had some appearance of authority; but many of them were appointed by other committees, as illegally constituted as themselves. However, at so critical and delicate a juncture, Great Britain being alarmed with an apprehension, that the colonies were aiming at independence on the one hand, and the colonies apprehensive of grievous impositions and exactions from Great Britain on the other; many real patriots imagined, that a congress might be eminently serviceable, as they might prevail on the Bostonians to make restitution to the East India company, might still the commotions in this province, remove any ill-founded apprehensions respecting the colonies, and propose some plan for a cordial and permanent reconciliation, which might be adopted by the several assemblies, and make its way through them to the supreme legislature. Placed in this point of light, many good men viewed it with an indulgent eye, and tories, as well as whigs, bade the delegates God speed.
The path of duty was too plain to be overlooked; but unfortunately some of the most influential of the members were the very persons that had been the wilful cause of the evils they were expected to remedy. Fishing in troubled waters had long been their business and delight; and they deprecated nothing more than that the storm they had blown up, should subside. They were old in intrigue, and would have figured in a conclave. The subtility, hypocrisy, cunning, and chicanery, habitual to such men, were practised with as much success in this, as they had been before in other popular assemblies.
Some of the members, of the first rate abilities and characters, endeavoured to confine the deliberations and resolves of the congress to the design of its institution, which was "to restore peace, harmony, and mutual confidence," but were obliged to succumb to the intemperate zeal of some, and at length were so circumvented and wrought upon by the artifice and duplicity of others, as to lend the sanction of their names to such measures, as they condemned in their hearts. Vide a pamphlet published by one of the delegates, entitled, "A candid examination, &c."
The congress could not be ignorant of what every body else knew, that their appointment was repugnant to, and inconsistent with every idea of government, and therefore wisely determined to destroy it. Their first essay that transpired, and which was matter of no less grief to the friends of our country, than of triumph to its enemies, was the ever memorable resolve approbating and adopting the Suffolk resolves, thereby undertaking to give a continental sanction to a forcible opposition to acts of parliament, shutting up the courts of justice, and thereby abrogating all human laws, seizing the king's provincial revenue, raising forces in opposition to the king's, and all the tumultuary violence, with which this unhappy province had been rent asunder.
This fixed the complexion, and marked the character of the congress. We were, therefore, but little surprized, when it was announced, that as far as was in their power, they had dismembered the colonies from the parent country. This they did by resolving, that "the colonists are entitled to an exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures." This stands in its full force, and is an absolute denial of the authority of parliament respecting the colonies.
Their subjoining that, "from necessity they consent to the operation (not the authority) of such acts of the British parliament, as are (not shall be) bona fide restrained to external commerce," is so far from weakening their first principle, that it strengthens it, and is an adoption of the acts of trade. This resolve is a manifest revolt from the British empire. Consistent with it, is their overlooking the supreme legislature, and addressing the inhabitants of Great Britain, in the style of a manifesto, in which they flatter, complain, coax, and threaten alternately; and their prohibiting all commercial intercourse between the two countries: with equal propriety and justice the congress might have declared war against Great Britain; and they intimate that they might justly do it, and actually shall, if the measures already taken prove ineffectual. For in the address to the colonies, after attempting to enrage their countrymen by every colouring and heightning in the power of language, to the utmost pitch of frenzy, they say, "the state of these colonies would certainly justify other measures than we have advised; we were inclined to offer once more to his majesty the petition of his faithful and oppressed subjects in America," and admonish the colonists to extend their views to mournful events, and to be in all respects prepared for every contingency.
This is treating Great Britain as an alien enemy; and if Great Britain be such, it is justifiable by the law of nations. But their attempt to alienate the affections of the inhabitants of the new conquered province of Quebec from his majesty's government, is altogether unjustifiable, even upon that principle. In the truly jesuitical address to the Canadians, the congress endeavour to seduce them from their allegiance, and prevail on them to join the confederacy. After insinuating that they had been tricked, duped, oppressed and enslaved by the Quebec bill, the congress exclaim, why this degrading distinction? "Have not Canadians sense enough to attend to any other public affairs, than gathering stones from one place and piling them up in another? Unhappy people; who are not only injured but insulted." "Such a treacherous ingenuity has been exerted, in drawing up the code lately offered you, that every sentence, beginning with a benevolent pretention, concludes with a destructive power; and the substance of the whole divested of its smooth words, is that the crown and its ministers shall be as absolute throughout your extended province, as the despots of Asia or Africa. We defy you, casting your view upon every side, to discover a single circumstance promising, from any quarter, the faintest hope of liberty to you or your posterity, but from an entire adoption into the union of these colonies." The treachery of the congress in this address is the more flagrant, by the Quebec bill's having been adapted to the genius and manners of the Canadians, formed upon their own petition, and received with every testimonial of gratitude. The public tranquility has been often disturbed by treasonable plots and conspiracies. Great Britain has been repeatedly deluged by the blood of its slaughtered citizens, and shaken to its centre by rebellion. To offer such aggravated insult to British government was reserved for the grand continental congress. None but ideots or madmen could suppose such measures had a tendency to restore "union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies." Nay! The very demands of the congress evince, that that was not in their intention. Instead of confining themselves to those acts, which occasioned the misunderstanding, they demand a repeal of fourteen, and bind the colonies by a law not to trade with Great Britain, until that shall be done. Then, and not before, the colonists are to treat Great Britain as an alien friend, and in no other light is the parent country ever after to be viewed; for the parliament is to surcease enacting laws to respect us forever. These demands are such as cannot be complied with, consistent with either the honor or interest of the empire, and are therefore insuperable obstacles to a union via congress.
The delegates erecting themselves into the states general or supreme legislature of all the colonies, from Nova Scotia to Georgia, does not leave a doubt respecting their aiming, in good earnest, at independency: this they did by enacting laws. Although they recognize the authority of the several provincial legislatures, yet they consider their own authority as paramount or supreme; otherwise they would not have acted decisively, but submitted their plans to the final determination of the assemblies. Sometimes indeed they use the terms request and recommend; at others they speak in the style of authority. Such is the resolve of the 27th of September: "Resolved from and after the first day of December next, there be no importation into British America from Great Britain or Ireland of any goods, wares or merchandize whatsoever, or from any other place of any such goods, wares or merchandize, as shall have been exported from Great Britain or Ireland, and that no such goods, wares or merchandize imported, after the said first day of December next, be used or purchased." October 15, the congress resumed the consideration of the plan for carrying into effect the non-importation, &c. October 20, the plan is compleated, determined upon, and ordered to be subscribed by all the members: they call it an association, but it has all the constituent parts of a law. They begin, "We his majesty's most loyal subjects the delegates of the several colonies of, &c. deputed to represent them in a continental congress," and agree for themselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom they represent, not to import, export or consume, &c. as also to observe several sumptuary regulations under certain penalties and forfeitures, and that a committee be chosen in every county, city and town, by those who are qualified to vote for representatives in the legislature, to see that the association be observed and kept, and to punish the violators of it; and afterwards, "recommend it to the provincial conventions, and to the committees in the respective colonies to establish such further regulations, as they may think proper, for carrying into execution the association." Here we find the congress enacting laws, that is, establishing, as the representatives of the people, certain rules of conduct to be observed and kept by all the inhabitants of these colonies, under certain pains and penalties, such as masters of vessels being dismissed from their employment; goods to be seized and sold at auction, and the first cost only returned to the proprietor, a different appropriation made of the overplus; persons being stigmatized in the gazette, as enemies to their country, and excluded the benefits of society, &c.
The congress seem to have been apprehensive that some squeamish people might be startled at their assuming the powers of legislation, and therefore, in the former part of their association say, they bind themselves and constituents under the sacred ties of virtue, honor, and love to their country, afterwards establish penalties and forfeitures, and conclude by solemnly binding themselves and constituents under the ties aforesaid, which include them all. This looks like artifice: but they might have spared themselves that trouble; for every law is or ought to be made under the sacred ties of virtue, honor and a love to the country, expressed or implied, though the penal sanction be also necessary. In short, were the colonies distinct states, and the powers of legislation vested in delegates thus appointed, their association would be as good a form of enacting laws as could be devised.